POPULAR WORKS ON SCIENCE
BY SIR RAY LANKESTER, K.C.B., F.R.S.

Published by METHUEN & Co. LTD.
SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR. First Series. 60.
DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST. 6s.

Published by CONSTABLE & Co.
FROM AN EASY CHAIR, is.
EXTINCT ANIMALS. 2s. 6d.

Published by the RATIONALIST PRBSS ASSOCIATION
THE KINGDOM OF MAN. 6d.

SCIENCE FROM AN
EASY CHAIR

A SECOND SERIES

BY

SIR RAY LANKESTER

K.C.B., F.R.S.

WITH FIFTY-FIVE ILUSTRATIOXS

SECOND EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

Q

Originally published by Messrs. Adlard & Son in 1913
First published by Methuen £• Co., Ltd. . . 1914
Second Edition I9f5

PREFACE

I AM encouraged by the kind reception given to the first
selection of papers from my weekly contributions to
the 'Daily Telegraph' to publish a second series of 'Science
from an Easy Chair/ of like form and size. I have given
in this, as in the earlier volume, some figures in illustration
of the articles, and have, here and there, revised and
expanded the originals. It must be remembered that
these papers are, strictly speaking, " occasional." There is
no attempt to treat any subject in a complete or detailed
way. The chapters are purposely arranged so as to pro-
duce a variegated result — a mixed assortment in which
it is hoped that readers of differing interests may find
each something to his taste. I hope that some may be
led by the reading of one of my short chapters to look
further into the matter of which it treats and to consult
more thorough-going treatises abounding in details and
pictures which are beyond the scope of this little volume.
The two volumes bearing the title, ' Science from an
Easy Chair,' viz. the present one (second series) and
that published in 1910 by Methuen & Co., contain only

vi SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR

a small portion of the articles published in the ' Daily
Telegraph,' one every week, since October, 1907. It is
my intention to collect the rest of this material in book
form as soon as I can find time to do so.

E. RAY LANKESTEJL
October, 1912.

CONTENTS

I. A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

Fertilisation of Sage — The Edelweiss — The Jungfrau's
Breast — Contortions of Rock-strata — The Jungfrau
Railway — Mountain Sickness.

II. SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER .

Alpine Flowers — Flowers of the Meadows and Woods
—The Herb Paris.

III. GLETSCH ...

From Baveno to the Rhone Glacier — A Glacier by the
Roadside— Changes in the Glacier.

IV. GLACIERS

Snow squeezed to Ice — Regelation — Movement of
Glaciers — Vast Size of Ancient Glaciers — Distinct
Glacial Periods — Causes of Glacial Periods — Date of
Last Glacial Extension — The Flow of Glaciers — The
Colour of Ice — Ice Scratching and Ice Polishing —
Excavation by Glaciers.

V. THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE .

The Cinematograph — Ancient Representations of Gallop
— The Dog in Mycenaean Art — What ought an Artist
to do? — Attention as a Condition of Seeing — Judg-
ment and Prejudice — Natural and Artificial Paces —
Photographs by Electric Spark — Use of Instantaneous
Photographs — Errors as to the Size of the Moon —
The Painter and the Moon — The Moon on the Stage.

VI. THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD ....

The Decay of Credulity— A Sceptical Physician — How
to Test a Toadstone — Other Magical Stones — Medi-
cinal and Magical Stones.

VII. FERN-SEED .

Invisible Seed— The Spores of Ferns— The Prothallus
of Ferns — Fertilisation of Figs and Palms.

22

52

85

96

viii SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR

CHAITER PACK

VIII. FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS . . .107

Chemical Attraction — Transition from Ferns to Flowers
— The Gingko Tree and Cycads — Extinct Seed-pro-
ducing Ferns.

IX. ELEPHANTS 119

The Indian and the African Elephant — Size of Modern
Elephants — Ears and Teeth of Elephants — Earliest
Elephants brought to Europe — The Elephant's Legs
— Tusks used in Digging — Elephants used in War —
Geological Strata since the Chalk — Ancestral Mam-
mals—The Typical or Ancestral Set of Teeth— The
Peculiarities of the Teeth of Elephants — Extinct
Relatives of Elephants — Ancestors of Elephants —
Origin of the Elephant's Trunk.

X. A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST 148

Fossil Skeletons and Jaw-bones — The Skull and Teeth
of Goats— The Teeth of Rats — The Rat-toothed
Goat — Origin of the Rat-toothed Goat.

XI. VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH . . . .159

Teeth of Carnivors — Mixed Diets — Disease-germs in
Food.

XII. FOOD AND COOKERY 170

Special Diet of Various Races — Food and Habit —
Nervous Control of Digestion — Wholesale Food and
Mechanical Cookery — The Burnt Offering of the
Jews — Women Neglect Cookery — A Great German's
Appreciation.

XIII. SMELLS AND PERFUMES . . . •. . .184

Smells and Memory — Accidental Qualities — Bacteria
and Smells — Some Remarkable Smells.

XIV. KISSES 193

Kissing and Smelling — Variations in the Sense of
Smell — Radiation and Odours — Attraction by Smell
— Unconscious Guidance by Smell.

XV. LAUGHTER 204

Why do we Laugh ? — Varieties of Laughter — The
Laugh of Escape from Death — The Laugh of
Derision.

XVI. FATHERLESS FROGS 213

Fertilisation of the Egg-cell — Egg-cells Developing Un-
fertilised— M. Bataillon's Discovery.

CONTENTS ix

CHATTER PACK

XVII. PRIMITIVE BELIEFS ABOUT FATHERLESS PROGENY 221

Harvey and Milton — Reproduction by Budding — Stories
of Virgin Births — Spiritual Theory of Conception.

XVIII. THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN . . . . 230

Characteristics of Pygmies — Colour of the Skin-
Egyptian Stories of Pygmies — Congo and New
Guinea Pygmies — The Causes of Small Size — Small-
ness a Correlation.

XIX. PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS 244

Early Carvings and Pictures — Paintings in Caverns —
Painting of Human Figures — Artistic Sympathy —
Aurignacians and Bushmen Allied.

XX. NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR . . .256

Make-believe and New Year — Divisions of Time — The
Difficulties of the Calendar— Pope Gregory's Ten
Days — The Astronomer Royal and the Shah.

XXI. EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS AND SPERMACETI . . 267

The Real Shamrock — Sham Shamrock — Leonardo or
Lucas ? — Various Fats.

XXII. THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE TADPOLES OF

THE SEA 276

Sea-squirts — The Anatomy of a Sea-squirt — The Sea-
squirt's Coat — The Sea-squirt's Young — Gill-slits —
Structure of the Sea-squirt's Tadpole — Fixation of
the Sea-squirt's Tadpole — The Frog's Tadpole —
Simplification with Specialisation — Mites as Deca-
dent Spiders — Composite Sea-squirts — Phosphores-
cent Colonies — The Organs of Phosphorescence —
Solitary Salps and Chain-salps — Tell-tale Young
Stages — The Peacock's Train — Simplification ot
Train-feathers.

XXIII. MUSEUMS 310

The Muses — The Museum of Alexandria — Picture Gal-
leries and Museums — The Purposes of Museums —
The First Business of Museums — National Value of
Museums — University Museums — Not for Children
but for Adults — Screens and Electric Lifts — Frames
and Setting of Pictures.

XXIV. THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE . . . 330

The Angel of Death — The Tyranny of Parasites —
Typhus and Monkeys — Typhus Fever in Russia.

x SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR

CHAPTER ' .ft

XXV. CARRIERS OF DISEASE .... . 339

The Entrance of Parasites — Man as a Carrier of Disease
— House Flies and Disease.

XXVI. IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS . . 346

Inoculation of Smallpox — Antitoxins — The Wonderful
Properties of Blood — Germ-killing Poisons in the
Blood — Opsonins or Sauce for Germs.

XXVII. THE STRANGE STORY OF ANIMAL LIFE IN NEW

ZEALAND 357

Strange Birds — Destroyed by Europeans — Introduced
Animals.

XXVIII. THE EFFACEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN . . 365

Disappearance of Great Animals — Man's Reckless
Greed — Hope in Irrigation.

XXIX. THE EXTINCTION OF THE BISON AND OF WHALES 373

Drowning in a Dead Whale's Heart — The Value of
Whalebone — No more Turtle Soup.

XXX. MORE ABOUT WHALES 380

The Shape of Whales — Enormous Pressure of Gas in
the Blood— The Killer and the Narwhal— Fossil
Whales.

XXXI. MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE . . . .388

What Science does not explain — Darwin's Theory is
adequate — The Aquosity of Water — Need for Inter-
preters of Science — The Exploded Ghost called
"Caloric" — Nightmares Destroyed by Science —
When did the Soul arrive ? — The Great Silence.

INDEX 405

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES IN THE TEXT

IG. PACK

1. FLOWER OF THE YELLOW SAGE 4

2. THE EDELWEISS 6

3. "FOLDING" OF ROCK STRATA 8

4. A MAN EXTRACTING THE JEWEL FROM A TOAD'S HEAD 89

5. THE PALATE OF THE FOSSIL FISH LEPIDOTUS. . . 91

6. UNDER-SURFACE OF THE FROND OF THE COMMON

POLYPODY FERN 96

7. GERMINATION OF THE SPORE OF A FERN . . . 100

8. UNDERSIDE OF THE PROTHALLUS OF A FERN . . . 101

9. THE SPERM-SACS AND EGG-PITS OF THE PROTHALLUS

OF THE FERNS 105

10. THE RELATION OF THE SPORE-PRODUCING LEAVES OR

LEAFLETS OF A ROYAL FERN, A PINE TREE, AND AN
ORDINARY FLOWER . . . ... . . .in

11. THE INDIAN ELEPHANT 120

12. THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT 121

13. THE CROWNS OF THREE "GRINDERS" OR MOLARS OF

ELEPHANTS COMPARED 126

14. SKELETON OF THE INDIAN ELEPHANT . . . .137

15. THE TEETH IN THE UPPER AND LOWER JAW-BONE OF

THE COMMON PIG 140

16. A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE EXTINCT AMERICAN MAS-

TODON 142

17. SKULL AND RESTORED OUTLINE OF THE HEAD OF THE

LONG-JAWED EXTINCT ELEPHANT CALLED TETRA-
BKLODON . 143

zi

xii SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR

FIG. VAQE

1 8. HEAD OF THE ANCESTRAL ELEPHANT— PAL/EOMASTODON 145

19. RESTORED MODEL OF THE SKULL AND LOWER JAW OF

THE ANCESTRAL ELEPHANT — PAL^OMASTODON . .146

20. HEAD OF THE EARLY ANCESTOR OF ELEPHANTS— MERI-

THERIUM— AS IT APPEARED IN LIFE . . . .147

21. SKULL AND LOWER JAW OF A GOAT 150

22. TEETH IN THE LOWER AND UPPER JAW OF THE GOAT 151

23. SKULL OF A TYPICAL "RODENT" MAMMAL, THE COYPU

RAT 152

24. TEETH OF THE COYPU RAT 153

25. SKULL OF THE RAT-TOOTHED GOAT, MYOTRAGUS . .155

26. SKULL OF A CLOUDED TIGER 160

27. TEETH OF THE LOWER AND UPPER JAW OF THE SAME

CLOUDED TIGER'S SKULL 161

28. FIGURE FROM A GROUP DRAWN ON A GREEK VASE . 235

29. GROUP OF WOMEN CLOTHED IN JACKET AND SKIRT

WITH "WASP-LIKE" WAISTS 250

30. FURTHER PORTION OF SAME GROUP AS FIG. 29 . .251

31. Two KINDS OF ASCIDIANS OR "SEA-SQUIRTS" „ . 277

32. A DISSECTION OF AN ASCIDIA , 278

33. BRILLIANTLY COLOURED STAR-LIKE GROWTHS . .281

34. TADPOLE OF A FROG AND OF AN ASCIDIAN . . . 283

35. ANATOMY OF THE TADPOLES OF THE FROG AND OF THE

ASCIDIAN 285

36. HEAD OF AN ASCIDIAN TADPOLE 287

37. FIXATION OF THE ASCIDIAN TADPOLE BY ITS HEAD TO

A ROCK 288

38. Do., A LATER STAGE 289

39. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FROG'S TADPOLE INTO A

YOUNG FROG 291

40. Two INDIVIDUALS OF THE SHIP'S BARNACLE . . . 294

41. DEVELOPMENT OF THE BARNACLE FROM A FREE-SWIM-

MING STAGE WITH Six ACTIVE LEGS . . . .295

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

PLATES

THE JUNGFRAU SEEN FROM ABOVE THE LAUTER-

BRUNNEN VALLEY Frontispiece

I. CONSECUTIVE POSES OF THE GALLOPING HORSE Facing p. 54
II. VARIOUS REPRESENTATIONS OF THE GALLOP . „ 56

III. REPRESENTATIONS OF THE GALLOP „ 58

IV. REPRODUCTION FROM MR. THEODORE A. COOK'S

BOOK, 'A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF' „ 64
V. THE TRACK OF THE RISING MOON „ 76

VI. THREE FIGURES— LORD LANSDOWNE, MR. LLOYD

GEORGE, AND MR. ASQUITH „ 83

VII. TEETH OF THE UPPER AND LOWER JAW OF

MAN ...... Between pp. 166 and 167

VIII. TEETH OF THE UPPER AND LOWER JAW OF

THE GIBBON .... Between pp. 166 and 167

IX. FIRST LOWER MOLARS OF ORANG-OUTAN AND

MAN Facingp. 169

X. VOTARY OR PRIESTESS OF THE GODDESS TO

WHOM SNAKES WERE SACRED M 253

XI. FRESCO DRAWING OF Two FEMALE ACROBATS „ 252
XII. THE EYED FEATHERS OF THE PEACOCK'S TAIL „ 307
XIII«

SCIENCE FROM AN EASY
CHAIR

SECOND SERIES

•

CHAPTER I
A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

V

I AM writing in early September from Interlaken, one
of the loveliest spots in Europe when blessed with a
full blaze of sunlight and only a few high-floating clouds,
but absolutely detestable in dull, rainy weather, losing its
beauty as the fairy scenes of a theatre do when viewed by
dreary daylight. It is the case of the little girl of whom
it is recorded that " When she was good she was very
good, and when she was not she was horrid." This
morning, after four days' misconduct, Interlaken was very
good. The tremendous sun-blaze seemed to fill the
valleys with a pale blue luminous vapour, cut sharply by
the shadows of steep hill-sides. Here and there the
smoke of some burning weeds showed up as brightest
blue. Far away through the gap formed in the long
range of nearer mountains, where the Liitschine Valley
opens into the vale of Interlaken, the Jungfrau appeared
in full majesty, absolutely brilliant and unearthly. So I
walked towards her up the valley. Zweiliitschinen is the
name given to the spot where the valley divides into two,

I

2 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

that to the left leading up to Grindelwald, under the
shadow of the Monch and the Wetterhorn, that to the
right bringing one to Lauterbriinnen and the Staubbach
waterfall, with the snow-fields of the Tchingel finally
closing the way — over which I climbed years ago to Ried
in the Loetschen Thai.

The autumn crocus was already up in many of the
closely trimmed little meadows, whilst the sweet scent of
the late hay-crop spread from the newly cut herbage of
others.

At Zweilutschinen, where the white glacier-torrent
unites with the black, and the milky stream is nearly as
cold as ice, and is boiling along over huge rocks, its
banks bordered with pine forest, I came upon a native
fishing for trout. He was using a short rod and a
weighted line with a small " grub " as bait. He dropped
his line into the water close to the steep bank, where
some projecting rock or half-sunk boulder staved off the
violence of the stream. He had already caught half-a-
dozen beautiful, red-spotted fish, which he carried in a
wooden tank full of water, with a close-fitting lid to
prevent their jumping out. I saw him take a seventh.
The largest must have weighed nearly two pounds. It
seems almost incredible that fish should inhabit water so
cold, so opaque, and so torrential, and should find there
any kind of nourishment. They make their way up by
keeping close to the bank, and are able, even in that
milky current, to perceive and snatch the unfortunate
worm or grub which has been washed into the flood and
is being hurried along at headlong speed. Only the
trout has the courage, strength, and love of nearly
freezing water necessary for such a life — no other fish
ventures into such conditions. Trout are actually caught
in some mountain pools at a height of 8000 ft., edg^d by
perpetual snow.

FERTILISATION OF SAGE 3

You are rarely given trout to eat here in the hotels.
A lake fish, called " ferras," a large species of the salmonid
genus Coregonus, to which the skelly, powan, and vendayce
of British lakes belong, is the commonest fish of the
table d'hote, and not very good. A better one is the
perch-pike or zander. It is common in all the larger
shallow lakes of Central Europe, and abounds in the
" broads " which extend from Potsdam to Hamburg,
though it is unknown in the British Isles. It is quite the
best of the European fresh-water fish for the table, and
there should be no difficulty about introducing it into the
Norfolk Broads. It would be worth an effort on the
part of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to do so,
as the perch-pike, unlike other fresh-water fishes, would
hold its own on the market against haddock, brill, and
plaice. Another interesting fresh-water fish which grows
to a large size in the Lake of Geneva (where I have seen
it netted) is the burbot — called " lote " in French — a true
cod of fresh-water habit which, though common through-
out Europe and Northern Asia, is, in our country, only
taken in a few rivers opening on the east coast. It is a
brilliantly coloured fish, orange-brown, mottled with black,
and is very good eating.

Passing up the Lauterbriinnen valley, I came upon some
wild raspberries and quantities of the fine, large-flowered
sage, Salvia glutinosa> with its yellow flowers, in shape
like those of the dead-nettle, but much bigger, They
were being visited by humble-bees, and I was able to see
the effective mechanism at work by which the bee's body
is dusted with the pollen of the flower. I have illustrated
this in some drawings (Fig. i) which are accompanied by
a detailed explanation. Two long stamens, a1, arch
high up over the lip of the flower, //, on which the bee
alights, and are protected by a keel or hood of the corolla.
Each stamen is provided with a broad process, a2, standing

4 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

out low down on its arched stalk, and blocking the way
to the nectar in the cup of the flower. When the bee
pushes his head against these obstacles and forces them
backwards, the result is to swing the long arched stalk,

FIG. i. — Diagrams of the flower of the yellow sage (Salvia glutinosa)
a little larger than life. I. An entire flower seen from the side.
st. The stigma, a2. The pair of modified half-anthers which are
pushed back by the bee when inserting its head into the narrow
part of the flower. 2. A similar flower at a later stage when the
stigma, st., has grown downwards so as to touch the back of a bee
alighting on the lip of the flower, and gather pollen from it. 3.
Diagram of one of the two stamens. /. The stalk or filament of
the stamen. a1. The pollen-producing half-anther. co. The
elongated connective joining it to the sterile half-anther. 4. Sec-
tion through a flower showing ov. the ovary ; nee. the nectary or
honey-glands ; st. the style ; li. the lip of the flower on which the
bee alights. 5. Similar section showing the effect of the pushing
back of a2 by the bee, and the downward swinging of the pollini-
ferous half-anther so as to dust the bee's back with pollen. The
dotted arrow shows the direction of the push given by the bee.

THE EDELWEISS 5

with its pollen sacks, in the opposite direction, namely,
forwards and downwards on to the bee's back. It was
easy to see this movement going on, and the consequent
dusting of the bee's back with pollen. In somewhat older
flowers, which have been relieved of their pollen, the style,
St., or free stalk-like extremity of the egg-holding capsule,
already as long as the stamens, grows longer and bends
down towards the lip or landing-place of the yellow flower.
When a pollen-dusted bee alights on one of these maturer
flowers the sticky end of the now depending style is gently
rubbed by the bee's back and smeared with a few pollen-
grains brought by the bee from a distant flower. These
rapidly expand into " pollen tubes," or filaments, and,
penetrating the long style, reach the egg-germs below.
Thus cross-fertilisation is brought about by the bees
which come for the nectar of Salvia. The stalks and
outer parts of the flower of this plant produce a very
sticky secretion which effectually prevents any small
insects from crawling up and helping themselves to the
nectar exclusively provided for the attraction of the
humble-bee, whose services are indispensable.

As I walked on a belated Apollo butterfly, with its two
red spots, and a pale Swallow-tail fluttered by me. Then
some children emerged from unsuspected lurking-places in
the wood and offered bunches of edelweiss (Fig. 2). This
curious-looking little plant does not grow (as pretended
by reporters of mountaineering disasters) exclusively in
places only to be reached by a dangerous climb. I have
gathered it in meadows on the hillside above Zermatt, and
it is common enough in accessible spots. The flowers are
like those of our English groundsel and yellow in colour —
little " composite " knobs, each built up of many tubular
" florets " packed side by side. Six or seven of these little
short-stalked knobs of florets are arranged in a circlet
around a somewhat larger central knob, and each of them

6 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

gives off from its stalk one long and two shorter white,
hairy, leaf-like growths, flat and blade-like in shape and
spreading outwards from the circle, so that the whole
series resemble the rays of a star (or more truly of a star-

FIG. 2. — The Edelweiss, Gnaphalium leontopodium.

fish !). They look strangely artificial, as though cut out
of new white flannel (with a greenish tint), and have been
dignified by the comparison of the shape of the white-
flannel rays with that of the foot of the lion and the
claws of the eagle. They are extraordinary-looking little
plants, and are similar in their hairiness and pale tint to

THE JUNGFRAU'S BREAST

some of the seaside plants on our own coast, which, in
fact, include species closely allied to them (" cud-weeds "
of the genus Gnaphaliuiri).

The huge cliffs of rocks on either side (in some parts
over a thousand feet in sheer height from the torrent)
come closer to one another in the part where we now are
than in most Alpine valleys, so as almost to give it the
character of a " gorge." At some points the highest part
of the precipice actually overhangs the perpendicular face
by many feet. A refreshing cold air comes up from the
icy torrent, whilst the heat of the sun diffuses the delicious
resinous scent of the pine trees. Above the naked rock
we see steep hill-sides covered with forest, and away above
these again bare grass-slopes topped by cloud. But as
the clouds slowly lift and break we become suddenly
aware of something impending far above and beyond all
this, something more dazzling in its white brightness than
the sun-lit clouds, a form sharply cut in outline and firm,
yet rounded by a shadow of an exquisite purple tint
which no cloud can assume. The steely blue Alpine sky
fits around this marvel of pure whiteness as it towers
through the opening cloud, and soars out of earth's
range. What is this glory so remote yet impending
over us ? It is the Jungfrau, the incomparable virgin of
the ice-world, who bares her snowy breast. She slowly
parts her filmy veil, and, as we gaze, uncovers all her
loveliness.

The rock walls of the Lauterbriinnen valley show at
one place a thickness of many hundred feet of strongly
marked, perfectly horizontal "strata" — the layers deposited
immense ages ago at the bottom of a deep sea. Not
only have they been raised to this position, and then cut
into, so as to make the profound furrow or valley in the
sides of which we see them, but they have been bent and
contorted in places to an extent which is, at first sight,

8

A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

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CONTORTIONS OF ROCK-STRATA

incredible. Close to one great precipice of orderly
horizontal layers you see the whole series suddenly
turned up at right angles, and the same strata which
were horizontal have become perpendicular. But that is
not the limit, for the upturned strata are seen actually to
turn right over, and again become horizontal in a reversed
order, the strata which were lowest becoming highest, and
the highest lowest. The rock is rolled up just as a flat
disc of Genoese pastry — consisting of alternate layers ot
jam and sponge-cake — is folded on itself to form a
double thickness. The forces at work capable of treating
the solid rocks, the foundations of the great mountains,
in this way are gigantic beyond measurement. This
folding of the earth's crust is caused by the fact that the
" crust," or skin of the earth, has ceased to cool, being
warmed by the sun, and therefore does not shrink, whilst
the great white-hot mass within (in comparison with
which the twenty-mile-thick crust is a mere film)
continually loses heat, and shrinks definitely in volume
as its temperature sinks. The crust or jacket of stratified
rock deposited by the action of the waters on the surface
of the globe has been compelled — at whatever cost, so to
speak — to fit itself to the diminishing "core" on which it
lies. Slowly, but steadily, this " settlement " has gone on,
and is going on. The horizontal rock layers, being now
too great in length and breadth, adjust themselves by
" buckling " — just as a too large, ill-fitting dress does —
and the Alps, the Himalayas, and other great mountain
ranges, are regions where this " buckling " process has for
countless ages proceeded, slowly but surely. Probably
the " buckling " has proceeded to a large extent without
sudden movement, but with a lateral pressure of such
power as ultimately to throw a crust of thousands of feet
thickness into deep folds a mile or so in vertical measure-
ment from crest to hollow, protruding from the general

10 A DAY IN THE OBEKLAND

level both upwards and downwards, whilst often the folds
are rolled over on to each other.

This crumpling and folding has gone on at great
depths — that is to say, some miles below the surface (a
mere nothing compared with the 8000 miles diameter of
the globe itself), though we now see the results exposed,
like the pastry folded by a cook. Immense time has been
taken in the process. A folding movement involving a
vertical rise of an inch in ten years would not be noticed
by human onlookers, but in 600,000 years this would
give you a vertical displacement of more than 5000 ft.
(nearly a mile !). It has been shown that in Switzerland,
along a line of country extending from Basle to Milan,
strata of io,OOO ft. to 20,000 ft. in thickness, which, if
straightened out, would give a flat area of that thickness,
and of 2OO miles in length, have been buckled and folded
so as to occupy only a length of 1 30 miles ! The former
tight-fitting skin of horizontal rock layers has " had to "
buckle to that extent here (and in the same way in other
mountain ranges in other parts of the world), because the
whole terrestrial sphere has shrunk, owing to the gradual
cooling of the mass, whilst the crust has not shrunk, not
having lost heat.

Filled with interest and delight in these things, I
reached the railway station at Lauterbriinnen, from
whence the little train is driven far up the mountain, even
into the very heart of the Jungfrau, by an electric current
generated by a turbine, itself driven by the torrent at our
feet, the waters of which have descended from the glaciers
far above, to which it will carry us. In a few minutes I
was gently gliding in the train up the slope to the
" Wengern Alp " and the "Little Scheidegg "— a slope up
which I have so often in former years painfully struggled
on foot for four hours or more. One could to-day watch
the whole scene, in ease and comfort, during the two

THE JUNGFRAU RAILWAY n

lours' ascent of the train. And a marvellous scene it is
as one rises to the height of 8000 feet, skirting the
glaciers which ooze down the rocky sides of the Jungfrau,
and mounting far above some of them. At the Scheidegg
I changed into a smaller train, and with some thirty
fellow-passengers was carried higher and higher by the
faithful, untiring electric current. After a quarter of an
hour's progress we paused high above the " snout " of
the great Eiger glacier, and descended by a short path
on to it, examined the ice, its crevasses and layers, and
its " glacier-grains," and watched and heard an avalanche.
The last time I was here it took a couple of hours to
reach this spot from the Scheidegg, and probably neither
I nor any of my fellow-passengers could to-day endure
the necessary fatigue of reaching this spot on foot. Then
we remounted the train, and on we went into the solid
rock of the huge Eiger. The train stops in the rock
tunnel and we get out to look, through an opening cut
in its side, down the sheer wall of the mountain on to
the grassy meadows thousands of feet below.

Then we start again, and on we are driven by the
current generated away down there in Lauterbriinnen,
through the spiral tunnel, mounting a thousand feet more
till we are landed at an opening cut on the further side
of the rocky Eiger, which admits us to an actual footing
on the great glacier called the Eismeer, or Ice-lake. We
lunch in a restaurant cut out as a cavern in the solid rock,
and survey the wondrous scene. We are now at a height
of io,OOO feet, and in the real frozen ice-world, hitherto
accessible only to the young and vigorous. I have been
there in my day with pain, danger, and labour, accom-
panied by guides and held up by ropes, but never till
now with perfect ease and tranquility and without
" turning a hair," or causing either man or beast to
labour painfully on my behalf. We had taken two hours

12 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

only from Lauterbriinnen ; in former days we should
have started in the small hours of the morning from the
Scheidegg, and have climbed through many dangers for
some six or seven hours before reaching this spot.

I confess that I am not enchanted with all of the
modern appliances for saving time and labour — the tele-
graph, the telephone, the automobile, and the aeroplane.
But these mountain railways fill me with satisfaction and
gratitude. When the Jungfrau railway was first projected,
some athletic Englishmen with heavy boots and ice-axes,
protested against the " desecration " of regions till then
accessible only to them and to me, and others of our
age and strength. They declared that the scenery would
be injured by the railway and its troops of "tourists."
As well might they protest against the desecration caused
by the crawling of fifty house-flies on the dome of
St. Paul's. These mountains and glaciers are so vast,
and men with their railroads so small, that the latter are
negligible in the presence of the former. No disfiguring
effect whatever is produced by these mountain railways ;
the trains have even ceased to emit smoke since they were
worked by electricity. I quite agree with those who
object to " funiculars." The carriages on these are hauled
up long, straight gashes in the mountain side, which have
a hideous and disfiguring appearance. But I look forward
with pleasure to the completion of the Jungfrau railway
to the summit. I hope that the Swiss engineers will
carry it through the mountain, and down along the side of
the great Aletsch glacier to the Bel Alp and so to Brieg.
That would be a glorious route to the Simplon tunnel
and Italy !

I took three hours in the unwearied train descending
from the Eismeer to Interlaken, and was back in my
hotel in comfortable time for dinner, " mightily content
with the day's journey," as Mr. Pepys would have said.

MOUNTAIN SICKNESS 13

I have always been sensitive to the action of diminished
pressure, which produces what is called " mountain
sickness " in many people. Many years ago I climbed
by the glacier-pass known as the Weissthor from
Macugnaga to the Riffel Alp, with a stylographic pen in
my pocket. The reservoir of the pen contained a little air,
which expanded as the atmospheric pressure diminished,
and at 10,000 ft. I found most of the ink emptied into
my pocket. Probably one cause of the discomfort called
" mountain sickness " arises from a similar expansion of
gas contained in the digestive canal, and in the cavities
connected with the ear and nose. The more suddenly
the change of pressure is effected, the more noticeable is
the discomfort. But I was rather pleased than otherwise
to note, as I sat in the comfortable railway carriage, that
when we passed 8000 ft. in elevation the old familiar
giddiness, and tendency to sigh and gasp, came upon me
as of yore, as I gathered was the experience of some of
my fellow-passengers : and when we were returning, and
had descended half-way to Lauterbriinnen, I enjoyed the
sense of restored ease in breathing which I well remember
when the whole experience was complicated by the fatigue
of a long climb. A white-haired American lady was in
the train with me ascending to the Eismeer. " I have
longed all my life," she said, " to see a glaysher — to touch
it and walk on it — and now I am going to do it at last.
I and my daughter here have come right away from
America to go on these cars to the glaysher." When we
were descending, I asked the old lady if she had been
pleased. " I can hardly speak of it rightly," she said.
" It seems to me as though I have been standing up
there on God's own throne." I do not sympathise with
the Alpine monopolist who would grudge that dear old
lady, and others like her, the little train and tramway by
which alone such people can penetrate to those soul-stirring

I4 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND

scenes. They are at least as sensitive to the beauty of
the mountains as are the most muscular, most long-
winded, and most sun-blistered of our friends — the
acrobats of the rope and axe.

INTERLAKEN ;

September -, 1909,

CHAPTER II
SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER

IT is the early summer of 1910 and I have but just
returned from a visit to Switzerland. The latter
part of June and the beginning of July is the best for a
stay in that splendid and happy land if one is a natura-
list, and cares for the beauty of Alpine meadows, and
of the flowers which grow among and upon the rocks
near the great glaciers. This year the weather has, no
doubt, been exceptionally cold and wet, and at no great
height (5000 ft.) we have had snow-storms, even in July.
But as compared with that of Paris and London the
weather has been delightful. There has been an
abundance of magnificent sunshine, and many days of
full summer heat and cloudless sky. A fortnight ago
(July 1 6th), and on the day before, it was as hot and
brilliant in the valley of Chamonix as it can be. Mont
Blanc and the Dome de Goutet stood out clear and
immaculate against a purple-blue sky, and, as of old, we
watched through the hotel telescope a party struggling
over the snow to the highest peak.

At Chillon the lake of Geneva, day after day, spread
out to us its limitless surface of changing colour, now
blending in one pearly expanse with the sky — so that the
distant felucca boats seemed to float between heaven and
earth — now streaked with emerald and amethystine bands
The huge mountain masses rising with a vast sweep trom

16 SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER

St. Jingo's shore displayed range after range of bloom-like
greys and purples, whilst far away and above delicately
glittered — like some incredible vision of a heavenly world
beyond the sun-lit sky itself — the apparition of the snows
and rocks of the great Dents du Midi. All this I have left
behind me, and have passed back again to dull grey
Paris, to the stormy Channel, and to the winter of
London's July.

The incomparable pleasure which the lakes and valleys
and mountains of Switzerland are capable of giving is
due to the combination of many distinct sources of
delight, each in itself of exceptional character. A month
ago, in bright sunshine, I went, once again, by the little
electric railway (most blessed invention of our day) from
the pine-shaded torrent below to the great Eiger rock-
mountain, and through its heart to the glacier beyond,
more than 10,000 ft. above sea-level. On the way back
I left the train at the foot of the Eiger glacier, and
walked down with my companion amongst the rocks of
the moraine and over the sparse turf of these highest
regions of life. Everywhere was a profusion of gentians,
the larger and darker, as well as the smaller, bluest of all
blue flowers. The large, plump, yellow globe-flowers
(Trollius\ the sulphur-yellow anemone, the glacial white-
and-pink buttercup, the Alpine dryad, the Alpine forget-
me-nots and pink primroses, the summer crocus, delicate
hare-bells, and many other flowers of goodly size were
abundant. The grass of Parnassus and the edelweiss
were not yet in flower, but lower down the slopes the
Alpine rhododendron was showing its crimson bunches of
blossom. It is a pity that the Swiss call this plant
" Alpenrose," since there is a true and exquisite Alpine
rose (which we often found) with deep red flowers, dark-
coloured foliage, and a rich, sweet-briar perfume. Lovely
as these larger flowers of the higher Alps are, they are

ALPINE FLOWERS 17

excelled in fascination by the delicate blue flowers of the.
Soldanellas, lik« little fringed foolscaps, by the brilliant
little red and purple Alpine snap-dragon, and by the
cushion-forming growths of saxifrages and other minute
plants which encrust the rocks and bear, closely set in
their compact, green, velvet-like foliage, tiny flowers as
brilliant as gems. A ruby-red one amongst these is " the
stalkless bladder- wort " (Silene acaulis\ having no more
resemblance at first sight to the somewhat ramshackle
bladder-wort of our fields than a fairy has to a fish-
wife. There are many others of these cushion-forming,
diminutive plants, with white, blue, yellow, and pink florets.
Examined with a good pocket lens, they reveal unex-
pected beauties of detail — so graceful and harmonious
that one wonders that no one has made carefully coloured
pictures of them of ten times the size of nature, and
published them for all the world to enjoy. Busily
moving within their charmed circles we see, with our
lens, minute insects which, attracted by the honey, are
carrying the pollen of one flower to another, and effecting
for these little flowers what bees and moths do for the
larger species.

Thus we are reminded that all this loveliness, this
exquisite beauty, is the work of natural selection — the
result of the survival of favourable variations in the
struggle for existence. These minute symmetrical forms,
this wax-like texture, these marvellous rows of coloured,
enamel-like encrustation, have been selected from almost
endless and limitless possible variations, and have been
accumulated and maintained there as they are in all their
beauty, by survival of the fittest — by natural selection.
All beauty of living things, it seems, is due to Nature's
selection, and not only all beauty of colour and form, but
that beauty of behaviour and excellence of inner quality
which we call "goodness." The fittest, that which has

2

i8 SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER

survived and will survive in the struggle of organic
growth, is (we see it in these flowers) in man's estimation
the beautiful. Is it possible to doubt that just as we
approve and delightedly revel in the beauty created by
"natural selection," so we give our admiration and
reverence, without question, to " goodness," which also is
the creation of Nature's great unfolding ? Goodness
(shall we say virtue and high quality?) is, like beauty,
the inevitable product of the struggle of living things,
and is Nature's favourite no less than man's desire.
When we know the ways of Nature, we shall discover the
source and meaning of beauty, whether of body or of
mind.

As these thoughts are drifting through our enchanted
dream we suddenly hear a deep and threatening roar from
the mountain-side. We look up and see an avalanche
falling down the rocks of the Jungfrau. The vast mountain,
with its dazzling vestment of eternal snow, and its slowly
creeping, green - fissured glaciers, towers above into the
cloudless sky. In an instant the mind travels from the
microscopic details of organic beauty, which but a moment
ago held it entranced, to the contemplation of the gigantic
and elemental force whose tremendous work is even now
going on close to where we stand. The contrast, the range
from the minute to the gigantic, is prodigious yet exhila-
rating, and strangely grateful. How many millions of
years did it take to form those rocks (many of them are
stratified, v/ater-laid deposits) in the depths of the ocean ?
How many more to twist and bend them and raise them
to their present height ? And what inconceivably long
persistence of the wear and tear of frost and snow and
torrent has it required to excavate in their hard bosoms
these deep, broad valleys thousands of feet below us, and
to leave these strangely moulded mountain peaks still high
above us ? And that beauty of the sunlit sky and of the

FLOWERS OF THE MEADOWS AND WOODS ig

billowy ice-field and of the colours of the lake below and
of the luminous haze and the deep blue shade in the valley
— how is that related to the beauty of the flowers ? Truly
enough, it is not a beauty called forth by natural selection.
It is primordial ; it is the beauty of great light itself.
The response to its charm is felt by every living thing,
even by the smallest green plant and the invisible animal-
cule, as it is by man himself. As I stand on the mountain-
side we are all, from animalcule to man, sympathising and
uniting, as members of one great race, in our adoration of
the sun. And in doing this we men are for the moment
close to and in happy fellowship with our beautiful,
though speechless, relatives who also live. Even the
destructive bacteria which are killed by the sun probably
enjoy an exquisite shudder in the process which more
than compensates them for their extinction.

The pleasures of flower-seeking in Switzerland are by
no means confined to the great heights. At moderate
heights (4000 to 5000 ft.) you have the Alpine meadows,
and below those the rich-soiled woods which fill in the
sides of the torrent-worn valleys. You cannot see an
Alpine meadow after July, as it is cut down by then. It
is at its best in June. It bears very little grass, and con-
sists almost entirely of flowers. In places the hare-bells
and Canterbury bells and the bugloss are so abundant as
to make a whole valley-floor blue as in MacWhirter's
picture. But more often the blue is intermixed with the
balls of red clover and the spikes of a splendid pale pink
polygonum (a sort of buckwheat) and of a very large and
handsome plantain. Large yellow gentians, mulleins, the
nearly black and the purple orchids, vetches of all colours,
the Alpine clover with four or five enormous flowers in a
head instead of fifty little ones, the Astrantias (like a
circular brooch made up of fifty gems each mounted on a
long elastic wire and set vibrating side by side), the sky-

20 SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER

blue forget-me-nots, and the golden potentillas, are usual
components of the Alpine meadow. At Murren, and no
doubt commonly elsewhere, there are a few very beautiful
grasses among the flowers, but the most remarkable grass
is one (Poa alpina\ which has on every spikelet or head
a bright green serpent-like streamer. Each of these
"streamers" is, in fact, a young grass-plant, budded off
" viviparously," as it is called, from the flower-head, or
" spikelet," and having nothing to do with the proper
fertilised seed or grain. The young plants so budded fall
to the ground, and striking root rapidly, grow into separate
individuals. It is probably owing to some condition in
Alpine meadows adverse to the production of fertilised
seed that this viviparous method of reproduction has been
favoured, since it occurs also in an Alpine meadow-plant
allied to the buckwheat, namely, Polygonum viviparum
(not the kind mentioned above), where the lower flowers
are converted into little red bulbs, by which the plant
propagates. Both the viviparous grass and the polygonum
are found in England. In fact, a very large proportion of
Alpine plants occur in parts of the British islands (a legacy
from the glacial period), though many which are abundant
in Switzerland are rare and local here.

At a lower level, in the woods, we come upon other
plants, not really " Alpine " at all, but of great and
special beauty. We found four kinds of winter-green
(Pirola), one with a very large, solitary flower, white and
wax-li'ke, and the beautiful white butterfly-orchid, with
nectaries three quarters of an inch long, and other large-
flowered orchids. We were anxious to find the noble
Martagon lily, and hunted in many glades and forest
borders for it. At last, on a concealed bank in a wood,
between Glion and Les Avants, it revealed itself in
quantity, many specimens standing over three feet in
height. Martagon is an Arabic word, signifying a Turkish

THE HERB PARIS 21

cap. A very strange and uncanny-looking lily, which I
had never seen before, turned up near Kandersteg, at the
Blue Lake, beloved of Mr. H. G. Wells. This is "the Herb
Paris." It has four narrow out-stretched green sepals,
and four still narrower green petals, eight large stamens,
and a purple seed capsule. Its broad oval leaves are also
arranged in whorls of four. Its name has nothing to do
with the " ville lumiere," nor with the Trojan judge of
female beauty, but refers to the symmetry and "parity"
of its component parts. I was not surprised to find that
" the Herb Paris " is poisonous, and was anciently used in
medicine. It looks weird and deadly.

Marmots, glacier fleas (spring-tails, not true fleas),
admirable trout, and burbot (the fresh-water cod, called
" lote " in French), outrageous wood-gnats, which English
people call by a Portuguese name as soon as they are on
the Continent, and singing birds (usually one is too late
in the season to hear them) were our zoological accom-
paniment. There were singularly few butterflies or other
insects, probably in consequence of the previous wet
weather,

July, 1910.

CHAPTER III
GLETSGH

VARIED and uncertain as the weather was in Switzer-
land during July of the year 1910, it showed a more
decided character when I returned there at the end of
August. For three weeks there was no flood of sunshine, no
blazing of a cloudless blue sky, which is the one condition
necessary to the perfection of the beauty of Swiss moun-
tains, valleys and lakes. The Oberland was grey and
shapeless, the Lauterbriinnen valley chilly and threatening ;
even the divine Jungfrau herself, when not altogether
obliterated by the monotonous, impenetrable cloud, loomed
in steely coldness — " a sterile promontory." Crossing
the mountains from the Lake of Thun, we came to
Montreux, only to find the pearl-like surface of the great
Lake Leman transformed into lead. Not once in eight
days did the celestial fortress called Les Dents du Midi
reveal its existence, although we knew it was there,
immensely high and remote, far away above the great
buttresses of the Rhone valley. So completely was it
blotted out by the conversion of that most excellent
canopy, the air, into a foul and pestilent congregation of
vapours, that it was difficult to imagine that it was still
existing, and perhaps even glowing in sunshine above
the pall of cloud. Italy, surely, we thought, would be free
from this dreadful gloom.

f he southern slopes of the Alps are often cloudless

FROM BAVENO TO THE RHONE GLACIER 23

when the colder northern valleys are overhung with

impenetrable mist. In four hours you can pass now from

the Lake of Geneva through the hot Simplon Tunnel to

the Lago Maggiore. So, hungering for sunshine, we

packed, and ran in the ever-ready train through to

Baveno. Thirty years ago we should have had to drive

over the Simplon — a beautiful drive, it is true — but we

should have taken sixteen hours in actually travelling

from Montreux, and have had to pass a night en route at

Brieg ! A treacherous gleam of sunshine lasting half an

hour welcomed us on emerging from the Simplon tunnel,

and then for eight days the same leaden aspect of sky,

mountain, and lake as that which we had left in

Switzerland was maintained. Even this could not spoil

altogether the beauty and interest of the fine old garden

of the Borromeo family on the Isola Bella. Really big

cypress trees, magnificent specimens of the Weymouth

pine — the white pine of the United States, Pinus strobus^

first brought from the St. Lawrence in 1705, and planted

in Wiltshire by Lord Weymouth — a splendid camphor

tree, strange varieties of the hydrangea, and many other

old-fashioned shrubs adorn the quaint and well-designed

terraces of that seat of ancient peace. The granite

quarries close behind Baveno, and the cutting and

chiselling of the granite by a population of some 2000

quarrymen and stonemasons, were not deprived of their

human interest by rain and skies more grey than the

granite itself. But, at last, we gave up Italy in despair,

retreated through the tunnel one morning, and an hour

after mid-day were careering in a carriage along the

Rhone Valley — with jingling of bells and much cracking

of a harmless whip — upwards on a drive of seven hours

to the Rhone glacier, to the hotel called " Gletsch," staking

all on the last chance of a change in the weather.

We passed the enclosed meadow near Brieg, whence

24 GLETSCH

three days later the splendidly daring South-American
aviator started on his flight across the Alps, only to die
after victory — a hero, whose courage and fatal triumph
were worthy of a better cause. After some hours, passing
many a black-timbered mountain village — the houses of
which, set on stone piles, are the direct descendants of
the pile-supported lake dwellings of the Stone Age on
the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel — we came to the
upper and narrower part of the valley. The road as-
cended by zig-zags through pine forests, in which the
large blue gentian, with flowers and leaves in double
rows on a gracefully bowed stem, were abundant. In
open places the barberry, with its dense clusters of
crimson fruit, was so abundunt as actually to colour the
landscape, whilst a huge yellow mullen nearly as big as
a hollyhock, and bright Alpine " pinks," were there in
profusion. Before the night fell, a long, furry animal,
twice the size of a squirrel, and of dark brown colour,
crossed the road with a characteristic undulating move-
ment, a few feet in front of our carriage. It was a pine-
marten, the largest of the weasel and pole-cat tribe, still
to be found in our own north country. It must not
be confused with the paler beech-marten of Anne of
Brittany, which often takes up its abode in the roofs of
Breton houses, according to my own experience in Dinard
and the neighbourhood. Night fell, and our horses were
still toiling up the mountain road. Impenetrable chasms
lay below, and vast precipices above us. We crossed a
bridge, and seemed in the darkness to plunge into the
sheer rock itself, and, though thrilled with a delightful
sense of mystery and awe, were feeling a little anxiety at
the prospect of another hour among these gloomy, in-
tangible dangers, when we rounded a projecting rock, and
suddenly a brilliant constellation burst into view in the
sky. It was the electric outfit of the Belvedere Hotel,

A GLACIER BY THE ROADSIDE 25

7500 feet above the sea, and far up more than a thousand
feet above us and the glacier's snout. In another minute
the great arc lamps of the Gletsch Hotel, close to us,
blazed forth, and we were welcomed into its snug hall
and warmed by the great log-fire burning on its hospitable
hearth.

The next day we were early afoot in the most brilliant
sunshine, under a cloudless sky — really perfect Alpine
weather. In the shade the persisting night-frost told of
the great height of the marvellous amphitheatre which
lay before us. The valley by which we had mounted the
previous night abruptly abandons its steep gradient and
gorge-like character, and widens into a flat, boulder-strewn
plain, a little over a mile in diameter, surrounded, except
for the narrow gap by which we had entered, by the
steep, rocky sides of huge mountains. At the far end of
the plain, a mile off, the great Rhone glacier comes
toppling over the precipice, a snowy white, frozen cascade
of a thousand feet in height. It looks even nearer than
it is, and the gigantic teeth of white ice at the top of the
fall seem no bigger than sentry-boxes, though we know
they are more nearly the size of church steeples. The
celebrated Furca road zig-zags up the mountain side for
a thousand feet close to the glacier, and when you drive
up it and reach the height of the Belvedere, you can
step on to the ice close to the road. Then you can
mount on to the flat, unbroken surface of the broad
glacier stream above the fall, and trace the glacier to the
snow-covered mountain-tops in which it originates. There
is no such close and intimate view of a glacier to be had
elsewhere in Europe by the traveller in diligence or
carriage. We walked by the side of the infant Rhone,
among the pebbles and boulders, to the overhanging
snout of the great glacier from beneath which the river
emerges. A very beautiful wine-red species of dwarf

26 GLETSGH

willow-herb (Epilobium Fleischeri) was growing abun-
dantly in tufts among the pebbles, and many other Alpine
plants greeted our eyes. The heat of the sun was that
of midsummer, whilst a delicate air of icy freshness
diffused itself from the great frozen mass in front of us.

Some large blocks of the glacer ice had fallen from
above, and lay conveniently for examination. Whilst the
walls of the ice-caves which have been cut into this and
other glaciers present a perfectly smooth, continuous
surface of clear ice, these fragments which had fallen
from the surface exposed to the heat of the sun were, as
seen in the mass, white and opaque. When a stick was
thrust into the mass, it broke into many-sided lumps of
the size of a tennis-ball, which separated, and fell apart
in a heap, like assorted coals thrown from a scuttle,
though white instead of black. These were the curious
glacier nodules, " grains du glacier," or " Gletcherkorne,"
characteristic of glacier ice as contrasted with lake ice.
This structure of the glacier ice is peculiar to it, and is
only made evident where the sun's rays penetrate it and
melt the less pure ice which holds together the crystalline
nodules. According to Dr. J. Young Buchanan, these
nodules are masses of ice crystals comparatively free
from mineral matter, whilst the water around them, which
freezes less readily, contains mineral impurities in solution.
The presence of saline matter in solution lowers, in pro-
portion to its amount, the freezing-point of water.
Accordingly, although frozen into one solid mass with the
nodules, the cementing ice melts under the heat of the
penetrating rays of the sun sooner — that is, at a lower
temperature — than do the purer crystalline nodules, and
allows them to separate. It is owing to this that the
exposed surface of glacier ice is white and powdery,
disintegrated by the superficial heat, and forming a rough
surface, on which one can safely walk. Lake ice does not

CHANGES IN THE GLACIER 27

break up in this manner under the sun's rays, but as it
melts retains its smooth, slippery surface. It is formed
in water, and not from the cementing and regelation of
the powdery crystalline snow, as is glacier ice.

Pictures of the Rhone glacier published in the year
1820 and in the eighteenth century show that in old
days the terminal ice-fall did not end abruptly in a
narrowed " snout," as it does now, but spread out into a
very broad half-dome or fan-shaped, apron-like expanse,
some 700 ft. high and a quarter of a mile broad at the
base. It was considered one of the wonders of Switzerland,
and was pictured in an exaggerated way in travellers'
books. In 1873, when I first drove down the Furka
Road and saw the Rhone glacier, this wonderful, apron-
like, terminal expansion of the glacier was still in exis-
tence. It has now completely disappeared. In those
days, and for many years later, there was only a mule-
path over the adjacent Grimsel Pass, but now there is a
carriage road leading out of the Rhone glacier's basin
northwards to Meiringen, whilst the old-established Furka
Road, at the other side of the amphitheatre, leads east-
ward to Andermatt, the St. Gothard, and the Lake of
Lucerne. Hence three great roads now meet at Gletsch.
Before leaving this wondrous spot we inspected some
plump marmots, who were leading a happy life of ease
and plenty in a large cage erected in front of the hotel ;
then in absolutely perfect weather we mounted the
Grimsel Road. We heard the frequent whistling of
uncaged marmots as we ascended, and saw many of the
little beasts sitting up on the rocks and diving into
concealing crevices as we approached, just as do their
smaller but closely allied cousins the prairie marmots (so-
called " prairie dogs ") of North America. The view, as
one ascends the Grimsel, of the snow-peaks around
Gletsch is a fine one in itself, but is vastly enhanced in

28 GLETSGH

beauty by the plunge downwards of the rocky gorge made
by the Rhone as it leaves the flat-bottomed amphitheatre of
its birth. The top of the Grimsel Pass, which is a little
over 7000 ft. above sea-level, is the most desolate and
bare of all such mountain passes. The rock is dark grey,
almost black, and of an unusually hard character. It is
unstratified, and so resistant that it is everywhere worn
into smooth, rounded surfaces, instead of being splintered
and shattered. A small, black-looking lake at the top of
the pass contains to this day the bones of 500 Austrians
and French who fought here in 1799. It is called the
Totensee, or Dead Men's Lake. At this point one stands
on a great watershed, dividing the rivers of the north
from the rivers of the south. You may put one foot in a
rivulet which is carrying water down the Aar Valley, and
through the Lakes of Brienz and of Thun to the Rhine
and North Sea, whilst you keep the other in another
little stream, whose particles will pass by the Rhone gorge
and valley through the Lake of Geneva to the great Rhone
and the Mediterranean. Three incomparably fine days
— September I7th, i8th, and I9th — atoned for three
weeks of sunless cloud. One of them we spent in the
high valley of Rosenlaui, where are hairy-lipped gentians
and the blue-iced glacier, but of these I have not space
to tell. Then the clouds and the rain resumed their
odious domination, and we left Lucerne and its lakes
invisible, overwhelmed in grey fog, and made for Paris.
October -, 1910.

CHAPTER IV
GLACIERS

PEOPLE who have not seen a glacier, walked on a
glacier, chipped into it with an ice-axe, and followed
it up from its melting " snout " and decidedly dirty, rock-
strewn lower end to the regions where it is pure and
white, split into yawning chasms and raised into great
teeth or pinnacles — those, indeed, who have not followed
it yet further from these middle heights, far on up the
rocky sides of a great mountain, until the region is
reached where it ceases to be ice, and becomes a mass of
soft, powdery snow — do not know one of the most
curious, unimaginable, and powerful agencies in Nature.
We inhabitants of the British Isles, were we confined to
our limited territory, and un-informed by travellers as to
the wonders of the snow-world, would never guess or
infer from anything we ever see here that such things as
glaciers exist. There is no parallel to the peculiarity, the
unexpected and astonishing quality, of a glacier. Even
a volcano is not so remote from what one could have
expected. Rivers, lakes, and seas we know, and we can
imagine them bigger and deeper. Waterfalls and great
white clouds, in fact all the forms of water, are familiar to
us. Mountains, even winter snow-capped mountains, we
sometimes see in our own island, and can imagine them
bigger. We have handled ice and snow, too. Yet
nothing which we know by experience here prepares us

30 GLACIERS

for the complete change in the appearance, character, and
behaviour of snow when it is piled in vast thickness on
the slopes of mountains so high that it is ever renewed,
and never melts away on their peaks and shoulders.

We are accustomed to see snow slowly melt and run
away as water, and the more observant will have noted
that in prolonged frost, snow, even when piled in heaps
by the roadside, disappears without thawing. It evapor-
ates, slowly but surely, straight away into the form of gas
— invisible aqueous vapour. That is a rather unusual
property for a solid body to possess. In that way a
certain return of evaporated snow to the atmosphere from
which it was precipitated in crystalline flakes takes place.
But the amount is small. We are not accustomed to find
a solid body evaporating. Volatile liquids are common,
but volatile solids are unusual. The metals and rocks do
not behave in this way. The only familiar parallels to
ice and snow in this respect are the vegetable product
camphor and some allied bodies. They pass directly
from the solid to the gaseous state, and the invisible
gaseous camphor can be precipitated as " a snow " of
crystalline camphor on a glass shade placed over a lump
of that substance.

There are some bodies — the metal bismuth is one of
them, sulphur and hard paraffin also are of the number,
and water is another — which in passing from the liquid to
the solid state expand — actually increase in volume. It
is far more usual, and seems to us a more " natural " thing,
for a liquid to contract when, owing to cooling, it becomes
solid. The exceptional property possessed by water of
expanding when frozen is of enormous effect in the wear
and tear of the earth's surface. It is thus that the strongest
water-pipes, which the combined wickedness and ignorance
of plumbers and architects lead them to place on the out-
side of our houses, instead of inside near the chimneys,

are bi

SNOW SQUEEZED TO ICE 31

burst by frost. And similarly it is owing to this
swelling of water when freezing that the wet soil and
surface rocks are, when frozen in winter, broken and
rendered permeable to later rains. But even more striking
is the result of this bursting action of freezing water upon
the great rocky sides of mountains. The water, formed
by melting snow and by rain, lodges in cracks and fissures
of the rocks, and, when the cold of winter comes on, it
freezes and consequently swells in volume, and so shatters
the imprisoning stone. Thus it breaks off huge masses
and helps to wear away the mountain peaks and sides. It
is owing to the expansion of water on becoming solid that
a given bulk of ice is lighter than the same bulk of water,
and that therefore ice floats on water, and our streams
and lakes do not freeze solid from bottom to top.

Important and exceptional as are these properties of
water — producing great results, which we can observe in
the frozen world of the Alps — they do not help us to the
understanding of a glacier, nor would they suggest to us
as a natural process the production of glaciers by the
change of great heaped-up masses of snow on mountain
sides. The one familiar property of snow, or powdered
ice, which has to do with the conversion of mountain snow
into the huge rivers of solid ice called " glaciers," is the
curious " binding " quality which enables us to make
" snowballs " by squeezing handfuls of snow. Every
schoolboy knows that if one takes up a double handful
of snow during a hard frost and lightly presses it, it
remains a loose powder. But if one squeezes the snow
very firmly and persistently (or with less squeezing if a
slight thaw has set in), the particles adhere to one another,
and the snow becomes hard and more or less compact ice.
Boys consider it an unfair and brutal thing to squeeze a
snowball so much as to make it thoroughly solid, since
it then becomes as dangerous a missile as a big stone.

32 GLACIERS

A certain moderation in the manufacture is held to be
correct, giving the snowball a firm crust, but one which
can easily break on the face of the opponent at whom it
is thrown, thus allowing the still powdery interior lightly
to overwhelm him.

This property of snow — viz. that its particles become,
as it were, fused together so as to form a continuous
mass of ice when it is squeezed (that is, subjected to
pressure) has been carefully examined. The snow par-
ticles seem at first sight to behave as though they
were viscid or " sticky " — in fact, as powdered wax or
resin would behave. Yet they are not really viscid at all,
but consist of loose crystals of ice, small but hard, and
with no tendency to " flow " or soften. Their binding
property is found to be due to the fact that pressure lowers
the degree of heat, as registered by a thermometer, at
which ice melts. The same lowering of the melting-point
by pressure has been observed in other bodies which
expand when solidifying — for instance, sulphur and
paraffin. In ordinary circumstances ice melts and becomes
water at the temperature registered as 32 deg. on the
Fahrenheit scale or zero on the Centigrade scale. A
pressure equal to a weight of 2000 Ib. on the square inch
of surface lowers the melting-point of ice by I deg. Centi-
grade. A very much smaller pressure has its due propor-
tional effect, and lowers the melting-point a little. So
that merely squeezing powdered ice in the hand or in a
squeeze-mould causes it to melt a little — and even at the
great degree of cold (sometimes experienced in the winter
on the Continent, but rarely in England) of 1 8 deg. below
zero Centigrade, which is very nearly equal to zero
Fahrenheit, a French experimenter has, by applying to
ice a pressure (a weight) of several thousand pounds to
the square inch, converted it into water. It is, of course,
obvious that when ice is caused to melt ever so little by

REGELATION 33

pressure, the removal of the pressure will lead to the re-
freezing of the water produced. Hence we see that by
' kneading " the powder of ice-crystals which we called
" snow " a minute quantity of water is first produced by
the squeezing, and then immediately is re-frozen when the
pressure is relaxed by the " kneading " hand. Con-
sequently at every squeeze a little air is driven out from
the powder, a little water takes its place, and when the
squeeze is relaxed this becomes solid, and cements
neighbouring crystals together, until, by repeated squeez-
ing and relaxing, the whole lot of crystals may be joined
together into a solid mass by the re-freezing of the water
formed by the slight amount of melting. The ice so
formed encloses a great many tiny, almost invisible
bubbles of air. The process of melting by pressure and
re-freezing when the pressure is removed is called
" regelation." A glacier is nothing but a huge snowball
formed by regelation. The warmth of the sun causes the
surface layer of snow to melt a little ; the water so formed
percolates into the deeper layers where the heat of the
sun does not penetrate. It freezes again, and the solid
mass lying on a steep slope begins to press and move
downwards. It breaks and falls, and " regelates " with
neighbouring similar masses owing to their mutual pres-
sure. Always the slowly, or maybe quickly, sliding
masses adhere by regelation, and add to their solid bulk
by this kind of adhesion just as the much smaller rolling
snowball made by boys in the winter binds to it the snow
over which it is turned, and increases its solidity and bulk
a rate which has become proverbial.

Snow which falls when the air is at a temperature
below freezing has the form of six-rayed stars or crystals,
of great beauty and variety. In the highest Alpine
regions the fallen snow gradually loses its crystalline

3

34 GLACIERS

form, and becomes granular or powdery. It is known as
the " neveY' or " firn." Occasionally it is coloured red by
a microscopic plant called Sphcsrella nivalis, and when it
melts a certain kind of wheel animalcule often inhabits the
small pools so formed both in the Alps and on the Arctic
and Antarctic snows, Generally the neve remains firm
and hard ; the foot sinks but little into it. The water
which results from its melting sinks through it and
freezes with the snow below into a solid layer. Each
year's deposit forms a layer from I ft. to 3 ft. in thickness,
and is covered up to a great depth by the next year's
snow, which again during the warmer weather contributes
its frozen layer. Thus below the surface the neve has a
banded or stratified structure, and when it has passed in
the course of years far from the place of its original
formation down the rocky bed of the creeping glacier, you
may still observe this laminated or stratified structure of
annual layers. The neve is often of very great depth or
thickness. At the top or " source " of many Alpine
glaciers it is as much as I ooo ft. thick. Avalanches are
falls of the imperfectly consolidated snow on slopes too
steep to permit more than a small thickness of the
powdery material to lie at rest. An immense quantity of
snow is thus regularly brought down by avalanches to the
lower regions, and is melted every spring, when there is "a
loosening of frozen bonds by the daily sunshine. The
deeper layers of the neve are under vast pressure from the
overlying layers, and become crushed and regelated into
solid ice. They slowly slide as a continuous layer of
great thickness down the slopes on which they have
accumulated, and as they advance the powdery snow on
the surface both evaporates and melts until the deeper-
lying ice is bare and shows on the actual surface. The
neve" now ceases to exist as such ; it has become a
glacier, a slowly-moving river of solid ice. It is this

MOVEMENT OF GLACIERS 35

incredible moving thing which no one would ever have
foreseen as the product of a heap of snow, no matter how
vast or where accumulated. As it moves downwards the
mass is subjected to immense pressure, both from its own
weight resting on the rocks, and from lateral pressure or
squeezing from the sides of the bed or hollow, which hold
it as a river of water is held by its banks. The con-
tinuous and varied pressure and pull, tear, and squeeze of
the huge mass, in its irregular bed, alter a great deal the
character of the ice as it advances.

Glaciers differ in length according to the amount of
snow which is annually furnished by the high collecting
ground of the neve", and also according to the steepness of
the bed along which they travel, as well as to some extent
in relation to the greater or less heat of the valleys into
which they descend. The fact that the ice which is melting
away at the snout, or lower end, of a glacier has gradually
descended from above, has been long known by the
mountain folk, but it was only in the last century that
the rate of descent was measured. It varies from 150 ft.
to i ooo ft. a year ; it varies in different parts of the same
glacier, and at different seasons of the year, and in different
years. In the summer an average sample of a glacier
will advance a foot and a half a day in the middle, and a
foot or less at the sides. It has been calculated that a
particle of ice would take about 500 years to descend from
the summit of the most beautiful of all the great Swiss
mountains — the Jungfrau — to the end of her greatest
glacier, that called the great Aletsch, which expands its
melting " snout " below the Bel Alp over the Rhone valley.
The Swiss glaciers had been, on the whole, increas-
ing in size for some 500 years until 1820, when they
retreated until 1840, and again advanced until 1860.
Since then they have greatly diminished, though some are
now advancing again. Many are the lamentations of old

36 GLACIERS

lovers of the Swiss mountain valleys over the shrinking
of the Mer de Glace of Chamonix, the Aar Glacier of
Rosenlaui, and the Rhone Glacier. But they will extend
again some day. The Yengutsa Glacier in the Himalayas
has increased two miles in length since 1892. Another
Himalayan glacier (that of Hassanabad) had slowly shrunk
back during a long period until seven years ago it was six
miles shorter than it had been fifty years before ; then
suddenly it advanced over the lost ground and actually
grew six miles — pushed its snout forward six miles, back
to its old position — in three months !

The great extension at a remote prehistoric period of
the Swiss glaciers, and the general existence in past ages
of glaciers and an ice-covering of the land in Central and
Northern Europe, are proved by the following four pieces
of evidence : First, the existence of " moraines," those
huge embankment-like piles of broken rocks, many even
hundreds of miles distant from the existing glaciers, often
in positions which it is clear from the " lie of the land "
the present glaciers would have reached if they had been
enormously increased in size ; second, the existence of
detached rocks, called " erratic blocks," which are found
perched on the surface of the ground at a vast distance
from the mountains from which their mineral structure
shows them to have been carried ; third, the occurrence of
rock surfaces far from existing glaciers, which nevertheless
show the peculiar polishing and scratching which is made
only by glaciers ; fourth, the existence in more southern
regions of the remains of plants and animals of kinds
belonging to a cold climate, and now only found in the
far north, as well as the existence of Alpine plants in
regions now separated from the cold upper parts of Swit-
zerland (where they flourish) by vast expanses of warm
country, over which they could not spread in the present
condition of the climate.

VAST SIZE OF ANCIENT GLACIERS 37

The two great glaciers — that of the Rhone valley
and that of the Rhine valley — have been carefully traced,
and their length and breadth and depth ascertained.
The glaciers which now seem to us so enormous and
powerful, as they push their snouts into the end of
the Rhone valley and the side valleys of the canton
of the Valais — the great trough which runs for a hundred
and twenty miles from near the Furca Pass to the Lake
of Geneva — are but the surviving roots of the immense
Rhone glacier which filled the whole of the valley and the
Lake of Geneva itself, and flowed on as far as, and even
beyond, Lyons ! The Rhone glacier, the great Aletsch,
the Gorner, and very many others extended along their
present course, met, and formed one huge advancing
stream of ice ! The great glacier of the Rhine extended
from the Swiss Alps northwards as far as Coblenz, on
the Rhine ; others at the same time spread down the
southern slopes of the Alps into Lombardy. We find the
moraines of the vast Rhone glacier at various parts of its
course, these vast heaps of rock fragments having been
piled up and left by the glacier, some when it was at its
fullest extension, some as it shrank towards its present
pygmy dimensions. The high, long terrace of St. Paul,
which one sees more than a thousand feet above the Lake
of Geneva, at Evian, is a moraine, and all over Switzerland,
in the lower valleys, fifty or a hundred miles away from
existing glaciers, you come upon these strange, long,
straight hills, resembling enormous railway embankments,
just as the moraines at the sides of the existing glaciers
resemble ordinary railway embankments. We can ascer-
tain the height to which the old huge glaciers filled the
present valleys by the polishing and scratching of the
rocks as well as by the remains of moraines. At
Martigny, where the Rhone valley takes a sharp turn, the
glacier filled it to a height of 5000 ft. above the present

38 GLACIERS

river ! At Geneva it stood as a solid, continuous sheet
more than 3000 ft. over the level of the present city and
lake ; and it spread out as an immense covering of solid
ice right away to the Jura Mountains beyond Neuchatel
and its lake, its surface there being 3000 ft. above the
present level of the lake ! A vast sea of ice in fact
covered the whole country, with the exception of the high
mountain-tops, from Lyons to Basle and along the Rhine-
land to Coblenz in one direction, and across Bavaria to
beyond Munich and Salzburg ! Whilst this was the con-
dition of Switzerland more northern regions were also
completely involved in an ice-covering. Glaciers existed
in Wales and Scotland, as proved by the moraines still
left there, the erratic blocks, and the ice-polished and
scratched rocks of the mountain valleys. The whole
Scandinavian peninsula was overwhelmed by a vast
glacier. The ice from the Norwegian glaciers extended to
our Eastern shores, and immense deposits of irregular ice-
borne fragments were accumulated there, and again and
again torn up and redeposited by the water and by float-
ing ice (the "drift" and the "boulder clay" of East
Anglia). The whole of the northern half of the temperate
zone was thus glaciated or ice-ridden. This astounding
and terrible state of things is what is referred to as " the
glacial period."

The inquiry as to what were the causes of this extremely
different condition of regions of the earth, now so fertile
and richly inhabited, is a pressing one. We must be
anxious to know how it came about and whether it is
likely to come again. One result of the great amount of
study given to the subject during late years is the discovery
that there has not been one glacial period but at least
four, separated from one another by long warm periods
in which the ice retreated to something like its present
limitations and then again overwhelmed the land. And

DISTINCT GLACIAL PERIODS 39

the curious thing is that three of these have all occurred in
the quite late geological period which we call "Pleistocene,"
since (as an instance which will have some familiarity for
English readers) the accumulation of the shelly marine
deposits in the southern area of the North Sea which we
call the Red Crag and Coralline Crag of Suffolk, and the
Yellow and Black Crag of Antwerp. One glacial period
immediately preceded the Red Crag. These deposits
(called " Pliocene ") are not very old or deep in a diagram
representing the thickness of the various strata of the
earth's crust. They have only some 200 ft. above them,
whilst below them there are (before we come to the chalk,
a great landmark in the geology of this part of the world)
2400 ft. of the sands and clays which are called Miocene
and Eocene ! Passing on downwards from the uppermost
" chalk " to the Silurian strata (without going any further
down), there are 29,000 ft. of deposit! So we see that
the three or more glacial periods and interludes of the
Pleistocene period corresponds to a very brief chapter of
geological history, and that the latest. In fact, we know
that man chipped his flint implements and dwelt in caves
in Europe before the greatest of these glacial periods.
When we examine the deposits of the periods preceding
the latest Pliocene, and the fossilised remains of plants and
animals contained in them, it is the fact that we get no
indication of other and earlier " glacial periods " in this
part of the world, until we get into a very remote period
before that of the chalk and the oolites. The " breccias,"
or deposits, of large angular rock fragments of the new red
sandstone or " Triassic " period bear indications, in the
form of scratches and polishing of the stones, of the action
of glacier ice. But the negative evidence is not conclu-
sive, and it may well be that glacial periods earlier than
those of the latest epoch (the Pleistocene) have come and
gone, but left no evidence of their occurrence in the much

4o

GLACIERS

altered and scattered deposits which form the rocks of the
earth's crust.

The most striking fact which the investigation of this
subject has brought into prominence is this : The exten-
sion of the glaciers even to the limit which was reached in
the last great glacial period of prehistoric times does not
imply any very extreme climate. That is to say, a small
change in our present climate would bring back the exten-
sion of glaciers, and give us another glacial period. Glaciers
require heat as well as cold — heat to raise the vapour from
adjacent regions, which is then condensed as snow on the
higher and colder territory. The presence of an excess of
aqueous vapour in the atmosphere, even without the forma-
tion of cloud, has a very large and important result in
stopping the access of heat from the sun to the region of
the earth protected by the moist atmosphere. An increase
of watery vapour in the atmosphere of the northern hemi-
sphere would materially lower its temperature. A succes-
sion of damp summers would do more to enlarge the
glaciers than a series of severe winters. It is estimated by
competent authorities that a fall in the average annual
temperature of only 10° F. (provided that the summers
were cold and damp) would suffice in a few decades to
bring about the return of glacial conditions in the
temperate region of the northern hemisphere. The
present snow-line, or level of perpetual snow, is, in this
part of the world, at the height of 9000 ft. above sea-
level. As we ascend from the sea-level the temperature
decreases by about I ° F. for every 350 ft. we mount. A
fall of 10° in temperature would accordingly bring the
snow-line down by 3500 ft. — that is, to 5500 ft. above sea-
level — and the lower limit to which the glaciers reach,
which is now about 4000 ft. above sea-level, would
descend to 1200 ft., which is lower than the level of
Geneva. Changes in the outline of the continents and in

CAUSES OF GLACIAL PERIODS 41

the direction of the great warm currents of the ocean,
together with changes in the growth of forest and the
extent of desert land on the continents, might, by affecting
the habitual disposition of cloud and of vapour, go far to
reduce the average annual temperature of north temperate
regions by 10°.

It has, on the other hand, been held that the periodic
and regular " wobbling " of the earth as it spins on its
axis is largely accountable for the fall of temperature
in the temperate zone at regularly recurring intervals.
The axis of rotation of the earth moves round in a circle,
as one may see the stem of a well-spun top slowly
move in a circle whilst the top " sleeps." The earth takes
about 26,000 years to complete its wobble, and in that
cycle there is a period when there is least and a period
when there is most sunshine falling on the polar regions —
owing to the difference in the inclination of the pole to the
sun. It is held that this difference is enough to produce
the fall of I o° F. required to give us a " glacial period " in
this part of the world. At any rate, in combination with
the changes conducing to formation of vapour and cloud
which I have mentioned above, it would probably be
effective.

Geologists are not agreed on this subject, but they have
established, as I have stated above — by definite proof — the
recurrence of glacial periods separated by long intervals of
warmer climate during the latest period of geological
time, the Pleistocene. The most convincing proof of the
occurrence of three periods of great extension of European
glaciers with intervals of a milder climate has been
obtained by studying the ancient moraines. The great
mass of heaped-up rock fragments left as a moraine by a
once extended glacier which has dwindled and retreated,
becomes altered on its surface in the course of a few
thousand years by change and decomposition of the rock

42 GLACIERS

fragments. A special surface-layer is produced. Now
when the glacier again, after some thousands of years,
extends and deposits a new moraine over the old one, and
again retreats, it is found to be possible to distinguish the
later from the earlier moraine by the "special surface-
layer " of the old moraine, which marks it off from the
new material piled over it. Thus three extensions have
been traced in Bavaria, and in other regions within the
area of the great Swiss glaciers of the glacial period.
These " extensions " and " retreats " are not small variations
of two or three miles, such as we see occurring in Switzer-
land under our eyes within recent years. They refer to
differences of hundreds of miles in length, and to incalculable
differences in the volume of solid ice concerned, due to periods
of long-continued climatic differences separated by many
thousand years. It is not possible to induce any cautious
geologist to state how many thousand years separate us
from the last great glacial extension, nor how many
thousands of years separated it and those which occurred
earlier in the Pleistocene epoch and at the end of the
Pliocene from one another. If the astronomical cause
were really the determining one, we might conclude that
intervals of about 26,000 years were what occurred
between the full seventy of each glacial period. But on
other grounds such intervals are considered to be too short,
and doubt and speculation surround the attempt to put the
period into figures of so many thousand years. For
instance, if 26,000 years is all that should separate a
future glacial period from the last (which seems to have
been the greatest and most severe), we do not get enough
time (even supposing that we are within a couple of
thousand years of another glacial period) to account for
all the changes in the surface of Western Europe, and in
the animals and men upon it. The Neandermen, the
mammoth, the hyaena, the lion, the rhinoceros, bison, and

DATE OF LAST GLACIAL EXTENSION 43

other large game swarmed here then, and there was no
" channel " separating England from the Continent. We
know a long succession of events which have occurred
since then — the arrival of the Reindeer-men, their dis-
appearance, and the conversion of Europe into a pastoral
and agricultural land by the men of the polished stone
weapons, the arrival of the later bronze-using men, and
later still the introduction of iron. Most " prehistorians "
consider that much more than twenty thousand years has
elapsed since the last great glacial period covered North
and Central Europe with ice. Professor Penck, a very high
authority, estimates four hundred thousand years as having
passed since the first glacial extension of Pleistocene times.
But it is not possible in the present state of knowledge to
hold with conviction to any exact estimate, nor to be quite
sure that another glacial period is not already due !

The ice which forms by freezing on a lake or pond
differs a good deal in appearance and structure from
glacier ice. If a piece of lake or pond ice is melted in
warm air, the surface gradually liquefies, and the whole
remains clear. But if a piece of dense glacier ice from the
deeper part of a glacier (such as you may get from one of
the " ice-caves," often cut for show at the snout of a
glacier) is similarly melted, very fine cracks appear in it,
and gradually the lump breaks up into irregular crystalline
pieces. They are called " glacier grains," and are usually
about the size of a walnut, but may be smaller or bigger.
They are separate groups of ice crystals, and the glacier
ice is made up of these innumerable units tightly wedged
and fused together. Their origin is not properly under-
stood, but it appears (see p. 26) that the water which per-
colates the freshly formed neve*, and freezes so as-to solidify
the mass, has more mineral matter in solution than have
the snow crystals themselves, and melts more easily (at a
lower temperature). Hence the sun's rays liquefy this

44

GLACIERS

cementing ice, and leave the purer crystals as knob-like
glacier grains. I have already mentioned the stratified
structure to be seen in the newer ice of a glacier, but there
are also the dirt bands which form by the collection of
rock ctibris in transverse fissures of the glacier, and are
carried on and spread out as curved bands crossing the
glacier from side to side when it has flowed some miles
on its course and expanded in a broadened bed.

A great deal of attention has been given to the question,
" Why do glaciers descend ? " Though ice is not a viscous
body, it yet has some of the properties of one when it
presents itself in huge masses, such as are glaciers. It
can bend and spread and alter its shape in response to
pressure ; it splits and reunites its broken surfaces owing to
the property of " regelation " which I described above. In
a warm atmosphere a cube of pitch, or of sealing-wax, or
wax, as big as a quartern loaf, though solid and apparently
keeping its shape, will, if placed on a sloping board, very
slowly commence to flow down the slope, the process
being so slow that it takes hours, or even days, to give
any observable result. In virtue of its " sham " viscosity
— its power of cracking and healing incessantly by rege-
lation— a sufficiently large and weighty mass of ice
behaves in the same way. But it appears that the size of
the mass is a very important condition. You can make
a small upright figure, say four inches high, in soft
wax, which will hold together and keep its form, but if
you make a similarly shaped figure of the same material,
ten feet high, it will bend and bulge and droop as a
paraffin candle does in hot weather. The same import-
ance attaches to actual bulk, height, or depth of the mass
in regard to the flow of glacier ice, though it seems that
the conditions of its flow or movement are not even yet
thoroughly understood. Professor Heim holds that the

THE FLOW OF GLACIERS 45

weight of the ice is sufficient to account for its movement,
and that a mass of lead corresponding to a glacier would
in the same position move much as it does. The close
fitting of the glacier to its bed, the fusion of tributary
glaciers with a larger one, and the more rapid movement
of the middle part of a glacier than of its sides (which are
arrested and slowed down as is the water of a river by
friction with the rocky sides of its bed) are due to the
continual cracking and breaking with constant regelation
of the ice at all points where it is strained or subject to
tension. Regelation gives it, in the gross, the properties
of a viscous body, such as pitch or soft sealing wax —
although ice is certainly, when small bits or crystals of it
are examined, or even when we deal with a block of it
weighing a ton — not a viscous body capable of being
extended, that is, elongated or widened in shape, by
pulling. It is not capable of being drawn out into strings
or threads as are viscous bodies like pitch, sealing-wax
and thick treacle ! Under pressure, however, it does behave
like a viscous body, and fragments or powder of ice can
be squeezed in a mould into a solid coherent mass (as one
can squeeze and fuse powdered wax or amber when warm),
owing to its property of " regelation," that is to say, of
partial thawing under pressure and immediate re-freezing
when the pressure is relaxed.

The thick, sticky " flows " or slowly moving streams of
mud or watery clay, which one may see at the base of
sea-side cliffs in many places, for instance, the Isle of
Wight, are in important respects like small models
of glaciers. One sees in them clearly enough that the
middle part flows more quickly than the sides, and
one sees the formation of crevasses by the " tearing "
of the unequally moving mass. And the formation
of what is called the veined structure of a glacier
and of dirt bands on its surface are illustrated by similar

46 GLACIERS

appearances caused by the cracking and squeezing of the
mud flow.

The squeezing to which glaciers are subject in their
downward movement is often gigantic in amount. Glaciers
from neighbouring rock valleys unite and form one slowly
flowing river of ice without the breadth of the channel
being proportionately increased. The glaciers which unite
to form the great Corner glacier above Zermatt have a
width often miles, and soon after they have joined together
the width is reduced to two miles, and farther on to one mile.
The depth of the glacier is, of course, increased when its
width is diminished. Swiss glaciers have been bored to a
depth of 800 feet without reaching the bottom, and, small
as they are compared with the great glaciers of the glacial
age, it is calculated that they attain in places to a depth
of 2000 feet. There is enough solid ice in the great
Corner glacier to build three cities the size of London !
There are about 1500 glaciers in Switzerland, some of
which, of course, unite with one another as they descend,
and the total area they cover is over 1000 square miles,
with an average thickness difficult to estimate, but pro-
bably not over-estimated at 250 feet.

The colour of ice, like that of water, is blue, and of
course the colour is deep and intense in proportion to the
thickness of clear ice or water through which the light
passes. There is a great deal of persistent error about the
blue colour of water. A good many people insist that it
is due to the reflected blue colour of the sky. It is easy
to prove that this is not so since the clear water of seas
and lakes is seen to be blue when the sky is completely
overcast. When the water is not very deep and the
bottom is white, the colour is a very fine turquoise blue.
But if the water is of such great depth that no light is
reflected up from the bottom through the water, then the
colour is a deep indigo. If the water has any yellow stain

THE COLOUR OF ICE 47

in it, from dead or living vegetable matter or from iron
salts, the colour is green. There are two readily available
exhibitions of the blue colour of water with which anyone
may satisfy himself on the subject. The first is that of
the tanks of some of the water-supplying companies, such
as those to be seen from the railway near Caterham.
These tanks are cube-like reservoirs, twenty feet deep.
They are used to soften the water by precipitating the
chalk dissolved in it, and the deposit of white chalk lines
the bottom and sides of the tanks whilst the water itself
becomes of crystalline purity. Even on the most cloudy
days these tanks stand out in the scene as patches of
brilliant cobalt blue. A simpler case is that of the large
brilliantly white porcelain baths now provided in bath-
rooms. If the room is well lit from above by strong sun-
light, and has a white wall, and the bath is well filled with
good clear water, the latter appears strongly blue, any
wave or rippling of the surface appearing as bands of
bright blue. In this case the light is reflected to and fro
by the sides of the bath, and an effect like that of the blue
grotto of Capri is obtained. If the water should appear
at all green, it is due to yellow-coloured impurity in the
water, or in the porcelain, or in the colouring of the sides
of the room.

Liquid oxygen (prepared by modern methods of pro-
ducing extreme cold) is also blue. It is not surprising
that solid water, which is what we look into in the great
chasms in the clear ice of glaciers, should show this colour.
Glaciers often, however, appear bluish-green, especially near
the surface, or when seen indistinctly at a distance. This
is due to fine dust from the atmosphere, which falls con-
tinually on the mountain snow, and contains iron, which
forms yellow-coloured rust in minute quantity. Some of
the dust which falls on the snow of mountains and on
the ocean (sinking there to the bottom) is of terrestrial

48 GLACIERS

origin, brought by the wind from great distances ; but a
great deal of it is dust (consisting of iron and other
elements), which falls on the earth from interstellar space,
and is called " meteoric dust." The particles are, in fact,
minute " meteoric stones," or " falling stars," but so small
and light that they do not become vapourised, or even
red-hot, by friction with our atmosphere. They have been
recognised in great quantity in the deposits on the floor of
the great oceans, as well as on mountain snowfields, and it
is estimated that a large number of tons of this " meteoric "
material falls every year on to the surface of the earth, which
must grow heavier in consequence.

The water which is formed by the melting in summer
of the surface of a glacier above, and -at the sides and
below, forms a stream, which runs beneath the glacier and
issues below the " snout." The snout frequently has the
shape of an arch overhanging a cave, from which the stream
issues. The water which forms by the melting of the
upper surface of the glacier forms streams, which often
grow to some size before they plunge into a crack or
fissure in the ice, and find their way to the rocky bed
below. They often wear the ice into a well-like shaft,
some hundreds of feet deep, and carry stones down with
them from the surface, which, lying on the rock at the
bottom, are violently rocked and driven about by the
falling water. Remarkable basin-like holes are thus worn
out in the rock-bed of the glacier, which sometimes
come into view when the glacier recedes, and exposes
the rock which it formerly covered, as in the " Glacier
Garden " at Lucerne. They are called " giants' cauldrons,"
and the ice-well into which the surface-water rushes is
called a " moulin," or glacier mill.

By the retreat of a glacier we are able to see other results
of its slow passage over the rocks, as, for instance, now at
the lower end of the Mer de Glace of Chamonix. The

ICE SCRATCHING AND ICE POLISHING 49

rock is smoothed and polished, and the projecting harder
parts are not sharp and angular, but have the form of
rounded humps, compared to a sheep's back, and hence
called " roches moutonne'es." When we come within three
or four feet of such rocks we see that they are marked in a
peculiar way by straight scratches of all lengths from half
an inch upwards, and crossing one another at various angles,
though one direction — that parallel to the valley — predomi-
nates. These scratches are caused by bits of harder stone
which stick in the under surface of the ice, like emery
powder on a lapidary's metal plate. They move slowly
along with the ice, and so scratch the rock. Separate
stones of hand-size may be picked up which have been
scratched in this way, and their appearance is very dis-
tinctive. We know of no agency except that of moving
ice by which loose stones and rocks can be made to scratch
one another so as to give this special appearance. And
accordingly, when we find such rocks in Wales and Scotland,
and such stones in the " drift " and even below the Red
Crag of Suffolk, we are led to the guess, which is con-
firmed by a great mass of additional evidence, that glaciers
or great masses of moving ice existed formerly on the
mountains of Wales and the plains of East Anglia.

Whilst the rocks which are covered, or were at one
time covered, by the ice of a glacier are rounded, smoothed
and scratched, the higher rocks which have never been
submerged by the moving ice-mass stand out sharp and
angular. They are continually broken and shattered by
the action of frost, and shower down on to the glaciers
their fragments, and sometimes immense masses of rock,
which accumulate like a huge railway embankment at the
sides of the glacier, or are slowly carried along by it as
they rest on its surface (like a passenger on one of the
new moving platforms or inclines), and so are deposited
at the end when the glacier melts away. These heaps of

4

50 GLACIERS

rock are called " moraines." Those at the sides of a
glacier are called " lateral moraines," and the heap at
the, melting end or " snout " is a " terminal moraine."
When two glaciers flow down neighbouring rock valleys
which join in a common valley, as the two limbs of the
letter Y join on the stem, the glaciers become pressed
and fused together where they meet and form one glacier.
The left lateral moraine of the right-hand valley (as you
descend) joins the right lateral moraine of the left-hand
valley, and the two form a " central moraine " on the mid-
line of the slowly advancing combined mass of ice. The
rock fragments on such a moraine are of all sizes, some
as big as a small house, and piled up in some large
glaciers to a breadth of a quarter of a mile. They give
one a most vivid impression of the tremendous and
incessant breaking down of the mountains. Often one may
see such huge masses descend with a terrible roar from the
heights above on to the glacier or an avalanche of smaller
fragments amounting to hundreds of tons in weight,
pouring down the precipitous rocks of the higher peaks.
Sometimes when one looks from above on to the glacier a
thousand or more feet below, the size of the rocky frag-
ments of a central moraine is not appreciated. I once
heard a newly arrived and inexperienced visitor at the Bel
Alp exclaim as he looked down on to the great Aletch
glacier, " I suppose they have spread those cinders on the
ice to make a path for us to walk on along the glacier."
He had no notion that what, at that distance, he took for
a cinder-path, consisted of huge pieces of rock mostly of
the size of an omnibus !

A matter which is now greatly discussed among geolo-
gists and upon which different views are held, is as to the
" grinding " or " excavating " action of glaciers upon the
bed over which they slowly move. It is probable that
their excavating activity has been exaggerated. They do

EXCAVATION BY GLACIERS 51

not cut the first lines of a valley, but they constantly
deepen the valleys along which they move. As to how
much of this kind of excavation is due to the grinding
action of the vast weight of slowly moving ice and how
much is due to the huge and violent rushing torrent of
water which always underlies the ice and is hemmed in at
the sides of the valley by it, seems to be differently
estimated by American, Swiss, and English geologists.

CHAPTER V

THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

UNTIL instantaneous photography was introduced, a
little more than twenty-five years ago (by the dis-
covery of the means of increasing the sensitiveness of a
photographic plate), and gradually became familiar to
everyone in the exhibitions known as the " biograph " or
" cinematograph," the actual position of the legs in a
galloping horse at any given fraction of a second was
unknown. Anyone who has tried to " see " their position
will agree that it cannot be done. Attempts had been
made to make out what the movements and positions of
the legs " must " be, by studying the hoof-marks in a soft
track laid for the purpose. But the result was not satis-
factory.

As everyone knows, the so-called " biograph " pictures
are produced by an enormous series of consecutive
instantaneous photographs taken on a continuous trans-
parent flexible film or ribbon. The camera has a
mechanism attached to it by which the sensitive film
is jerked along so as to expose a length of two inches
(the size of the picture given by the camera) for, say, one
thirtieth of a second without movement. The film is then
jerked on and a second bit of two inches is brought into
place for a thirtieth of a second and so on until a ribbon
of some thousand pictures is obtained. The interval
between each picture is usually also about one thirtieth of

THE CINEMATOGRAPH 53

a second, so that at least fifteen pictures are taken in every
second of time, and according to the requirements of illu-
mination and the rapidity of the movements of the men or
animals photographed this number may be greatly increased.
The film is developed, printed and fixed on a similar
rolling mechanism and the pictures are thrown one by one
by a powerful lantern on to a screen, and are jerked along
at the same rate as that at which they were taken, and are
magnified enormously. Animals and men in rapid move-
ment, railway trains, the waves of the sea are thus photo-
graphed, and when the serial pictures are thrown
successively on the screen the result is that the eye
detects no interval between the successive pictures — the
figures appear as continuous moving objects. This is
due to the fact that whilst the impression produced on the
retina of the eye by each picture lasts for a tenth of a
second (less with brighter light), the interval between the
successive pictures is only one thirtieth of a second, and
accordingly the retinal impression has not gone or ceased
before the next is there ; hence there is no break in the
series of retinal impressions, but continuity.*

It is this duration of the impression on the retina which
prevents us from separating or "seeing distinctly" the
successive phases of a horse's legs as he gallops by, and
has led to the remarkable result that no artist has ever
until twenty-five years ago represented correctly any one
phase of the movement of the legs in a galloping horse,
and it is doubtful whether that correctness is what the
painter of a picture really ought to put on his canvas.
If we examine the separate pictures of a galloping horse
as taken on a cinematograph film, we have before us
the actual record of the positions assumed by the legs
at intervals of the thirtieth of a second (or whatever less
interval and length of exposure may have been chosen),

* See note on page 75.

54 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

and it is simply astonishing to find how utterly diffe-
rent they are from what had been supposed. Twenty
years ago Mr. Muybridge produced a number of these
instantaneous photographs of moving animals — such as the
horse in gallop, trot, canter, amble, walk, and jumping and
bucking — also the dog running, birds of several kinds
flying, camel, elephant, deer, and other animals in rapid
movement. The animals were photographed on a track
in front of a wall, marked out to show measured yards ;
the time was accurately recorded to show rate of move-
ment and length of exposure, and of interval between
successive pictures. By means of three cameras worked
by electric shutter-openers, a side, a back, and a front view
of the animal were taken simultaneously. Repeated photo-
graphs were obtained at intervals of a fraction of a second,
giving a series of fifteen or twenty pictures of the moving
animal. The length of exposure for each picture was
one fortieth of a second or less, and the interval between
successive pictures was about the same. Muybridge's great
difficulty had been to invent a shutter which would act
rapidly enough. I have some of these pictures before me
now (see PI. I). They show that what has been drawn by
artists and called the " flying gallop," in which the legs are
fully extended and all the feet are off the ground, with the
hind hoofs turned upwards, never occurs at all in the gal-
loping horse, nor anything in the least like it. There is a
fraction of a second when all four legs of the galloping

PLATE I. — Figs, i to u, drawings from Muybridge's photographs of con-
secutive poses of the galloping horse, each photograph taken by an
exposure of one fortieth of a second and separated from the next by
an interval of one fortieth of a second. The horse in Fig. 10 has
returned to the same pose as that with which the series starts in Fig. i.
Fig. ii gives a pose one hundredth of a second later in the series
than that taken in Fig. 2. Fig. 12 shows a combination of the hinder
half of Fig. 9 with the front half of Fig. 6, giving thus the maximum
extension of both fore and hind legs.

55

PLATE 1.

56 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

horse are off the ground, but they are not then extended,
but, on the contrary, are drawn, the hind ones forward and
the front ones backward, under the horse's belly (see PL I,
figs. 2 and 3). A model showing this actual instantaneous
attitude of the galloping horse has recently been placed in
the Natural History Museum. When the hoofs touch the
ground again after this instantaneous lifting and bending
of the legs under the horse, the first to touch it is that of
one of the hind legs (PL I, fig. 4), which is pushed very
far forward, forming an acute angle with the body. The
shock of the horse's impact on the ground is thus received
by the hind leg, which reaches obliquely forward beneath
the body like an elastic <-spring. Since the intantaneous
photographs have become generally known artists have
ceased to represent the galloping horse in the curious
stretched pose which used to be familiar to everyone in
Herring's racing plates (see PL II, fig. i), with both fore
and hind legs nearly horizontal, and the flat surface of the
hind hoofs actually turned upwards ! Indeed, as early as
1886 a French painter, M. Aim6 Morot, availed himself
of the information afforded by the then quite novel instan-
taneous photographs of the galloping horse, and exhibited
a picture of the cavalry fight at Rezonville between the
French and Germans, in which the old flying gallop does
not appear, but the attitudes of the horses are those

PLATE II. — Various representations of the gallop. Fig. i. — From Geri-
cault's picture, "The Epsom Derby, 1821." Figs. 2 and 3. — From
gold-work on the handle of a Mycenaean dagger, 1800 B.C. Fig. 4. —
From iron-work found at Koban, east of the Black Sea, dating from
500 B.C. Fig. 5. — From Muybridge's instantaneous photograph of a
fox-terrier, showing the probable origin of the pose of the "flying
gallop " transferred from the dog to other animals by the Mycenseans.
Fig. 6. — The stretched-leg prance from the Bayeux tapestry (eleventh
century). Fig. 7. — The stretched-leg prance used to represent the
gallop by Carle Vernet in 1760. Fig. 8.— The stretched-leg prance
used by early Egyptian artists.

57

PLATE II.

58 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

revealed by the new photographs. The picture is an
epoch-making one, whether justifiable or not, and is now
in the gallery of the Luxembourg. It must be noted that
though Meissonier and others had succeeded in represent-
ing more truthfully than had been customary, other move-
ments of the horse, such as " pacing," ambling, cantering,
and trotting, yet in regard to them, also, more easily
observed because less rapid, the instantaneous photograph
served to correct erroneous conclusions.

Two very interesting questions arise in connection with
the discovery by instantaneous photography of the actual
positions successively taken up by the legs of a galloping
horse. The first is one of historical and psychological
importance, viz. why and when did artists adopt the false
but generally accepted attitude of the " flying gallop " ?
The second is psychological and also physiological, viz. if
we admit that the true instantaneous phases of the horse's
gallop (or of any other very rapid movement of anything)
can not be seen separately by the human eye, but can
only be separated by instantaneous photography, ought an
artist to introduce into a picture, which is not intended to
serve merely as a scientific diagram, an appearance which
has no actual existence so far as his or other human eyes

PLATE III. — Representations of the gallop. Fig. I. — A combination of the
hinder half of Fig. 10, PI. I, with the front half of Fig. 4, PI. I.
Fig. 2. — One of the many admirable Chinese representations of the
galloping horse. This is very early, namely 100 A.D. The pose is
that of the " flying gallop " as in Figs. 2, 4 and 5 of PI. II. Fig. 3. —
From a Japanese drawing of the seventeenth century ; the pose is a
modification of the " flying gallop," and agrees closely with that of
Fig. i in this plate. Fig. 4. — The flex-legged prance from a bas-relief
in the frieze of the Parthenon, B.C. 300. Fig. 5. — A modern French
drawing giving a pose very similar to that of Figs. I and 3. It is the
most " effective " pose yet adopted by artists, and is an improvement
on the full-stretched flying gallop, though failing to suggest the
greatest effort and rapidity. Fig. 6. — Instantaneous photographs cf
four phases of a horse "jumping."

59

PLATE III.

Fig. 3.

Japanese, I7'h Century

Fig. 4-.
Parthenon.

A

Fig.5

Conventional Gallop

Fig 6

60 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

are concerned, viz. that of the actual pose assumed instan-
taneously and simultaneously by the four legs of the
galloping horse ? And further, if he ought not to do this,
what ought he to do, on the supposition that his purpose
is to convey to others the same impression of rapid move-
ment which exists — not, be it observed, in his eye, or on
the retina of that eye — but in his mind, as the result of
attention and judgment ?

The first of these questions has been answered by the
great French authority on archaeology and the history of
art, M. Salomon Reinach,5* whose writings are as lucid and
terse as they are accurate, and solidly based on research.
M. Reinach shows (and produces drawings to support his
statement) that in Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman,
mediaeval, and modern art up to the end of the eighteenth
century " the flying gallop " does not appear at all ! The
first example (so far as those schools are concerned) is an
engraving by G. T. Stubbs in 1794 of a liorse called
"Baronet." The essential points about "the flying gallop"
are that the fore-limbs are fully stretched forward, the
hind limbs fully stretched backward, and that the flat
surfaces of the hinder hoofs are facing upwards. After
this engraving of 1 794 the attitude introduced by Stubbs
became generally adopted in English art to represent a
galloping horse, and the French painter, Gericault, intro-
duced it into France in 1821 in his celebrated picture,
the "Derby d'Epsom," (see PI. II, fig. i) which is now in
the Louvre.

Previously to this there had been three other con-
ventional poses for the running horse in art, of which only
the third (to be mentioned below) has any resemblance to
a real pose, and that not one of rapid movement. We
find: (i) The enlongated or stretched-leg "prance" (French,

* " La Representation du Galop dans 1'art ancien et moderne," ' Revue
Archeologique,' vol. xxxvi et seq.t 1 900.

ANCIENT REPRESENTATIONS OF GALLOP 61

" cabrt allongt "), in which, whilst the front legs are off the
ground, and all four legs are stretched nearly as much as
in the flying gallop, there is this essential difference, viz.
that the hoofs of the hind legs are firmly planted on the
ground (see PI. II, fig. 7). This pose is seen in a picture
by the same artist (Stubbs) of two years' earlier date than
that in which he introduced " the flying gallop." The
"stretched-leg prance" is found in Egyptian works (PI. II,
fig. 8) of 580 B.C., and is a favourite pose to indicate the
gallop, in ancient Assyrian as well as mediaeval art, for
instance, in the Bayeux tapestry (PI. VI, fig. 6). We find,
further, (2) that the second pose made use of for this
purpose is the " flexed-leg prance," in which all the four
legs are flexed, so that the hind legs rest on the ground
beneath the horse's body, whilst the fore-legs "paw" the
air. This is seen both in Egyptian, Greek, and Renaissance
art (Leonardo, Raphael, and Velasquez). It is by no
means so graceful or true to Nature as the next pose, but
gives an impression of greater energy and rapidity. The
third pose regresents a kind of " prancing," and is seen on
the frieze of the Parthenon (PI. Ill, fig. 4), and in many
subsequent Greek, Roman, and other works copied from,
or inspired by, this Greek original. One only of the hind
legs is on the ground, and the animal's body is thrown up
as though its advance were checked by the rein. It is
called " the canter " by M. Reinach, but that term can
only be applied to it when the axis of the body is hori-
zontal and parallel to the surface of the ground.

The reader will perhaps now suppose that we must
attribute the " flying gallop " to the original, if inaccurate,
genius of an eighteenth century English horse-painter,
That, however, is not the case. M. Reinach has shown
that it has a much more extraordinary history. It is
neither more nor less than the fact thit in the pre-Homeric
art of Greece — that which is called " Mycenaean " (of which

62 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

so much was made known by the discoveries of that
wonderful man Schliemann when he dug up the citadel of
Agamemnon) — the figures of animals, horses, deer, bulls
(see the beautiful gold cups of Vaphio), dogs, lions, and
griffins, in the exact conventional pose of " the flying
gallop," are quite abundant ! (See PI. II, figs. 2, 3, and 4.)
There was an absolute break in the tradition of art between
the early gold-workers of Mykene (i 800 to 1000 B.C.) and
the Greeks of Homer's time (800 B.C.). Europe never re-
ceived it, nor did the Assyrians nor the Egyptians. Thirty
centuries and more separate the reappearance in Europe
of the flying gallop — through Stubbs — from the only other
European examples of it — the Mycenaean. What, then,
had become of it, and how did it come to England ?
M. Reinach shows, by actual specimens of art-work, that
the Mycenaean art tradition, and with it the "flying gallop,"
passed slowly through Asia Minor north-eastwards to the
Trans-caucasus (Koban 500 B.C.), to Northern Persia, and
thence by Southern Siberia to the Chinese Empire (PI. Ill,
fig. 2) as early as 150 B.C., and that the "flying gallop," so
to speak, " flourished " there for centuries, and was trans-
mitted by the Chinese artists to the Japanese, in whose
drawings it is frequent (PL III, fig. 3). It was at last finally
brought back to Europe, and to the extreme west of it,
namely, England, by the importation in the eighteenth
century into England of large numbers of Japanese works
of art. It was a Japanese drawing (M. Reinach infers)
which suggested to Stubbs the upturned hinder hoofs and
the detachment from the ground of " the flying gallop "
which he gave in his portrait of " Baronet," and so estab-
lished that pose for a century in modern European art.
This is a delightful tracing out of the wanderings of an
artistic "convention," and the curious thing is that its
chief importance is not that it has to do with the move-
ments of the horse, but that it tends (as do other dis-

THE DOG IN MYGEN^AN ART 63

coveries) to establish the gradual passage of pre-classical
Mycenaean art across Central Asia to China and Japan by
trade routes and human migrations which had no touch
with later Greece nor with Assyria nor India.

How did the Mycenaeans come to invent, or at any rate
adopt, the convention of " the flying gallop," seeing that it
does not truly represent either the fact or the appearance
of a galloping horse? Though 20,000 years ago the
earliest of all known artists, the wonderful cave-men of
the Reindeer period, drew bison, boars, and deer in rapid
running movement with consummate skill, they were (be
it said to their credit !) innocent of the conventional pose
of the " flying gallop." I base this statement on my own
knowledge of their work. M. Reinach thinks that the
" flying gallop " was devised as an intentional expression
of energy in movement. I venture to hold the opinion
that it was observed by the Mycenaeans in the dog, in
which Muybridge's photographs (now before me) demon-
strate that it occurs regularly as an attitude of that animal's
quickest pace or gallop (see fig. 5, PL II). It is easy to
see the " flying gallop " in the case of the dog, since the
dog does not travel so fast as the galloping horse, and can
be more readily brought under accurate vision on account
of its smaller size. The late Professor Marey (a great
investigator of animal movement) appears to have denied
that the dog exhibits the full stretch of both limbs with
the pads of the hind-feet upturned, and all the feet free
from the ground. He was mistaken, as Muybridge's
photograph giving side and back view of a galloping fox-
terrier amply demonstrates. It is quite in accordance with
probability that the early Mycenaean artists, having seen
how the dog gallops, erroneously proceeded to put the
galloping horse, and all other animals which they wished
" to make gallop," into the same position.

It appears, then, that the poses used by artists at

64 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

different times and in different parts of the world to repre-
sent the " galloping " of the horse have no correspon-
dence to any of the poses actually assumed by a galloping
horse as now demonstrated by instantaneous photography.
The " prancing " attitude of the horses of the frieze of the
Parthenon was probably not intended to represent rapid
movement at all. The " stretched leg " pose and the
" flexed leg " pose are, as a matter of fact, phases of " the
jump," and are definitely recorded in Muybridge's instan-
taneous photographs of the jumping horse, but have no
existence in " galloping " nor in any rapid running of the
horse. They were probably adopted by the artists of
Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and their successors in Europe as
an expedient without conviction, to represent rapid move-
ment, the true poses of which defied satisfactory reproduc-
tion. And it is also the fact that the " flying gallop,"
which appeared in Mycenaean art thirty-seven centuries ago,
and then travelled by a " Scythian " route through Tartary
to China, and came back to Europe at the end of the
eighteenth century, is also — so far as it has any real
representative in the action of the horse — only approached
by a brief phase of the " jump." The poses of the horse
in jumping are shown in the small figures taken from
instantaneous photographs and reproduced in fig. 6 of
PI. III. The fine engraving from the Duke of Newcastle's
book, published in 1667, which is reproduced in PI. IV, is
not an attempt to represent a horse galloping, but a correct
drawing of a horse " taking off" for a jump as seen in the
uppermost horse in 'PI. Ill, fig. 6. The picture given by
the Duke is 250 years old, but it is not an anticipation
of Stubbs' flying gallop, although the hind legs are repre-
sented with the hoofs turned upwards. It intentionally
represents (according to the text of the treatise in which
it was first published) a jump, not a gallop. The "flying
gallop " (" ventre a terre "), with all four legs stretched, and

PLATE IV.

Reproduction from Mr. Theodore A. Cook's book, ' A History of the
English Turf,' published by Virtue and Co., of an engraving in
the Duke of Newcastle's book, dated 1667, with the title, ' A New
Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses and Work
them according to Nature.' The horse in this picture is repre-
sented with the hoofs of the hind-legs up-turned as in the pose
of the flying gallop introduced by Stubbs a hundred and twenty
years later. The horse is, however, in this picture not supposed
to be " galloping," but is " jumping," and in that action, as
shown in PI. Ill, fig. 6, the legs and hoofs do actually assume
the position shown in this admirable engraving.

WHAT OUGHT AN ARTIST TO DO? 65

the under surface of the hind feet upturned, is really seen
by us all every day in the dog, and is recorded in instan-
taneous photographs of that animal going at full speed.
In fact, the gallop of the dog (and of some other small
animals) is a series of jumps ; the animal " bounds along."
But this is a totally different thing from the gallop of the
horse. It is probable that the dog's gallop was trans-
ferred, so to speak, to the horse by artists, and a certain
justification for it was found in one of the attitudes of a
jumping horse, which, however, never exhibits both the
front and the hind legs simultaneously in so completely
horizontal a position as they are made to take in the
Mycenaean gold-work and the modern " racing plates."

How, then, we may now ask, ought an artist to repre-
sent a galloping horse ? Some critics say that he ought
not to represent anything in such rapid action at all. But,
putting that opinion aside, it is an interesting question as
to what a painter should depict on his canvas in order to
convey to others who look at it the state of mind, of
impression, feeling, emotion, judgment, which a live, gallop-
ing horse produces in him. The scientific draughtsman
would, of course, present to us a series of drawings exactly
like the instantaneous photographs, his object being to show
what " is," and not what the artist aims at, namely, what
"appears," "seems," or (without pondering and analysis)
" is thought to be." The painter, in his quality of artist,
would be wrong to select any one of the dozen or more poses
of the galloping horse published by Muybridge, each limited
to the fortieth of a second, since no human eye can fix (as
the photographic camera can) separate pictures following
one another at the rate of twenty a second, each enduring
one fortieth of a second, and each separated by an interval
of a fortieth of a second from the next. All the phases
which occur in any one-tenth of a second (only two, or
possibly three of the Muybridge series shown in PI. I) are,

5

66 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

as it were, fused in our visual impression, because each
picture lasts on the retina of the eye for one tenth of a
second, or (to put it more accurately) because the " im-
pression " or condition of the retina produced by each
picture persists or endures for the tenth of a second.

It may, perhaps, be suggested (and, indeed, has been),
that it is the " blurred " or " fused " picture produced by
the successive poses of the galloping horse's legs in one
tenth of a second that the painter ought to imitate on his
canvas. In support of this notion we have the fact that
the rapidly running wheels of a coach or of a gun-carriage
(as in the pictures by Wouwerman) are represented by
artists, not with the twelve or fourteen spokes which we
know to be there — and would be photographed as separate
things in an exposure of the fortieth of a second — but
as a blurred haze of some fifty or more indistinct
" spokes." In this case it undoubtedly results that the
observer of the picture is satisfied and receives the mental
impression or illusion of a rapid rotation of the wheel. I
have tried the experiment with instantaneous photographs
of the galloping horse, and I get three results : first, no
combination of successive phases occupying one tenth of
a second gives anything resembling the " flying gallop "
of the racing plates (the Mycenaean and Stubbsian pose),
or any other conventional pose ; second, no combination
of successive instantaneous photographs limited to ten
seconds gives any pose which satisfies the judgment and
suggests a movement like the gallop ; third, the combina-
tion which comes nearest to satisfying the judgment as
being a natural appearance, but does not quite succeed in
doing so, is one formed by the fusion of figs. 2 and 3 01
PI. I. This gives all four legs off the ground, drawn up
or flexed beneath the horse's body, as in Morot's picture
of the sabre-charge at Resonville.

The fact is that we have to take into consideration two

ATTENTION AS A CONDITION OF SEEING 67

other factors in the process, which we call " seeing," besides
the duration of the retinal impression or excitation. These
are, first, attention, and second, judgment. We are apt to
think that "seeing" is a simple, straightforward sort of
thing, whereas it is really a strangely complex and delusive
process. " I did not see it, therefore it was not there," or
" You must have seen it ; it was right in front of you," are
common assertions, and the belief that such assertions
are justified leads to miscarriage of justice in courts of law.
Yet everyone knows that he may stare out of the window
of a railway carriage and have a long panorama pass before
his eyes, or may walk along a crowded street and look his
acquaintances in the face, and in neither case will he have
" seen " or recognised anything, or be able to give an
account of the scene that was pictured on the back of his
eye. Attention, the direction of the mind to the sensation,
is necessary ; and it appears that it is very difficult (to
some more than to others) to hold the attention alert, and
to give it to the unexpected. In fact, to a very large
extent we can only " see " (using the word to signify the
ultimate mental condition) that which we are prepared to
see or that which we expect to see. In the absence of
such expectation, a very strongly illuminated or well-
marked, outstanding object is far more readily " seen "
than less marked objects. Accordingly, the outstretched
legs of the galloping horse, now in front and now behind,
are " seen," whilst the rest of the phases are not observed.
Moreover, it is a fact that the swinging pendulum of a
clock is " seen " at the extreme position of the swing on
each side, and not in the intermediate sp ace. This is
because the image is formed very quickly, twice in the
space where the bob of the pendulum is coming to the
limit of its swing and is again returning on its course.
For the same reason, the outstretched legs of the horse
going up to their limit and at once returning give in very

68 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

quick succession, near their extreme limit, an ascending
and a descending phase which are not strictly but sensibly
alike, and so doubly impress the retina, and obtain for the
legs " attention " when in that extreme position. The
choice of the attitude depicted by Morot is explained by
the fact that, as is shown by its persistence through two
successive pictures (figs. 2 and 3 of PL I), this pose must
produce a more continuous impression on the retina than
any other of the attitudes shown, since none of them endure
through two successive pictures.

The mental process of attention results in a certain
duration or memory of the mental condition which is a
distinct thing from the primary retinal impression, and
leads to the ignoring or mental obliteration of an instan-
taneous interval separating two phases of the position of
moving legs which have strongly " arrested the attention."
Hence, it seems that the most forward pose of the galloping
horse's front legs and the most backward pose of its hind
legs — though far from simultaneous, even in the slow
changing retinal impressions — may be mentally combined
by " the arrest of attention," and that the artist really
ought to present his picture of the galloping horse with
those two poses combined (although as a matter of scientific
truth they do not occur simultaneously) in order that he
may produce by his painted piece of canvas, as nearly as
he can, the mental result which we call " seeing " a horse
gallop. This combination of the front half of one figure
with the hinder half of another so as to give in each case
the extreme phase of extension of the legs I have made
in PL I, fig. 12.

But there is, further, in all " seeing " before even a
mental result of attention to the retinal picture is, as it
were, " passed," admitted and registered as "a thing seen,"
the further operation of rapid criticism or judgment^
brief though it be. We are always unconsciously forming

JUDGMENT AND PREJUDICE 69

lightning-like judgments by the use of our eyes, rejecting
the improbable, and (as we consider) preposterous, and
accepting and therefore " seeing " what our judgment
approves even when it is not there ! We accept as " a
thing seen " a wheel buzzing round with something like
fifty spokes — but we cannot accept a horse with eight or
sixteen legs ! The four-leggedness of a horse is too
dominant a prejudice for us to accept a horse with several
indistinct blurred legs as representing what we see when
the horse gallops. The mind revolts at such a presenta-
tion, though it is true, and the whole scheme and composi-
tion of the artist is perverted or fails to gain attention and
to exercise its charm — by the unwelcome presence in his
picture of the revolting truth. It is the consideration of
facts of this kind which enables us to understand the origin
and importance of what are called " conventions " in
pictorial or glyptic art. The artist is, in fact, operating
by means of his painted canvas or moulded clay upon a
queer, prejudiced, ill-seeing, dull, living creature — his
brother-man. In order to give if possible to that brother,
by means of a painted sheet, some or all of the delights,
emotions, suggestions, perceptions of beauty, and so on,
which he himself has experienced in contemplating a real
scene, the artist has to present that scene, not as it really
is, nor even as he thinks it really is, but in such a way
that his canvas shall appeal to his brother's attention and
judgment with the same emotional and intellectual result
as the scene itself produced in him. Therefore he must
not aim at accuracy of reproduction of natural fact nor
even of visual fact, but at the transference to another mind
of his own mental condition — his inner judgment as to
" things seen "- —by means of necessarily imperfect pictorial
mimicry. He must therefore avoid startling or abnormal
truthfulness of observation of the unessential, and even
more strictly must he refuse to make his picture a scientific

70 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

diagram demonstrating wnat " is " rather than what is
"seen" or is "thought to have been seen."

On these grounds I find that the most satisfactory
pictures of the galloping horse are those which combine a
phase of the movement of the front legs with a phase of
the movement of the hind legs, not simultaneous in actual
occurrence, but following one another. It is for the
artist to select the combination best suited to producing
the mental result aimed at. Some of the Chinese and
Japanese representations of the galloping horse and some
of their European imitations (but not all — certainly not
that of Stubbs, of the Epsom Der-by of Gericault, and the
racing plates) seem to me to be eminently satisfactory and
successful in this respect. In the pictures to which I
allude (PI. Ill, figs. 3 and 5) all the legs are off the
ground ; the front legs are advanced, but one or both may
be more or less flexed, whilst the hind legs, though
directed backwards with upturned hoofs, are not nearly
horizontal (as they actually are in the galloping dog), but
show the moderate extension which really occurs in the
horse, and is recorded by instantaneous photography.
This pose, favoured by many European and Japanese
artists, can be obtained by uniting the outstretched hind
legs of fig. 9 of the Muybridge series (PL I), with the
outstretched forelegs of fig. 6, as shown in PI. I, fig. 12,
or by uniting the hind legs of fig. 10 with the forelegs of
fig. 4 as shown in PI. Ill, fig. I.

With regard to the representation of other " gaits " of
the horse than that of the rapid gallop — such as canter,
trot, amble, rack, and walk — I have no doubt that instan-
taneous photography can (and in practice does) furnish
the painter with perfectly correct and at the same time
useful and satisfactory poses of the horse's limbs. These,
though of longer duration than the poses of the gallop,
can only be correctly estimated by the eye with great

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL PAGES 71

difficulty, and only sketched by artists of exceptional
skill and patience. The movement of the wings of birds
in flight has been very successfully analysed by instan-
taneous photography. Some of the poses revealed must
familiarise the public with what can be, and, in fact, has
been, observed in the case of large sea-birds, by the
unassisted eye, and has been represented in pictures by the
more careful observers of nature among modern painters.
A large sea-bird sailing along with apparently motionless
wings has been photographed in the act of giving a single
stroke so rapid as to escape observation by the eye.

An interesting question in regard to the movements of
the horse is that as to how far any known " pace " is
natural to that animal, and how far it has been acquired
by training and is, in a sense, artificial. We know so little
of the wild horse, and of the more abundant wild asses
and zebras, that it is difficult to say anything precise on
this question. There is only one region in which the true
original wild horse of the northern part of Asia and
Europe still exists. That is the Gobi Desert, in Central
Asia. This horse is known as Prevalsky's wild horse, in
honour of the Russian traveller who discovered it. Live
specimens are now to be seen in the Zoological Gardens
and elsewhere. It closely resembles the drawings of horses
made by the palaeolithic Cromagnard cave-men. A century
ago a wild horse, probably of the same race as this, inhabited
the Kirghiz Steppes, and was known as the Tarpan ; it is
now extinct. The more southern Arabian horse is not
known in the wild state, whilst the wild horses of America
are descendants of domesticated European horses which
have "run wild." I do not know of any studies of the move-
ments of the true wild horse, nor of those of wild asses and
zebras, carried out by the aid of instantaneous photography.
It would be interesting to know whether untaught wild
" equines " would fall naturally into the gaits known as " the

72 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

amble " and " the rack," or whether the walk, the trot, and
the gallop are their only natural gaits.

The amble, in which the fore and hind leg on the same
.side are advanced simultaneously, is a natural gait of the
elephant, the fastest Muy bridge could get from that great
beast. He made a menagerie elephant amble at the rate
of a mile in seven minutes. The only other animal known
to habitually exhibit " the amble " is the giraffe. It is often
exhibited by the giraffes in the Zoological Gardens in
London, but has not, I believe, been recorded by a series
of instantaneous photographs. When going at full speed
over the grass wilds of Central Africa the giraffe exhibits
a gait more like the galloping of deer and antelopes, and
carries the long neck horizontally. No complete study of
the " gaits " of large animals other than the horse has been
made, since menagerie specimens and menagerie conditions
are not satisfactory for the purpose, and, unfortunately, it
has not been possible as yet to take series of photographs
of them in their wild conditions.

The electric spark furnishes a most important means of
taking instantaneous photographs, but the operator must
perform in the dark. An electric spark can be obtained
which lasts only the one two-thousandth of a second, and
by its use as the sole illuminating agent we can get a
photograph of a phase of movement lasting only that
excessively short space of time, or, if we please, a succession
of such phases by using a succession of sparks. Thus, a
rifle bullet is readily photographed while in flight with
scarcely perceptible distortion. A wheel revolving many
hundred times a second can thus be photographed, and
appears to be stationary. Dr. Schillings has applied this
method to the photography of wild animals by night in
the forests of tropical Africa, and has published an
interesting book giving his photographic results. In order
to take these pictures the track followed by certain animals

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELECTRIC SPARK 73

has to be detected, and then a thread is stretched " breast-
high " across the track, so that the animal coming along it
by night shall pull the thread. Immediately the thread is
pulled it sets an electric contact in action. There is a brief
flash of one two-thousandth of a second, and a picture is
taken by a camera previously fixed, out of harm's way, so
as to focus the area where the thread was stretched.

Dr. Schillings obtained some very remarkable photo-
graphs of " the night life of the forest " in this way — lions
and leopards advancing on their prey were suddenly
revealed, and the helpless antelope or other victim was
shown crouching in the dark, or making a desperate effort
to escape.

The electric-spark method was applied by a friend of
mine to demonstrate the movements by which a kitten
falling backwards from a table succeeds in turning itself so
as to alight on its feet. During a fall of less than 3 ft. he
obtained five successive spark-pictures of the kitten, which,
I beg it may be clearly understood, was a pet kitten, and
was neither frightened nor hurt by the proceedings.

Instantaneous photographs, whether obtained by the use
of an electric spark as a means of illumination, or by
the less rapid method of a spring shutter working in
combination with a sensitive film, which is jerked along
so as to be exposed when the shutter is open and travel
when it is shut, has been applied to the analysis of
other movements than those I have mentioned, and has
yet to be applied to many more, such as the crawling of
insects and millipedes, and the beautiful rippling move-
ment of the legs and body by which many marine worms
swim. It has been extensively used in the study of
human locomotion, and of the successive poses of the arms
and legs in various athletic exercises, and in such games
as baseball and golf.

A first-rate fencer of my acquaintance had a five-

74 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

minutes' film of himself taken when fencing, giving
10,000 consecutive poses. He wished to see exactly
what movements he made, and to ascertain by this
minute examination any error or want of grace in his
action, in order to avoid it. An unexpected picture is
obtained when a man or woman is thus " biographed "
whilst walking rapidly, and suddenly turns to the right or
left. A fraction of a second occurs when the toes of the
two feet are directed towards one another (that is to say,
are " turned in "), as one of the legs swings round in the
break-off to right or left. This instantaneous phase is
very awkward and ugly in appearance. It is never
pictured by artists, although regularly occurring, and
seems to have been as little known before instantaneous
photography was introduced as were most of the phases of
the horse's gallop. The positions assumed when in the air
by a high-jump athlete are almost incredible as revealed by
the camera. He appears to be sitting in a most uncom-
fortable way on the rope over which he is projecting himself.
A very fine attitude is fixed for the artist in one of
Muybridge's instantaneous series of the " bowler " — the
cricket " bowler." The up-lifted right arm, the curve out-
wards of the whole figure on the right side, and the free
hang of the right leg make a most effective pose for a
sculptor to reproduce. Among the most remarkable results
obtained in Muybridge's series are the stages of the growth
or development of strong " expression " in the face. The
anxiety in the face of the baseball batsman as he awaits
the ball is painful ; as he hits at the ball his expression is
one of savage ferocity, and in a fraction of a second this
gives place to a dawning smile, which as we pass along
two or three later " instantanees " develops into a broad
grin of satisfaction. Another genuine study of expression
both of face and gesture and movement is given in the
series where a pailful of cold water is unexpectedly poured

USE OF INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHS 75

over the back of a bather seated in a sitz bath — astonish-
ment, dismay, anger, eagerness to escape, and the reaction
to shock are all clearly shown. Darwin's studies on " the
expression of the emotions " would have been greatly
assisted by such analysis, and the subject might even now
be developed by the use of serial instantaneous records
obtained by photography. It may be useful to those
interested in this subject to know that copies of Muybridge's
large series of instantaneous photographs'* of animal and
human subjects in movement are preserved both in the
library of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and in
the Radcliffe Library at Oxford. I may also mention the
extremely valuable series of instantaneous photographs 01
living bacteria, blood-parasites and infusoria produced by
MM. Pathe", and the series of fishes and various invertebrates
(including the curious caterpillar-like Peripatus) taken by.
Mr. Martin Duncan.

The representation of the moon in pictures of the
ordinary size (some three feet long by two in height) is a
case in which the artist habitually — one may almost say

* A word is needed in amplification of what was said on p. 53 as to the
blending of successive images produced on the retina of the eye by the
bioscope or cinematograph or by the old " wheel of life." The point
which is of importance is not the length of time during which the stimula-
tion of the retina caused by an image endures — becoming weaker and
weaker as fractions of a second pass — but it is this : How long will a
stimulus last in undiminished brightness ? How soon must it be followed
by another stimulus (another image) so that there may be fusion or con-
tinuity, the one succeeding the other before the earlier has had time, not to
disappear, but to decline. If it has had time to decline in intensity, the
appearance of flickering results. That is what the cinematographer has to
avoid. It is found that a quicker succession — a shorter interval — is neces-
sary with strong light than with weaker light in order to produce continuity.
With a faint light the interval may be as great as one-tenth of a second ;
with a strong light it must not exceed one-thirtieth (or with still stronger
light, one-sixtieth) of a second. With the stronger light there is a more
rapid and a greater loss of the initial intensity of the impression or effect of
stimulus, and though each successive effect remains as long, or longer, irj
dwindling intensity, you get want of continuity, or " flicker."

76 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

invariably — departs greatly from scientific truth, and it
is a question as to whether he is justified in what he does.
Take first the case of the low-lying moon near the horizon
as contrasted with the high moon. Everyone knows that
the moon (and the sun* also) appears to be much bigger
when it is low than when it is high. Everyone who has
not looked into the matter closely is prepared to maintain
that the luminous disc in the sky — whether of moon or
of sun — not merely seems to, but actually does, occupy a
bigger space when it is low down near the horizon than
when it is high up, more nearly overhead. Of course,
no one nowadays imagines that the moon or the sun
swells as it sinks or diminishes in volume as it rises.
Those who think about it at all, say that the greater
length of atmosphere through which one sees the low sun
or moon, as compared with the high, magnifies the disc as
a lens might do. This, however, is not the case. If we
take a photograph of the moon when low and another with
the same instrument and the same focus when it is high,

* What we may call " the visual size " of the sun happens to be owing to
its far greater size and its far greater distance from us— very nearly the
same as that of the moon — and is subject to the same numerical law of
apparent diameter, viz. a disc of anv given measurement in diameter will
cover it exactly when held at a distance from the eye which is 115 times
that measurement.

PLATE V. — The track of the rising moon registered by continuous exposure
of a photographic plate. It is given here in order to show that the dia-
meter of the visible disc of the moon does not diminish as it rises. The
slight increase in the breadth of the track registered by the moon's disc
is probably due to a little distortion caused by the side portion of the
lens. After M. Flammarion. The actual width of the moon's disc
as printed here is a little over one eighth of an inch, which, if we regard
it as " a picture" and not merely as a mechanical record, implies that
the observer's eye is only about 14$ inches distant from the picture
plane instead of the more usual 18 inches, which corresponds to a
diameter of the pictured moon's disc of between |th and |th of an
inch ('156 inch).

77

PLATE V.

78 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

we find that the celestial disc produces on the plate (as it
does on our eyes) a picture-disc of practically the same
size in both positions. In fact the high moon or sun pro-
duces a picture-disc of a little larger size than the low
moon or sun. I have here reproduced (PI. V) a photo-
graph, published by M. Flammarion, in which the moon
has been allowed to print itself on a photographic plate
exposed during the time the moon was rising, and it is
seen that the track of the moon has not diminished in
width as it rose higher and higher. No one will readily
believe this ; yet it is a demonstrable fact. Astronomers
have made accurate measurements which show that there
is no diminution of the disc under these circumstances, but
a slight increase — since the moon is a very little nearer to
us when overhead than when we see it across the horizon.
If we put a piece of glass coated with a thin layer of
water-colour paint into a frame, and then make a peep-
hole in a board which we fix upright between us and the
upright piece of framed glass, we can keep the framed
glass steady (let us suppose it to be part of the window
of a room), and then we can move the peep-hole board
back from it into the room to measured distances. At a
distance of one and a half feet from the framed glass, which
is that at which an artist usually has his eye from his canvas
or paper, we can trace on the smeared or tinted piece of
glass the outlines of things seen through it exactly as they
fill up the area of the glass — men, houses, trees, the moon.
The moon's disc (and the same is true of the sun) is found
always to occupy a space on the glass which is Tjg-th °f
the distance of the eye from the framed glass plate. When
the eye-to-frame distance is eighteen inches, the diameter of
the disc of the moon on the smeared glass will occupy
exactly T|^th of eighteen inches, which is between one sixth
and one seventh of an inch. Similarly if the peep-hole is
at nine and a half feet or 1 1 4 inches from the framed glass

ERRORS AS TO THE SIZE OF THE MOON 79

(which stands for us as the equivalent of an artist's picture)
the moon will occupy almost exactly one inch in diameter
— the size of a halfpenny. With such a simple apparatus
of peep-hole and smeared glass in an upright frame, it is
easy to mark off the size covered by the moon (or sun),
whether low or high, on the smeared glass, and it is found
never to vary whether high or low — so long as the same
" eye-to-frame " or " peep-hole " distance is preserved.
That seems to be an important fact for painters of sun-
sets and moon-rises. But what do they do ? They never
give the right size (namely one sixth of an inch) which
corresponds to an eye-to-frame distance of eighteen inches.
They give to a high moon, if they are very careful, a
quarter of an inch for diameter. This means that the
observer is about two and a half feet, or thirty inches from
the picture — nearly twice what the artist's eye really is as
he paints. And then-^-if painting a moon-rise or sunset —
they suddenly pretend to go to a distance of nine and a
half feet from the picture and make the moon an inch
across because it is low down, or even give the moon two
inches in diameter, which would mean that they (and those
who look at the picture when hung up for view) are
observing at nineteen feet distance from the front plane or
frame of the picture. They do not alter the other features
in the picture to suit this change of distance of the eye
from the frame and there is no warning given. Certainly
there is no obvious and necessary reason for treating a
picture containing a high moon as though you were three
feet from the front plane of the scene presented, and a low
moon as though you were twenty feet from that plane !
The confusion which may result in the representation of
other objects when these changes of eye-to-frame distance
are made is shown by the following simple facts. According
to the simple laws of perspective, if the eye is at thirty
inches from the picture-plane or frame (as declared by a

So THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

moon drawn of a little more than a quarter of an inch
broad), a post or a man six feet high drawn on the canvas
as three inches high absolutely and definitely means that
that man or post is sixty feet away from the observer
inside the picture. The height of the represented object
is the same fraction of the real object as the eye-to-frame
distance is of the distance of the observer to the real object.
If by a two-inch moon the artist has thrown you back from
the front plane of the scene to a distance of nineteen feet,
then the six-foot post or man drawn as three inches high
definitely asserts that it or he is 456 feet distant within
the picture. So, too, if the church tower which cuts the
moon is really sixty feet high and is drawn of two inches
vertical measure in the picture, it is an assertion — when
the moon is represented one quarter of an inch broad —
that the church tower is 290 yards, or a sixth of a mile
distant. If, on the other hand, other things remaining the
same, the moon is drawn two inches in diameter, the church
tower is now asserted to be eight times as far off, or about
a mile and a third. Very generally these facts are not
considered by painters. They represent the low moon (or
sun) big because the erroneous mental impression is common
to all of us that it is big — that is, bigger, much bigger,
than the high moon or sun, and they do not follow out
the consequences in perspective of the pictorial increase
of the moon's apparent diameter.

If we could ascertain why it is that the low moon pro-
duces a false impression of being bigger — as a mere disc
in the scene — than does the high moon, we might be able
to discover how an artist could produce, as Nature does,
an impression or belief in its greater size whilst keeping
it all the time to its proper size. The explanation of the
illusion as to the increased size of the sun's or moon's disc
when low, given by M. Flammarion and other astronomers,
is that the low sun or moon is unconsciously judged by us

;

THE PAINTER AND THE MOON 81

as an object at a greater distance than the high moon or
sun. This is due to the long vista of arching clouds above
and of stretching landscape or sea below when the sun or
moon is looked at as it appears on or near the horizon.
The illusion is aided by the dulness of the low moon and
the brightness (supposed nearness) of the high moon.
Being judged of (unconsciously) as further off than the
high moon, the low moon is estimated as of larger size
although of the same size. This is, I believe, the correct
explanation of the illusion. When one gazes upwards to
the sky, a small insect slowly flying across the line of
sight sometimes is "judged of" as a huge bird — an eagle
or a vulture — since we refer it to a distance at which birds

y and not to the shorter distance to which insects
approach us. It seems that it would be possible for the
painter, by carefully studying actual natural facts and
introducing their presentation into his picture, to produce
the impression of greater distance, and therefore of size, into
a quarter-inch moon placed near the horizon. He is not
compelled for want of other means to " cut the difficulty "
and paint a falsely inflated moon which shall brutally and by
measurement call up the illusion of increased size. I repro-
duce here (Plate VI) an interesting drawing which shows
how such illusions of size can be produced. It is none the
worse for my purpose because it is an advertisement by the

ell-known firm who have kindly lent it to me. The three
figures represented in black are all of the same height, yet
the furthest one appears to be much taller and bigger alto-
gether than the middle one, and the middle one than the
nearest. This result is obtained by suggesting distance as
separating the right-hand figure from us, whilst giving it
exactly the same height as the others. This seems to me to
be a simple case of an illusion of increased size produced by
a suggestion of increased distance when all the time there is
equality in size — as in the case of the moon on the horizon

6

PLATE VI.

THE MOON ON THE STAGE 83

compared with the moon overhead. It would be interest-
ing to see an attempt on the part of a competent painter
to produce in this way (which is, I believe, Nature's way)
the illusion of increased size in a low-lying moon without
really increasing the visual size of his painted moon as
compared with one in another picture (to be painted by
him) representing the moon bright, clear and small,
overhead.

The theatrical scene-painter has another kind of diffi-
culty with the low moon and the setting sun. He can
never be right for more than one row of seats — one dis-
tance— in the theatre. Here there is no peep-hole, no
frame or picture-plane. The observer is in the picture.
If the moon is represented by an illuminated disc one foot
in diameter, it will, when looked at at a distance of 1 1 5 feet,
have the same visual size as the moon itself, but if your
seat is nearer the scene it will look too large, if further off
it will look too small. There is no getting over this diffi-
culty, as the standard of actual Nature is set up on the
stage by the men and women appearing on it at a known
distance. It used to be asked in classical times by
ingenious puzzle-makers — " What is the size of the moon?"
A true answer to that question would be " that of a plate
a foot in diameter seen at a distance of a hundred and
fifteen feet."

Plate VI. — Drawing of three figures — Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Lloyd George,
and Mr. Asquith — showing how an illusion of size may be produced in a
picture. The figure of Mr. Asquith is of the same actual vertical
measurement as that of Lord Lansdowne, viz. two inches and one
eighth. Yet owing to the position in which the three figures are placed
and the converging lines — suggesting perspective — the drawing of Mr.
Asquith does not merely represent a much taller man than does that of
Lord Lansdowne, but actually gives the impression, at first sight, that
the little black figure representing Mr. Asquith is longer and bigger
altogether than that representing Lord Lansdowne. Yet the figures
are of the same dimensions. It is owing to illusion of the same nature
that the disc of the low moon appears larger than that of the high moon.

84 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE

To a large extent the painter, like other artists, has to
produce things which do not shock common opinion and
experience, and must even consciously concede to that
necessity, and make the sacrifice of objective truth, in
order to secure attention for his higher appeal to the sense
of beauty, to emotion, and sentiment. Approved depar-
tures by the artist from scientific truth are those which
are deliberately made in order to give emphasis — as, for
instance, in the huge, but tender hand of the man in the
emotional masterpiece, " Le Baiser," by the great sculptor
Rodin. Another departure from objective truth, which is
justified, is seen in Troyon's picture in the Louvre, where
the false drawing and exaggerated size of the leg of a
calf advancing towards the observer suggest, and almost
give the illusion of, movement.

But it can hardly be maintained that any and all the
liberties which a painter or a whole school of painters
choose to take with fact in their presentation of Nature —
are beyond criticism. It is possible for a landscape
painter to improve in his treatment of the moon by better
observation and increased knowledge — just as other
painters have learnt not to introduce into their pictures
the sort of wooden rocking-horse to stand for a beautiful
living animal, which satisfied Velasquez, Carl Vernet and
the ancient Egyptians.

CHAPTER VI
THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD

TO what jewel or precious stone was Shakespeare
alluding when he makes the exiled Duke in "As You
Like It " (after praising his rough life in the forest of
Arden, and declaring that adversity has its compensations),
exclaim :

" The toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head " ?

No doubt the unprejudiced reader supposes when he
reads this passage that there is some stone or stone-like
body in the head of the toad which has a special beauty,
or else was believed to possess magical or medicinal
properties. And it is probable that Shakespeare himself
did suppose that such a stone existed. As a matter of
fact there is no stone or " jewel " of any kind in the head
of the common toad nor of any species of toad — common
or rare. This is a simple and certain result of the careful
examination of the heads of innumerable toads, and is not
merely " common knowledge," but actually the last word
of the scientific expert. In these days of " nature study "
writers familiar with toads and frogs and kindred beasts
have puzzled over Shakespeare's words, and suggested that
he was really referring to the beautiful eyes of the toad,
which are like gems in colour and brilliance.

This, however, is not the case. Shakespeare himself
was simply making use of what was considered to be

86 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD

" common knowledge " in his day when he made the Duke
compare adversity to the toad with a magic jewel in its
head commonly known as " a toad-stone," although that
" common knowledge " was really not knowledge at all,
but — like an enormous mass of the accepted current
statements in those times, about animals, plants and stones
— was an absolutely baseless invention. Such baseless
beliefs were due to the perfectly innocent but reckless habit
of mankind, throughout long ages, of exaggerating and
building up marvellous narrations on the one hand, and on
the other hand of believing without any sufficient inquiry,
and with delight and enthusiasm, such marvellous narra-
tions set down by others. Each writer or " gossip "
concerning the wonders of unexplored nature, consciously
or unconsciously, added a little to the story as received by
him, and so the authoritative statements as to marvels grew
more and more astonishing and interesting.

It was not until the time of Shakespeare himself that
another spirit began to assert itself — namely, that of
asking whether a prevalent belief or tradition is actually a
true statement of fact. Men proceeded to test the belief
by an examination of the thing in question, and not by
merely adducing the assertions of " the learned so-and-so,"
or of " the ingenious Mr. Dash." This spirit of inquiry
actually existed in a fairly active state among the more
cultivated of the ancient Greeks. Aristotle (who flourished
about 350 B.C.), though he could not free himself altogether
from the primitive tendency to accept the marvellous as
true because it is marvellous and without regard to its
probability — in fact because of its improbability — yet on
the whole showed a determination to investigate, and to
see things for himself, and left in his writings an immense
series of first-rate original observations. He had far more
of the modern scientific spirit than had the innumerable
credulous writers of Western Europe who lived fifteen

THE DECAY OF CREDULITY 87

hundred to two thousand years after him. Even that
delightful person Herodotus, who preceded Aristotle by
a hundred years, occasionally took the trouble to inquire
into some of the wonders he heard of on his travels,
and is careful to say now and then that he does not
believe what he heard. But the mediaeval-makers of
" bestiaries," herbals, and treatises on stones, which were
collections of every possible fancy and " old-wife's tale,"
about animals, plants, and minerals, mixed up with Greek
an*d Arabic legends and the mystical, medical lore of the
' Physiologus ' — that Byzantine cyclopaedia of " wisdom
while you wait " — deliberately discarded all attempt to set
down the truth ; they simply gave that up as a bad job,
and recorded every strange story, property and " applica-
tion " (as they termed it) of natural objects with solemn
assurance, adding a bit of their own invention to the
gathered and growing mass of preposterous misunder-
standing and superstition.

In the seventeenth century the opposition to this method
of omnivorous credulity (which even to-day, in spite of all
our " progress," flourishes among both the rich and the
poor) crystallised in the purpose of the Royal Society of
London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge —
whose motto was, and is " Nullius in verba " (that is, " We
accept no man's bare assertion "), and whose original first
rule, to be observed at its meetings, was that no one
should discourse of his opinions or narrate a marvel,
but that any member who wished to address the society
should " bring in," that is to say, " exhibit " an experi-
ment or an actual specimen. A new spirit, the "scientific"
spirit, gave rise to and was nourished by this and similar
societies of learned men. As a consequence the absur-
dities and the cruel and injurious beliefs in witchcraft,
astrology, and baseless legend, melted away like clouds
before the rising sun. In the place of the mad nightmare

88 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD

of fantastic ignorance, there grew up the solid body of
unassailable knowledge of Nature and of man which we
call " science " — a growth which made such prodigious
strides in the last century that we now may be truly said
to live in the presence of a new heaven and a new earth !
It was, then, a real " stone," called the toad-stone, to
which Shakespeare alluded. It is mentioned in various
old treatises concerning the magical and medicinal
properties of gems and stones under its Latin name,
" Bufonius lapis" and was also called Borax, Nosa,
Crapondinus, Crapaudina, Chelonitis, and Batrachites. It
was also called Grateriano and Garatronius, after a gentle-
man named Gratterus, who in 1473 found a very large
one, reputed to have marvellous power. In 1657, in the
" translation by a person of quality " of the ' Thaumato-
graphia ' of a Polish physician named Jonstonus, we find
written of it : " Toads produce a stone, with their own
image sometimes. It hath very great force against
malignant tumours that are venomous. They are used to
heat it in a bag, and to lay it hot, without anything
between, to the naked body, and to rub the affected place
with it. They say it prevails against inchantments of
witches, especially for women and children bewitched.
So soon as you apply it to one bewitched it sweats many
drops. In the plague it is laid to the heart to strengthen
it." Another physician of the same period (see ' Notes
and Queries,' fourth series, vol. vii, 1871, p. 540) appears
to be affected by the new spirit of inquiry, for he relates
the old traditions about the stone and how he tested them.
He says it was reported that the stone could be cut out
of the toad's head. (In the book called ' Hortus
Sanitatis,' dated 1490, there is a picture here reproduced
[Fig. 4] of a gentleman performing this operation success-
fully on a gigantic toad.) Our sceptical physician,
however, goes on to say that it was commonly believed

A SCEPTICAL PHYSICIAN

that these stones are thrown out of the mouth by old
toads (probably the tongue was mistaken for the stone),
and that if toads are placed on a piece of red cloth they
will eject their " toad-stones," but rapidly swallow them
again before one can seize the precious gem ! He says
that when he was a boy he procured an aged toad and

FIG. 4. — Representation of a man extracting the jewel from a toad's
head; two "jewels" already extracted are seen dropping to the
ground. From the ' Hortus Sanitatis,' published in 1490.

placed it on a red cloth in order to obtain possession of
" the stone." He sat up watching the toad all night, but
the toad did not eject anything. " Since that time," he
says, " I have always regarded as humbug (' badineries ')
all that they relate of the toad-stone and of its origin."
He then describes the actual stone which passes as the
toad-stone, or Bufonius lapis, and says that it is also

go THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD

called batrachite, or brontia, or ombria. His description
exactly corresponds with the " toad-stones " which are
well known at the present day in collections of old rings.

I have examined twelve of these rings in the British
Museum, through the kindness of Sir Charles Read, P.S.A.,
the Keeper of Mediaeval Antiquities, and four in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Two of these are of
chalcedony, with a figure of a toad roughly carved on the
stone, and are of a character and origin different from the
others. The others, which are the true and recognised
" toad-stone " or " lapis Bufonius" are circular, slightly
convex " stones," of a drab colour, with a smooth,
enamel-like surface. They are plate-like discs, being of
thin substance and concave on the lower surface, which
has an upstanding rim. I recognised them at once as the
palatal teeth of a fossil fish called " Lepidotus," common in
our own oolitic and wealden strata, and in rocks of that
age all over the world. I give in Fig. 5 a drawing of
a complete set of these teeth and of a single one detached.
They were white and colourless in life, but are stained of
various colours according to the nature of the rock in
which they are embedded. A drab colour like that of the
skin of the common toad is given to them by the iron
salts present in many oolitic rocks ; those found in the
wealden of the Isle of Wight are black. That the " toad-
stones " mounted in ancient rings are really the teeth of a
fish has been already recorded by the Rev. R. H. Newell
('The Zoology of the English Poets,' 1845), but he
seems to be mistaken in identifying them with those of
the wolf-fish (Anarrhicas). They undoubtedly are the
palatal teeth of the fossil extincb ganoid fish Lepidotus.

Before leaving the queer inventions and assertions of
'the old writers about these fossil teeth, which they
declared to be taken out of the toad's head, let me quote
one delightful passage from a contemporary of Shakespeare

HOW TO TEST A TOAD-STONE 91

(Lupton, ' A thousand notable things of sundry sortes.
Whereof some are wonderful, some strange, some pleasant,
divers necessary, a great sort profitable, and many very
precious,' London, 1595). "You shall know," he says,
" whether the Toadstone called ' crapaudina ' be the right
and perfect stone or not. Hold the stone before a toad,
so that he may see it. And if it be a right and true

FIG. 5. — The palate of the fossil fish Lepidotus, showing the stud-
like teeth in position. These are often found singly, and stained
' of a dull brown colour by the rock in which they were embedded.
It was the colour of these fossil teeth, like that of a toad's body,
which led to the assertion that they were produced in the head of
the toad. a. A single detached tooth or "toad-stone" seen from
the bright unattached surface, b. The same seen from the attached
surface, c. A section of the tooth showing its cup-like shape.
(Original drawings.)

stone, the toad will leap towards it and make as though
he would snatch it from you ; he envieth so much that a
man should have that stone. This was credibly told

92 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD

Mizaldus for truth by one of the French King's physicians,
which affirmed that he did see the trial thereof."

We have thus before us the actual things called toad-
stones, and believed by Shakespeare and his contemporaries
to be found in the head of the toad. How did it come
about that these pretty little button-like, drab-coloured
fossil teeth were given such an erroneous history ? This
question was answered by the late Rev. C. W. King, Fellow
of Trinity College, Cambridge, in his book on * Antique
Gems ' (London, 1 860). He says, " I am not aware if any
substance of a stony nature is ever now discovered within
the head or body of the toad. Probably the whole story
originated in the name Batrachites (frog-stone or toad-
stone), given in Pliny to a gem brought from Coptos, and
so called from its resemblance to that animal in colour."
We have not, it must be noted, any specimens of the
toad-stone at the present day actually known to have been
brought from Coptos. It is quite possible that the fossil
fish-tooth was substituted ages ago for Pliny's Batrachites,
and was never found at Coptos at all ! Whether that is so
or not, the fact is that Pliny never said it came out of a
toad, but merely that it was of the colour of a toad.

The Pliny referred to is Pliny the Elder, the celebrated
Roman naturalist who wrote a great treatise on natural
history, which we still possess, and died in A.D. 79 whilst
visiting the eruption of Vesuvius. He says nothing of
the Batrachites being found inside the toad, nor does he
mention its medicinal virtues. The name alone — simply
the name " Batrachites," the Greek for toad-stone — was
sufficient to lead the fertile imagination of the mediaeval
doctors to invent all the other particulars ! It is a case pre-
cisely similar to that of the old lady who was credited with
having vomited " three black crows." When the report was
traced step by step to its source it was found that her nurse
had stated that she vomited something as black as a crow !

OTHER MAGICAL STONES 93

The belief in the existence of a stone of magical proper-
ties in the head of the toad is only one of many instances
of beliefs of a closely similar kind which were accepted by
Pliny (although he records no such belief as to the toad-
stone), and were passed on from his treatise on natural
history in a more or less muddled form to the middle ages,
and so to our own time by later writers. Thus Pliny cites,
as stones possessing magical properties, the " Bronte "
found in the head of the tortoise, the Cinaedia in the head
of a fish of that name, the Chelonites, a grass-green stone
found in a swallow's belly, the Draconites, which must be
cut out of the head of a live serpent, the Hyaenia from the
eye of the Hyaena, and the Saurites from the bowels of a
green lizard. All these and the Echites, or viper-stone,
were credited with extraordinary magical virtues, and many
of the assertions of later writers about the toad-stone are
clearly due to their having calmly transferred the mar-
vellous stories about other imaginary stones to the imagi-
nary toad-stone. The only stone in the above list which
has a real existence is that in the fish's head. Fish have
a pair of beautiful translucent stones in their heads — the
ear-stones or otoliths — by the laminated structure of which
we now can determine the age of a fish just as a tree's age
is told by the annual rings of growth in the wood of its
stem. The fresh-water crayfish has a very curious pair of
opaque stones (concretions of carbonate and phosphate of
lime) formed in its gizzard as a normal and regular thing.
They are familiar to every student who dissects a crayfish,
and I am told that in Germany to-day, as in old times
also, the " krebstein " is regarded by the country-folk as
possessed of medicinal and magical properties. I am not
able, on the present occasion, to trace out the possible
origin of all the stories and beliefs about stones occurring
within animals. They are more numerous than those cited
by Pliny ; they exist in every race and every civilisation

94 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD

and refer to a large variety of animals. Probably many of
these beliefs date from prehistoric times. In the East the
most celebrated of these stones, since the period of Arabic
civilization, is called a bezoar-stone, " Bezoar " is the
Persian word for " antidote," and does not apply only to a
stone. The true and original " bezoar-stone " of the East
is a concretion found in the intestine of the Persian wild
goat. Those which I have seen are usually of the size
and shape of a pigeon's egg and of a fine mahogany colour,
with a smooth, polished surface. The Persian goat's
bezoar-stone is found, on chemical analysis, to consist of
" ellagic acid," an acid allied to gallic acid, the vegetable
astringent product which occurs in oak-galls used until
lately in the manufacture of ink. The bezoar-stone is
probably a concretion formed in the intestine from some of
the undigested portions of the goat's food. Such concre-
tions are not uncommon, and occur even in man. " Bezoar-
stones " are obtained in the East from deer, antelopes, and
even monkeys, as well as goats, and must have a different
chemical nature in each case. Minute scrapings from
these stones are used in the East as medicine, and their
chemical qualities render their use not altogether absurd,
though they probably have not any really valuable action.
It is probable that their use had a later origin than that of
the " stones " connected with magic and witchcraft. Six-
teenth century writers, ever ready to invent a history when
their knowledge was defective, declared the bezoar-stone to
be formed by the inspissated tears of the deer or of the
gazelle — the " gum " which Hamlet remarked in aged
examples of the human species.

The substance called " ambergris " (grey amber), valued
to-day as a perfume, is a faecal concretion similar to a
bezoar-stone. It is formed in the intestine of the sperm-
whale, and contains fragments of the hard parts of cuttle-
fishes, which are the food of these whales. " Hair-balls "

M

MEDICINAL AND MAGICAL STONES 95

are formed in the intestines of various large vegetarian
animals — and occasionally stony concretions of various
chemical composition are formed in the urinary bladder
of various animals, as well as of man. The " eagle-stone"
is also a concretion to which magical properties were
ascribed. I have seen a specimen, but do not know its
history and origin. Glass beads found in prehistoric
burial-places are called by old writers " adders' eggs," and
" adder-stones," and were said (it is improbable that one
should say " believed ") to hatch out young adders when
incubated with sufficiently silly ceremonies and observ-
ances. A celebrated " stone " of medicinal reputation in
the East is the " goa-stone." This is a purely artificial
product — a mass of the size and shape of a large egg,
consisting of some very fine and soft powder like fullers'-
earth, sweetly scented, and over-laid with gold-leaf. A
very little is rubbed off, mixed with water, and swallowed,
as a remedy for many diseases. The deep connection of
medicine with magic, throwing light on the strange
application of stones and hairs, bones and skins, by
imaginative mankind, in all ages and places, is exhibited
in the common practice of writing with ink a sentence of
the Koran (or other sacred words) on a tablet, washing off
the ink and making the patient swallow the water in
which the sacred phrase has been thus dissolved ! How
convenient it would be were it possible thus to impart
knowledge, virtue, and health to suffering humanity !

A good example of one of the ways in which magical
properties become attributed to natural objects is the stone
known as amethyst. The ancient Indian name of this
stone had the sound represented by its present name. In
Greek this sound happens to mean " not intoxicated " ;
hence, without more ado, the ancients declared that the
amethyst was a preventive of, and a cure for, drunkenness.

CHAPTER VII
FERN-SEED

FIG. 6. — Under-surface of the frond of the common Polypody fern,
showing the circular spore-cases arranged in rows.

" \ T TE have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible,"
VV says one of Prince Hal's rollicking companions
in Shakespeare's play of " Henry IV." Ben Jonson, in the
'New Inn,' makes one of his characters say, "I had no
medicine, sir, to go invisible, no fern-seed in my pocket."
About the same time (1613) we read in a romantic poem

INVISIBLE SEED 97

of "The wondrous one-night seeding Feme." Butler, in
'Hudibras/ writes, "That spring-like fern, that insect weed,
equivocally without seed." And as late as Addison's
'Tatler' we are told of a quack advertising that he "had
discovered the female fern-seed." This is all very puzzling
to an age which has lost, almost entirely, the amazing
traditions and superstitions which were current in the
Middle Ages concerning every plant, stone, and animal.
These traditions were dressed up, perverted, and confused
survivals of the still earlier beliefs of innocent country-folk
throughout primitive and prehistoric Europe and the East,
some of them based on real experience and fact, others
purely fanciful, or the outcome of a primitive system of
magic and witchcraft.

The puzzling thing to the modern man about the fern-
seed tradition, namely, that the seed of the fern is invisible,
and confers invisibility upon whomsoever may gain posses-
sion of some of it and carry it in his pocket, is that so far
is fern-seed from being invisible that every school-boy and
school-girl knows the spore-cases of the ferns, the little
brown circular or oblong patches which appear on the back
of the fern-leaf or frond when mature (Fig. 6). These
certainly have the appearance of being "seeds," that is to
say, reproductive particles to be shed by the fern, which,
as a matter of fact, they are (though not seeds in the strictly
botanical sense), and it is astonishing that they were not
recognised by our forefathers.

It is difficult at the present day to come across anyone
who knows or has heard of "fern-seed" and its marvellous
properties. Yet it was a belief of the ancient inhabitants
of Britain and of the French Bretagne, which they colonised,
that anyone who could obtain possession of some "fern-
seed" would become invisible and receive knowledge of all
secrets. The belief was widely spread in this country
throughout mediaeval times, and persisted till the end of

7

98 FERN-SEED

the eighteenth century. As late as 1793 a respectable
countryman at Heston, Middlesex, informed an inquirer
that when he was a young man he had frequently taken
part in catching the "fern-seed" at midnight on the eve
of St. John the Baptist. The attempt to catch it was, he
said, often unsuccessful, for a plate had to be placed beneath
the fern, and the seed must fall into it "of its own accord,"
without any shaking of the plant. Another searcher of
fern-seed reports that the seed must be looked for on
Midsummer's Eve, and that the searcher must go barefoot,
and with no other clothing than a shift. He stated that
when he went to gather it the "spirits" (presumably moths
or other nocturnal insects) whisked by his ears, and some-
times struck his hat and various parts of his body. At
length, when he thought he had gathered a good quantity
of it and secured it in paper and a box, he went home. But
on examining the paper and the box he found both empty !
He does not say how he expected to detect its presence,
being a thing invisible! That appears to have been a
distinctive and curious feature about capturing fern-seed.
The ancients (Greeks and Romans) held that there was
no such thing, that ferns did not produce any seed. As to
how they propagated no decisive opinion existed. The
mediaeval folk improved upon this. They said, "Ferns must
reproduce by seed as other plants do, and since the ancients
say that ferns have no seed, that must be due to the fact
that the seed is there, but is invisible!" Accordingly, they
firmly held that ferns produce invisible seed, and then added
to this conception, in accordance with the doctrine of signa-
tures, the assertion that he who gained possession of some
of this invisible seed would himself become invisible. The
delightful absurdity of hunting on midsummer's night for
invisible seed, as to your success in finding which you could
never come to any conclusion except by yourself becoming
invisible, seems to have taken firm hold on those who loved

THE SPORES OF FERNS

99

nocturnal rambles on summer nights in mixed company,
and to have suited the mystifications and chicanery of the
wizards and magicians of the day. The pursuit of fern-
seed suggests Lord Bowen's evocation of "a blind man in
a dark room seeking for a black cat — which is not there," to
which combination he compared the study of metaphysics.
The most delightful piece of absurdity in the whole
affair is, as I have already pointed out, that ferns of all
kinds do produce a sort of seed — the brown or yellow
circular or oblong up-growths (Fig. 6) on the under surface
of their leaves, which are little cases filled with " spores."
They do not ripen till full summer or autumn, and on St.
John's Eve, when the fern-seed hunter went forth, they are
truly enough invisible, and practically non-existent. These
spore capsules were well enough known to the early
botanists, though they escaped common knowledge. They
differ characteristically in number, shape and size, in such
common British ferns as the bracken, the male fern, the
polypody, and the hart's tongue. One reason probably
for their not being associated in popular estimation with
the reproduction of the fern is that the spores — minute
oval bodies contained in the capsules — do not readily
germinate, and, when they do, do not at once give rise to
anything like a young fern or to the seedling of an ordinary
plant. When sown on a moist surface in a damp, warmish
atmosphere, the spores of a fern (Fig. 7, A) give rise each
to a delicate hair-like filament (T) which pushes from one
end of the oblong spore (as shown in the drawings B, C, D).
It consists of a chain of " cells," nucleated corpuscles of
protoplasm, which multiply by transverse fission of the
leading cell (i, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the figure). In these delicate
cells appear rounded particles of leaf-green or chlorophyll,
that important substance by the aid of which green plants
feed on carbonic acid. These " first-threads " are so minute
as to be hardly noticeable, as they lie on the surface of the

100

FERN-SEED

mould on to which they have been shed by the fern.
When the little thread is about an eighth of an inch long,
and consists of some half dozen cells arranged in a row,
the front cells divide, not transversely, but parallel to the
length of the thread (Fig. 7, D), and this mode of growth
and division, combined with the transversal one, continues
until a little green plate or flat expansion consisting of

S.C

FIG. 7, — Germination of the spore of a fern. A. A single spore
about -5^<jth of an inch in diameter. B. The protoplasm bursts
from the spore-coat, S.C., and sends out a filament-like growth, T.
In the third drawing, marked c, this becomes a rooting filament,
and the rest has divided into five cells, 1-5, containing chloro-
phyll grains. D. The front cells are now dividing laterally as well
as transversely. E. The prothallus or Marchantia-like growth,
twice the natural diameter.

conjoined cells is produced of about half the size of a
threepenny piece (E). It is not circular, but more or less
heart-shaped or bilobed. This curious little growth must
have a name. It is called the " prothallus " of the fern, or
sometimes — on account of its resemblance to the encrusta-
tions formed on damp rocks and ditch-walls by the little

THE PROTHALLUS OF FERNS

101

liver-wort or Marchantia — it is called the Marchantia-like
growth.

The botanists of some two hundred years ago — (such
as John Ray [1670], who ridiculed a botanical friend for
trying to catch fern seed on a sheet spread out on Mid-
summer's Night, when the spore-cases have not yet come
into existence) — raised these flat green growths from spores
sown on damp mould, and were at first puzzled by getting

-rhs

FiG< gt — A. Underside of the prothallus of a fern showing — rh.t root-
filaments ; an., sperm-sacs or antheridia, and ar., egg-pits or
archegonia. Magnified about four times linear. B. A prothallus
showing the young fern (b.) springing from it ; TO., root-axis of the
young fern ; rh.t root-filaments of the prothallus.

no further result. It, at any rate, was clear that there was
some excuse for the rustics who found no obvious connection
between the contents of the spore-cases and the production
of a new generation of ferns, for the thing which grew
from the spore was not a fern ! But then the observations
were carried further, and it was shown first in 1715,
and again later in 1785, that from the substance of the
flat green expansion or prothallus, after an interval of time

102 FERN-SEED

delicate young fern-fronds of minute size shoot up by
vertical growth (Fig. 8, B). The method of the reproduc-
tion of ferns and the proof of the seed-like nature of the
spores was now regarded as at last demonstrated. The
mystery of "fern-seed" was thought to be at an end. But
this was really far from the case.

It seems to many of us a commonplace — though doubt-
less it is news to some — that flowering plants produce
" germs," or egg-cells in the centre of the flowers — in that
part called the pistil — and that the heads of the stamens
produce a powder of fine granules called the " pollen-grains,"
which either fall or are carried by wind or by insects (or
by the gardener, when he carries out " artificial pollina-
tion ") on to the sticky end of the pistil (called the stigma)
and there grow down into the inside of the pistil as deli-
cate threads, so that they reach the germs or ovules — fuse
with them, and so " fertilise " them. The fertilised ovules
then undergo a growth, swell up and become ripe " seeds."
Yet this process of " the fertilisation of flowers," and the
significance of pollen as the male fertilising element, was
quite unknown until a little over two hundred years ago,
when it was discovered by one Nehemiah Grew (who was
in 1677 secretary of the Royal Society of London) in the
old Physick Garden opposite Magdalen College at Oxford.
Seventeen years later it was placed on a sure footing by
the experiments of Jacob Camerarius, who proved that
" seed " does not become fertile unless fecundated by pollen.

It is a singular fact that the ancients had no conception
of the existence of male and female reproductive particles
in plants. They seem to have regarded " pollen " as
meaningless dust. Aristotle expressly declares that plants
have no males and females, though he says he knew some
facts which led him to conclude that some trees " aid " others
in the production of fruit, as in the case of the fig-tree and
the capri-fig. The aid given in that case is now known

FERTILISATION OF FIGS AND PALMS 103

to be due to the fact that the capri-fig is merely a short-
styled form of the fig and is attacked by a gall-wasp
which destroys its ovules. The gall-wasps hatched in the
fig escape from the opening of the urn-like fig and get
covered with pollen, which they carry to other figs (not
infected by the gall-wasps), and, entering their urns, ferti-
lise them with the pollen which they bring on their bodies.
It is only by these gall-wasps that the fig can be fertilised
and produce seed. But as figs are nowadays propagated
by " cuttings," and not by seed, the capri-fig has no longer
any economic importance. The ancient Egyptians and
Assyrians, as we see by their sculptures, knew and prac-
tised artificial fertilisation of the date-palm. Aristotle's
pupil, Theophrastus, entertained the notion that this was
similar to the sexual process in animals, but dismissed
it on the ground that such a process could not occur in
one kind of tree only, but would be found in many or all
plants, if it occurred at all ! Long after him the Roman
country gentleman, Pliny, stated his belief that the pollen
of the date-palm does act in the same way as the fertilising
fluid of male animals, and he added that all trees, and even
herbs, have two sexes. But this well-founded view did
not receive any support among philosophers and natura-
lists. The authority of Aristotle gave prevalence to his
mistaken view for many centuries. Grew's observations
at the end of the seventeenth century, which were con-
firmed and extended by other botanists, were actually
the first discovery of the sexuality of plants.

It was natural enough that the botanists after Grew's
time, who succeeded in growing the flat green prothallus,
and then young ferns from fern spores, should regard the
spores as ovules, and proceed to look for organs on the
fern frond corresponding to the anthers of the stamens of
flowering plants, which they expected would be found to
produce a fertilising element like the pollen grain. Hairs

104 FERN-SEED

and other minute growths upon the fern leaf were described
as being the stamens, the producers of the fertilising male
element ; but all in vain ! No attempted demonstration
of such organs was successful, and, as a matter of fact, they
do not exist ! It was not until the nineteenth century,
actually within living memory, that the real history of the
reproduction of ferns was discovered. It was not possible
to ascertain the fact until the microscope had been improved
and the methods of study of the structure of plants
and animals had made vast progress and yielded a mass
of new knowledge.

It was discovered in 1844 (Nageli and Suminski) that
upon the under surface of the flat green prothallus which
develops from the fern spore, two kinds of minute warts
take their origin (see Fig. 8, A). The one are little volcano-
like protuberances, each containing a single ovule or egg-
cell, and may be called egg-pits (Fig. 9, D' and D) ; the
other kind are tiny sacs which contain liquid full of
actively moving spiral filaments (beset with vibrating
hairs or cilia), resembling in essential character the sper-
matozoa or motile sperm filaments of animals ; they are
the sperm-sacs (Fig. 9, A and A1). The excessively
minute microscopic motile " sperms " escape by the burst-
ing of the sacs, and swim through the film of water on
the surface of the "prothallus" (Fig. 9, B and c). When
one of these microscopic sperm-screws (6/>.) thus arrives
at one of the volcano-like egg-pits, it plunges into its
opening and fuses with the contained egg cell, thus fer-
tilising it (Fig. 9, D). It is then, and not until then,
that the egg cell commences to grow and divide, and
gives rise to the young fern plant (Fig. 8, B, b). The fern
plant nourishes itself and develops rapidly, whilst the little
green prothallus, having borne its crop of eggs and sperms,
withers, and is seen no more. The fern plant, on attaining
full size and maturity, produces, as did its grandparent,

FIG. 9. — The sperm-sacs and egg-pits of the prothallus of the ferns
highly magnified. A'. Surface view of a ripe open sperm-sac.
A. Section through it, showing the flattened cells forming its walls
and the contained corkscrew-like " sperms." B. The minute
wriggling sperms (Sp.) escaping from the sperm-sac into the water
adhering to the surface of the prothallus. c. A single sperm still
more magnified. D'. Surface view of an open egg-pit. D. Section
through an unfertilised egg-pit. Sp, A sperm swimming towards
the open mouth of the egg-pit. Con. Cells forming conducting-
plug along which the sperm will travel. Ov. Ovule or egg-cell.
E. Fertilised egg-pit. In. The orifice. Ov. The ovule now ferti-
lised and enlarging.

106 FERN-SEED

spore cases on the back of its leaves, which in due time
shed their minute unicellular spores, and these falling on
the moist earth grow, without any " fertilisation " by pollen
or sperm, into marchantia-like prothalli. Thus there are
two distinct generations in the life-history of the fern.
The first is the large foliaceous plant with stem and leaves,
which we call a fern. It produces spores of only one
kind ; they are self-sufficient, and germinate without any
fusion with, or fertilisation by, sperm or pollen. This
generation — the fern plant — we call " the spore-bearer," or
sexless generation. The second generation is the little flat
prothallus which arises from the spores of the spore-bearer.
It — and this is the remarkable thing which so long escaped
the observation of botanists — produces male and female
reproductive organs — the sperm-sacs and the egg-pits. It,
small and obscure though it be, is a complete organism in
itself, producing " eggs " or " germ-cells " which are duly
fertilised by sperm threads. We call it, in contrast to the
first generation, " the egg-and-sperm bearer," or the sexual
generation. Each of its fertilised eggs gives rise by
growth and development to a spore-bearer or fern. Thus,
then, there is an alternation of the two generations, the
spore-bearing big fern and the egg-and-sperm-bearing
marchantia-like prothallus. After all, our ancestors were
right in thinking that something very queer and unusual
underlay the propagation of ferns ! Not the least note-
worthy fact in the matter is that the male fertilising
element of the sexual generation of the fern is not dry,
dusty " pollen " as in flowering plants, but microscopic
aquatic " spermatozoa " like those of animals. Thereby
hangs a tale of extraordinary interest as to the nature and
origin of flowering plants to which I will give a new
chapter.

CHAPTER VIII
FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS

WE have seen that the spores of ferns falling on the
ground produce little flat green patches — the "pro-
thalli " — upon which female egg-pits and male sperm-sacs in
due course make their appearance, and that the microscopic
screw-like sperms (or " antherozoids " as the botanists call
them) escape from the sacs and actively swim to the egg-
pits through the film of water covering the damp growth.
They enter the egg-pits and " fertilise " the contained
egg-cell. All plants simpler than ferns, such as horse-
tails, mosses, seaweeds, and water-weeds (with some excep-
tions) have actively motile aquatic " sperms " like those of
the ferYi. And so, be it noted, have animals. All plants
higher and more elaborate than the ferns — such as the
conifers and flower-bearing trees, shrubs, and herbs (with
the rare exception among living plants of the Gingko
tree and the Cycads), cease to produce aquatic motile
sperms. Their male spores are the familiar dust-like dry
" pollen " from which, when it falls on the sticky stigma
of the flower — a solid filament grows and penetrates to
the egg-cells buried in the germen, or egg-holding central
part of the flower. Thus, ferns seem to represent a
stage half-way between the lower plants and the higher.
And as a matter of fact, in regard to many points of
their structure, they do. Recent discoveries of fossil fern-like
plants of great age have led to the definite conclusion that

lo8 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS

from ancient ferns the whole galaxy of modern cone- and
flower-bearing higher plants have been derived by a slow
process of change, step by step.

Before we look further at this interesting history, let me
tell of a very remarkable discovery about the active little
swimming sperms of the fern's sexual generation. More
than thirty years ago, one of the ablest of living botanists
— Pfeffer by name — was watching with his microscope the
movements of the swimming fern "sperms" (see Fig. 9, B, c)
in the presence of one of the tiny egg-pits which he had
cut off from a " prothallus," and placed in a thin film of
water covered by thin glass, under a high magnifying
power. He saw that as the sperms approached the egg-
pit they seemed to be drawn by some attractive force to
the mouth of the little volcano-like pit, and plunged with
great rapidity and directness into it. He came to the
conclusion that this must be due to the diffusion of some
soluble chemical substance from the mouth of the egg-pit,
which acted upon the distant sperms, and attracted and
guided them to it. He determined to find out what this
substance was, but the egg-pits are so minute that it was
not possible to collect the attractive substance, if*there,
and to make a chemical analysis of it. He therefore
proceeded to attempt to solve the problem in another
manner. He prepared, by aid of the blowpipe, a very
delicate, hairlike glass tube, and breaking it into very short
lengths filled each little piece with a different soluble
chemical substance, such as might probably be produced
by the plant. Then he placed them one by one in a film
of water under his microscope, into which he had already
introduced a quantity of the active, swimming, screw-like
little sperms of the fern's prothallus. He watched to see
whether in any case an attractive influence was exerted
upon the swimming crowd of sperms. He tried a whole
series of possible chemical substances, such as sugar,

CHEMICAL ATTRACTION 109

tartaric acid, acetic acid, and other vegetable products,
without success — the sperms took no notice. At last (I
believe it was the seventeenth of the substances he tried)
he filled one of his little tubes with a dilute solution of
the acid which is found in pears and apples, and is called
" malic acid " (from the Latin " malum," an apple) and
placed it as before. A marvellous sight then greeted his
eye. He saw the little sperms violently and eagerly
swimming to the minute glass tube containing the malic
acid, and crowding into it. This, then, was the attractive
substance produced by the egg-pit of the fern's prothallus !
The microscopic, screw-like particles of protoplasm are
guided in their movement by the dilute stream of malic
acid issuing from the egg-pit. It is a curious coincidence
that the name of this acid is appropriate as being irre-
sistibly attractive to the male fertilising sperms.

PferTer gave to this process of the chemical guidance
of simple protoplasm — which is in its results similar to
that produced by the sense of smell and taste in higher
organisms — the name "chemotaxis." It has since been
recognised as a general process of great importance in
affecting the movements of minute protoplasmic particles
—such as the white or colourless corpuscles of the blood
(phagocytes) and the ubiquitous swarming bacteria and
bacilli. Chemotaxis may cause attraction, and is then
called " positive chemotaxis," or it may cause repulsion,
when it is called "negative chemotaxis." The chemical sub-
stances which produce it are by no means limited to malic
acid, but are endless in variety : oxygen gas, as well as
various elaborate organic substances, are "positively
chemotactic " to many microscopic organisms ; weak acids
and such bodies as quinine are negatively chemotactic/
The moving towards and repulsion from other sources of
" stimulation " are conveniently spoken of by the use of
the same words, " taxis " and " tactic " ; thus the attraction

no FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS

and repulsion caused by light is called " phototaxis," that
caused by moisture " hygrotaxis," and so on. A most
important chapter in our knowledge of the activities of
protoplasm and of simple protoplasmic cells is based on
the study of these attractions and repulsions, which, whilst
they appear as arbitrary properties determined by causes
which are not immediately evident, are yet capable of
modification by experimental alteration of the conditions
in which the protoplasm exists, so that we are entitled to
speak of " the education " of such microscopic particles by
which they can be rendered either more or, on the other
hand, less sensitive to " chemotactic " agents.

To revert now to the question of the relationship of
ferns to higher plants. The following points are of impor-
tance : (i) Though true ferns produce from their spores
prothalli which carry both sperm-sacs and egg-pits on the
same specimen, yet some fern-like plants produce prothalli
which carry only egg-pits, and others which carry only
sperm-sacs, the two kinds growing side by side from the
spores shed by the fern; (2) the spores which produce the
female or egg-bearing prothalli are in some cases much
larger than those which produce the male, or sperm-sac-
bearing prothalli. We then distinguish large female-pro-
ducing spores from small male-producing spores ; (3) some
ferns — for instance our native Royal fern (Osmunda
regalis) — do not produce spores on all the leaflets of a
frond, but only on those near the tip, which are narrower
and less leaf-like than those lower down (Fig. 10, A).
Hence this fern is called "the flowering fern." For the
essence of a flower is that it is a set of leaves like the
other leaves of the flowering plant, usually not green and
flat, as they are, but modified — one or more whorls of
them being often coloured and arranged, so as to close
over the terminal or tip leaves, which are called " stamens "
and " carpels," and bear the reproductive particles (Fig. i o

Ill

H2 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS

D and E). Many varieties and " sports " of cultivated plants
show clearly enough that the stamens are leaves, and that
the segments of the central or terminal part, the " pistil,"
are also leaves — carpellary leaves or " carpels," as they are
called. Double-flowers are sports in which all the staminal,
or male, and all the carpels, or female structures assume
the form of leaves like the coloured circlet called the
petals. But sometimes " sports " go further and all take
on the colour and structure of green foliage leaves, as is
the case in the green rose, of which an example exists
in Kew Gardens. In this way it becomes evident that
foliage leaves and the close-set whorls of the parts of the
flower are all of the same nature, namely, leaves, or
" foliar appendages." An examination of the parts of the
flower of the finest of English flowers, the common water
lily, will convince any doubter that this is true.

The modified tip of the frond of the flowering fern is in
its nature the same thing as a flower, and would only need
to be made a little more compact, and to have its spore-
bearing leaflets set in whorls surrounded by others devoid
of spores, in order to fully justify us in calling it a
" flower."

But what about the spores and the two generations, the
spore-bearer and the egg-and sperm-bearer of the fern ?
How are they represented in the flowering plant ? It is
true there is no visible second generation in the flowering
plant. But this is not because it is not there ; it is because
it is so small and so much altered that it has taken a great
deal of time and ingenuity for botanists to find it out.
Among ferns there are some which have a very minute
sexual generation or prothallus, and the spores of one part
may drop on to the fronds of another part and germinate
there and give rise to the sexual prothallus without falling
to the ground, so that little ferns are seen growing on
the surface of the bigger fronds. You may see such ferns

,

TRANSITION FROM FERNS TO FLOWERS 113

in greenhouses. But there are yet other cases among
fern-like plants, in which the big spores mentioned above
actually germinate without quitting the leaflet on which
they are formed and produce very minute prothalli bearing
egg-pits without separation from the spore-bearing fern !
Now, it is no stretch of the imagination to conceive of fern-
like plants as having once existed, in which the leaflets
bearing large spores should be grouped like the scales of a
pine-cone or the whorls of a flower so as to protect the
large spores, and that these spores should " germinate "
beneath their coats each where it is fixed, thus producing
without falling from its place of origin a minute, solid, little
prothallus, which in due course produces one or more egg-
pits, each holding a single egg-cell. Each such leaflet is a
carpel or carpellary leaf. At the same time the leaflets
carrying the small spores destined to produce prothalli,
which will carry only sperm-sacs, must be supposed to
have formed either a separate male cone or a male flower,
or to have arranged themselves around the female carpels
as stamens or staminal leaflets. We shall see what
happens to the small spores which they produce.

How, then, are we to suppose that fertilisation took
place ? The extinct plants in which these changes actually
arose were not small or aquatic in habit. They were well
grown shrubs and trees. This is what occurred. The
staminal or male leaflets produced their small spores in
spore-cases (the anthers), and the cases burst, setting free
the male-prothallus-producing spores, which are, in fact,
the same thing as the pollen grains of higher plants.
Unlike the female-prothallus-producing spores, or big
spores, they do not remain in place, but are shed in
showers of millions into the air. They are blown by the
wind (as we see to-day in the case of pines and many
other trees), and are carried by it to the female or car-
pellary cones, or maybe to rosette-like female flowers.

8

II4 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS

The dispersal of the male-spores, or pollen, by wind
was the earlier method ; it was not until a late geological
period — the cretaceous, or chalk — that (as their fossil
remains show us) insects capable of feeding on the honey
of flowers, and coloured flowers capable of attracting the
insects by sight, came into existence ; and it is since that
period that all the wonderful relations and adaptations of
flower to insect, and insect to flower, have been brought
about. Before that, the wind-blown pollen-grains, or male-
prothallus-spores, were in such profusion that some of
them were carried by the wind to the surface of the car-
pellary leaflets of the female cones, or rosettes, as occurs
to-day in the pine-trees which shed enormous quantities
of pollen-dust in the spring. There the pollen spore
germinated instead of waiting to reach the ground and
produce its little thread-like prothallus. In early geological
times (Oolitic) — as we know from certain rare trees which
have persisted from those times, when they were very
abundant, to this day, viz. the Japanese Gingko tree, or
Maiden's Hair fern-tree, and the Cycads, or palm-conifers
— the little " prothallus " which emerged out of the pollen-
spore was not a simple filament as it is in the case of the
pollen of our modern flowering plants. The pollen-spore
of the Gingko tree and the Cycads actually produces in
these survivors of primitive forms at least one sperm-sac
containing liquid in which are motile sperms. And the
egg-pit of the female prothallus developed from the big
spores borne by the carpellary leaflets of the female
flowers is not so reduced or simple a thing as it is in
modern flowering plants. It is a real pit containing liquid,
and the motile sperms from the pollen's prothallus which
pushes itself into the little pit, are liberated and swim
about in the liquid of the reservoir or chamber formed by
the egg-pit, and then fuse with the egg-cells there em-
bedded and fertilise them. We see there is still a great

THE GINGKO TREE AND GVCADS 115

deal of the separate sexual generation retained. Much
of this has been done away with in the process of time
in the course of those changes which have given us the
.great modern group of flowering plants and trees. Thefe
is in modern flower-bearing trees and herbs no pit, pro-
vided by the female prothallus, containing liquid for the
motile sperms to swim about in ; the pollen-prothallus no
longer produces motile sperms. It does not even divide
into a chain of cells, but becomes a very small thread
called the "pollen-tube," and makes its way by growth into
contact with the egg-cell embedded in loose tissue, and
itself fuses with the egg-cell. Thus, in the modern group
of flowering plants, the female prothallus is reduced to a
solid particle of tissue in which an egg-cell is set, and the
male prothallus does not even arrive at the dignity of
forming cells and tissue, let alone sperms ; it is a simple
protoplasmic filament which issues from the " small spore "
or pollen grain.

In the living survivors of the great forests of Gingko
trees and Cycad-like plants intermediate between ferns
and modern flowering plants which flourished in the
oolitic period, two Japanese botanists, Hirase and Ikeno,
discovered twenty years ago that the pollen-grains — the
male fertilising spores (familiar in all our modern flowering
plants) — when carried on to the female flowers, produce by
cell-division a growth like the little green "prothallus" of
the fern, and that this growth, penetrating the female
structures, gives rise to actively swimming sperms (as does
the prothallus of a fern), which are received into a liquid-
holding cavity of the egg-producing growth of the female
spores. These female spores and the little egg-producing
plants to which they give rise remain attached to and
fixed on the leaf where they originate, instead of being
shed, as in the case of ferns ; but the same process of
fertilisation by sperms which swim freely in liquid takes

n6 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS

place in the Gingko and the Cycads as occurs in the
detached, separately growing sexual generation or " pro-
thallus " of the fern.

These remarkable survivals of the fern-stage of develop-
ment are suppressed in the modern " flowering plants," the
pine trees and the whole host of trees and herbs which bear
"flowers." In them there are no "sperms," but the pollen-
spore gives rise, when carried to the carpels or female
leaves, to a minute hair-like filament, almost devoid of
structure. The pollen filament, thus growing, penetrates the
tissues surrounding the equivalent of the egg- bearing "pro-
thallus," which is never shed, but remains fixed to the female
leaf on which it originated. Thus the ovule or egg-cell is
"fertilised," so to speak "in place," by the pollen filament
itself without the production of any separate "sperms." The
sexual or "prothallus" generation of the fern is in fact
reduced and becomes, so far as the female is concerned, a
minute part of the large spore-bearing plant or first gene-
ration, whilst so far as the male spore (pollen) is concerned,
it is detached as in ferns, but never develops further than
the condition of a tiny filament, and never produces sperms.
No one would ever guess that such a history lay behind
the pollen and the seed of our common plants on first
acquaintance with them. The discovery was one of the
many great triumphs of scientific investigation in the
second half of "the wonderful century" which closed ten
years ago.

The fertilised ovule or egg-cell of the flowering plant is
contained in an envelope and packing of more or less
numerous " coats." It swells up when fertilised and com-
mences to grow within its case as a young plant, and is
said to be a ripe and fully-formed " seed " when its envelope
becomes hard and protective. The formation of what is
properly called " seed " is a protective process in which the
young embryo, already well advanced in growth, is en-

EXTINCT SEED-PRODUCING FERNS 117

veloped in a variety of ways in different instances and
is arrested for a time, often a very long time, in its further
growth. The envelopes may be big or small, whilst the
living germ within — sometimes minute, sometimes big, as
in the bean, and bigger still in the cocoa-nut — is further
protected and assisted in its dispersal by the swelling up,
around the seeds, of the substance of the carpels or big
spore-bearing leaves, to form the "fruit." Nothing like
a seed (that is, a true seed in the botanical sense), nor
anything corresponding to a fruit is developed in true ferns,
but there were ancient ferns (in the coal-measures) which
are shown by well-preserved fossils to have produced
attached "seeds" instead of detached prothalli, and consti-
tute a group called " seeding ferns." They lead on to
primitive cycads (so-called fern-cycads) and primitive coni-
fers in the succeeding Oolitic age, from which our modern
flowering plants and pine trees have finally arisen. Our
ferns of to-day often attain the size of trees (the tree-ferns
in Australasia are 50 feet high), but they remain at the
lower stage of elaboration of the reproductive process. The
extinct " seeding ferns " formed the step leading on to
further changes, and they have left no survivors of precisely
their own grade of development. The gradual develop-
ment of the flower and the fruit followed in their offspring
by steps which have been very largely ascertained in fossil
remains of the Oolitic period.

The development of the colours and shapes of our
modern dominant flowering plants under the influence of
insects was a later step, in tracing which the fossilised
remains of plants and animals give us only the negative
indication that there were neither such flowers nor such
insects until the chalk period — that landmark of geologic
progress which in many ways marks off the more modern
animals and plants of the Tertiary period from the Secon-
dary, in which great reptiles and the ancient cycads and

n8 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS

gingko-trees flourished. It is a very curious and significant
fact, when one thinks it over, that the beautiful shapes
and colours of flowers which human beings admire and
love so much to-day, have been produced by the habit of
insects seeking honey and pollen as nourishment from
flowers which were at first dull-coloured or green, but
became brilliant in colour and arresting in shape by
natural selection and survival of the fit. Those flowers
which at first by variation — variation which always and
simply must occur, because all nature varies and changes
in detail as time goes on — showed a patch of colour, were
seen and visited by the insects, were accordingly fertilised
by the pollen carried on the body of the insect, and so
were favoured and transmitted their variation, their ten-
dency to produce colour, to their offspring. Thus, through
the agency of the insects, bright obvious flowers of various
colours and shapes were little by little developed. At
first a little colour would gain success, but more and more,
in the competition for place and nourishment, the brightest
and (to the insects) most attractive colourings and shapes
would gain favour and multiply. And so at last we have
that world of beauty — the flowers as we see them to-day
in all their loveliness of colour and pattern — created, pro-
duced, even as man produces new garden kinds, by those
innocent little horticulturists — the flower-seeking insects.

CHAPTER IX
ELEPHANTS

IN the novel by that clever but contradictious writer,
Sam Butler, entitled 'The Way of All Flesh,' an
amiable and philosophically minded old gentleman, who
pervades the story, states that when one feels worried or
depressed by the incidents of one's daily life, great comfort
may be derived from an hour spent at the Zoological
Gardens in company with the larger mammalia. He
ascribes to them a remarkable soothing influence, and I am
inclined to agree with him. I am not prepared to decide
whether the effect is due to the example of patience under
adversity offered by these animals, or whether it is perhaps
their tranquil indifference to everything but food, coupled
with their magnificent success in attaining to such dignity
of size, which imposes upon me and fills me for a brief
space with resignation and a childlike acquiescence in
things as they are. The elephant stands first as a soothing
influence, and then the giraffe, the latter having special
powers, due to its beautiful eyes and agreeable perfume.
Sometimes the hippopotamus may diffuse a charm of his
own, an aura of rotund obesity, especially when he is
bathing or sleeping ; but there are moments when one
has to flee from his presence. I never could get on very
well with rhinoceroses, but the large deer, bison, and wild
cattle have the quality detected by Mr. Butler. So has
the gorgeous, well-grown tiger, in full measure, when he

120

ELEPHANTS

purrs in answer to one's voice : but the lion is pompous,
irritable, and easily upset. He never purrs. He is
unpleasantly and obscurely spotted. He seems to be
afraid of losing his dignity, and to be conscious of the
fact that his reputation — like that of some English officials
— depends on the overpowering wig which he now wears,
though his Macedonian forerunner had no such growth to
give an illusive appearance of size and capacity to his
head. However opinions may differ about these things,
all will agree that the elephant (or " Oliphant," as he was

FIG. II. — The Indian elephant (Elephas maximus or indicus).
Observe the small size of its ear-flap.

called in France 400 years ago) is the most imposing,
fascinating, and astonishing of all animals.

At the present day there are two species only of
elephant existing on the earth's surface. These are the
Indian (Fig. 11) (called Elephas indicus, but sometimes
called Elephas maximus on account of the priority which
belongs to that designation, although the Indian elephant
is smaller than the other), and the African (Fig. 1 2) (called
Elephas Africanus). In the wild state their area of
occupation has become greatly diminished within historic
times. The Indian elephant was hunted in Mesopotamia

THE INDIAN AND AFRICAN ELEPHANT 121

in the twelfth century B.C., and Egyptian drawings of the
eighteenth dynasty show elephants of this species brought
as tribute by Syrian vassals. To-day the Indian elephant
is confined to certain forests of Hindoostan, Ceylon,
Burma, and Siam. The African elephant extended 100
years ago all over South Africa, and in the days of the
Carthaginians was found near the Mediterranean shore,
whilst in prehistoric (late Pleistoscene) times it existed in
the south of Spain and in Sicily. Now it is confined to

X2

FIG. 12. — The African elephant (Elephas africanus) with rider
mounted on its back. The drawing is an enlarged representation
of an ancient Carthaginian coin.

the more central and equatorial zone of Africa, and is
yearly receding before the incursions and destructive
attacks of civilised man.

At no great distance of time before the historic period,
earlier, indeed, than the times of the herdsmen who used
polished stone implements and raised great stone circles,
namely, in the late pleistocene period, we find that there
existed all over Europe and North Asia and the northern
part of America another elephant very closely allied to the

122 ELEPHANTS

Indian elephant, but having a bow-like outward curvature
of the tusks, their points finally directed towards one
another, and a thick growth of coarse hair all over the
body. This is " the mammoth," the remains of which
are found in every river valley in England, France and
Germany, and of which whole carcases are frequently dis-
covered in Northern Siberia, preserved from decay in the
frozen river gravels and " silt." The ancient cave-men of
France used the fresh tusks of the mammoth killed on the
spot for their carvings and engravings, and from their time
to this the ivory of the mammoth has been, and remains,
in constant use. It is estimated that during the last two
centuries at least I oo pairs of mammoths' tusks have been
each year exported from the frozen lands of Siberia. In
early mediaeval times the trade existed, and some ivory
carvings and drinking horns of that age appear to be
fashioned from this more ancient ivory.

Already, then, within the human period we find elephants
closely similar to those of our own time, far more numerous
and more widely distributed than in our own day, and
happily established all over the temperate regions of the
earth — even in our Thames Valley and in the forests where
London now spreads its smoky brickwork. When we go
further back in time — as the diggings and surveying of
modern man enable us to do — we find other elephants of
many different species, some differing greatly from the three
species I have mentioned, and leading us back by gradual
steps to a comparatively small animal, about the size of a
donkey, without the wonderful trunk or the immense tusks
of the later elephants. By the discovery and study of these
earlier forms we have within the last ten years arrived at a
knowledge of the steps by which the elephant acquired in
the course of long ages (millions of years) his " proboscis "
(as the Greeks first called it), and I will later sketch that
history.

.

SIZE OF MODERN ELEPHANTS 123

But now let us first of all note some of the peculiarities
of living elephants and the points by which the two kinds
differ from one another. The most striking fact about
the elephant is its enormous size. It is only exceeded
among living animals by whales ; it is far larger than the
biggest bull, or rhinoceros, or hippopotamus. A fair-sized
Indian elephant weighs two to three tons (Jumbo, one of
the African species, weighed five), and requires as food 60 Ib.
of oats, li truss of hay, ij truss of corn a day, costing
together in this country about 5 s. ; whereas a large cart-horse
weighs I 5 cwt, and requires weekly three trusses of hay and
80 Ib. of oats, costing together 1 2s.t or about I s. 8^. a day.
It is this which has proved fatal to the elephant since man
took charge of the world. The elephant requires so much
food and takes so many years in growing up (twenty or
more before he his old enough to be put to work), that it
is only in countries where there is a superabundance of
forest in which he can be allowed to grow to maturity at
his own " charges " (so to speak) that it is worth while to
attempt to domesticate and make use of him. For most
purposes three horses are more " handy" than one elephant.
The elephant is caught when he is already grown up, and
then trained. It is as a matter of economy that he is not
bred in confinement, and not because there is any insuper-
able difficulty in the matter. Occasionally elephants have
bred in menageries.

There is no doubt that the African elephant at the
present day grows to a larger size than the Indian, though
it was the opinion of the Romans of the Empire that the
Indian elephant was the more powerful, courageous, and
intelligent of the two. It seems next to impossible to
acquire at the present day either specimens or trustworthy
records of the largest Indian elephants. About loft. 6 in.
at the shoulder seems to be the maximum, though they
£re dressed up by their native owners with platforms and

124 ELEPHANTS

coverings to make them look bigger. In India the skin
of domesticated individuals is polished and carefully
stained, like an old boot, by the assiduity of their
guardians, so that a museum specimen of exceptional
size, fit for exhibition and study, cannot be obtained. On
the other hand, the African elephant not unfrequently
exceeds a height of 1 1 ft. at the shoulder. With some
trouble I obtained one exceeding this measurement direct
from East Africa for the Natural History Museum, where
it now stands. It seems highly probable that this species
occasionally exceeds 12 ft. in height. On the ground,
between the great African elephant's fore and hind legs, in
the museum, I placed a stuffed specimen of the smallest
terrestrial mammal — the pigmy shrew-mouse. It is worth
while thus calling to mind that the little animal has practi-
cally every separate bone, muscle, blood-vessel, nerve, and
other structure present in the huge monster compared with
it — is, in fact, built closely upon the same plan, and yet is
so much smaller that it is impossible to measure one by
the other. The mouse is only about one fifth the length
of the elephant's eye. According to ancient Oriental
fable, the mouse and the dragon were the only two
animals of which the elephant was afraid.

The African elephant has much larger tusks relatively
to his size than the Indian, and both males and females
have them, whereas the Indian female has none. A very
fine Indian elephant's tusk weighs from 75lb. to 80 Ib.
The record for an African elephant's tusk was (according
to standard books) 1 80 Ib. But I obtained ten years ago
for the museum, where it now may be seen, an African
elephant's tusk weighing 228^1b. Its fellow weighed a
couple of pounds less. It measures I oft. 2 in. in length
along the curvature. This tusk was recognised by Sir
Henry Stanley's companion, Mr. Jephson, when he was
with me in the museum, as actually one which he had last

EARS AND TEETH OF ELEPHANTS 125

seen in the centre of Africa. He told me that he had, in
fact, weighed and measured this tusk in the treasury of
Emin Pasha, in Central Africa, when he went with Stanley
to bring Emin down to the coast. As will be remembered,
Emin had no wish to go to the coast, but returned to his
province. He was subsequently attacked and murdered
by an Arab chief, who appropriated his store of ivory, and
in the course of time had it conveyed to the ivory market
at Zanzibar. The date of the purchase there of the
museum specimen corresponds with the history given by
Mr. Jephson.

The African elephant (as may be seen by comparing
the small one now living in Regent's Park with its neigh-
bours) has a sloping forehead graduating into the trunk or
proboscis, instead of the broad, upright brow of the
Indian. He also has very much larger ears, which lie
against the shoulders (except when he is greatly excited)
like a short cape or cloak (see Fig. 12). These great ears
differ somewhat in shape in the elephants of different parts
of Africa, and local races can be distinguished by the
longer or shorter angle into which the flap is drawn out.
The grinding teeth of the two elephants differ very
markedly, but one must see these in a museum. The
grinders are very large and long (from behind forwards),
coming into place one after the other. Each grinder
occupies, when fully in position, the greater part of one
side of the upper or of the lower jaw. They are crossed
from right to left by ridges of enamel, like a series
of mountains and valleys, which gradually wear down by
rubbing against those of the tooth above or below. The
biggest grinder of the Indian elephant has twenty-four of
these transverse ridges, whilst that of the African has only
eleven, which are therefore wider apart (See Fig. 13).
An extinct kind of elephant — the mastodon — had only
five such ridges on its biggest grinders, and four or

126

ELEPHANTS

only three on the others. Other ancestral elephants
had quite ordinary-looking grinders, with only two or
three irregular ridges or broad tubercles. Both the
Indian and African elephant have hairless, rough, very
hard, wrinkled skins. But the newborn young are
covered with hair, and some Indian elephants living in cold,
mountainous regions appear to retain a certain amount of

B

FlG. 13. — The crowns of three "grinders" or molars of elephants
compared. A is that of an extinct mastodon with four transverse
ridges ; B is that of the African elephant with nine ridges in use
and ground flat ; c is that of the mammoth with sixteen narrow
ridges in use — the res*t, some eight in number, are at the left hand
of the figure and not yet in use.

hair through life. The mammoth (which agreed with the
Indian elephant in the number of ridges on its grinders
and in other points) lived in quite cold, sub-Arctic condi-
tions, at a time when glaciers completely covered Scandi-
navia and the north of our islands as well as most of

WHEN ELEPHANTS BROUGHT TO EUROPE 127

Germany. It retained a complete coat of coarse hair
throughout life. The young of our surviving elephants
only exhibit transitorily the family tendency.

The last mammoth probably disappeared from the area
which is now Great Britain about 150,000 years ago. It
might be supposed that no elephant was seen in England
again until the creation of " menageries " and " zoological
Gardens " within the last two or three hundred years.
This, however, is by no means the case. The Italians in
the middle ages, and through them the French and the
rulers of Central Europe, kept menageries, and received as
presents, or in connection with their trade with the East
and their relations with Eastern rulers, frequent specimens
of strange beasts from distant lands. Our King Henry I,
had a menagerie at Woodstock, where he kept a porcu-
pine, lions, leopards, and a camel ! The Emperor
Charlemagne received in 803 A.D. from Haroun al
Raschid, the Caliph of Bagdad, an elephant named
Abulabaz. It was brought to Aix-la-Chapelle by Isaac the
Jew, and died suddenly in 8 1 o. Some four and a half
centuries later (in 1257), Louis IX, of France, returning
from the Holy Land, sent as a special and magnificent
present to Henry III, King of England (according to the
chronicle of Matthew Paris), an elephant which was ex-
hibited at the Tower of London. It was supposed by the
chronicler to be the first ever brought to England, and
indeed the first to be taken beyond Italy, for he did not
know of Charlemagne's specimen. In 1591 King Henry
IV of France, wishing to be very polite to Queen
Elizabeth of England, and apparently rather troubled by
the expense of keeping the beast himself, sent to her,
having heard that she would like to have it, an elephant
which had been brought from the " Indies " and landed at
Dieppe. He declared it to be the first which had ever
come into France, but presented it to Her Majesty " as I

128 ELEPHANTS

would most willingly present anything more excellent did I
possess it." Thenceforward elephants were from time to
time exhibited at the Tower, together with lions and other
strange beasts acquired by the Crown.

None of these elephants were, however, " the first who
ever burst " into remote Britain after the mammoths had
disappeared, and we were separated from Europe by the
geological changes which gave us the English Channel —
La Manche. Though Julius Caesar himself does not
mention it, it is definitely stated by a writer on strategy
named Polyaenus, a friend of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius,
but not, I am sorry to say, an authority to whose statements
historians attach any serious value — that Caesar made use
of an elephant armed with iron plates and carrying on its
back a tower full of armed men to terrify the ancient
Britons when he crossed the Thames — an operation which
he carried out, I believe, somewhere between Molesey and
Staines.

Elephants are often spoken of as " Ungulates," and classed
by naturalists with the hoofed animals (the odd-toed
tapirs, rhinoceroses, and horses, and the even-toed pigs,
camel, cattle, and deer). But there is not much to say
in defence of such an association. The elephants have,
as a matter of fact, not got hoofs, and they have five toes
on each foot. The five toes of the front foot have each a
nail, whilst usually only four toes of the hind foot have
nails. A speciality of the elephant is the great circular
pad of thick skin overlying fat and fibrous tissue, which
forms the sole of the foot and bears the animal's
enormous weight. This buffer-like development of the
foot existed in some great extinct mammals (the Dinoceras
family, of North America), but is altogether different
from the support given by a horse's hoof or the paired
shoe-like hoofs of great cattle or the three rather elegant
hoofed toes of the rhinoceros.

THE ELEPHANT'S LEGS 129

The Indian elephant likes good, solid ground to walk
on, and when he finds himself in a boggy place will seize
any large objects (preferably big branches of trees) and
throw them under his feet to prevent himself sinking in.
Occasionally he will remove the stranger who is riding on
his back and make use of him in this way. The circum-
ference of the African elephant's fore-foot is found by
hunters to be half the animal's height at the shoulder, and
is regarded as furnishing a trustworthy indication of his
stature.

The legs of the elephant differ from those of more
familiar large animals in the fact that the ankle and the
wrist (the so-called knee of the horse's fore-leg) are not far
above the sole of the foot (resembling man's joints in
that respect), whilst the true knee-joint (called "the
stifle " in horses) — instead of being, as in horses, high up,
close against the body, strongly flexed even when at rest,
and obscured by the skin — is far below the body, free and
obvious enough. In fact, the elephant keeps the thigh
and the upper arm perpendicular and in line with the
lower segment of the limb when he is standing, so that
the legs are pillar-like. But he bends the joints amply
when in quick movement. The hind legs seen in action
resemble, in the proportions of thigh, fore-leg, and foot,
and the bending at the knee and ankle, very closely those
of a man walking on " all fours." The elephant as
known in Europe more than 300 years ago was rarely
seen in free movement. He was kept chained up in
his stall, resting on his straight, pillar-like legs and their
pad-like feet. And with that curious avidity for the
marvellous which characterised serious writers in those
days to the exclusion of any desire or attempt to ascertain
the truth, it was coolly asserted, and then commonly
believed, that the elephant could not bend his legs.
Shakespeare — who, of course, is merely using a common

9

130 ELEPHANTS

belief of his time as a chance illustration of human character
— makes Ulysses say (referring to his own stiffness of
carriage) (" Troilus and Cressida," Act II) : " The elephant
hath joints, but none for courtesy ; his legs are legs for
necessity, not for flexure." An old writer says : " The
elephant hath no joints, and, being unable to lye down, it
lieth against a tree, which, the hunters observing, do saw
almost asunder ; whereon the beast relying — by the fall
of the tree falls also down itself, and is able to rise no
more." Another old writer (Bartholomew, 1485), says,
more correctly : " When the elephant sitteth he bendeth
his feet ; he bendeth the hinder legs right as a man."

A writer of 1 20 years later in date (Topsell) says : " In
the River Ganges there are blue worms of sixty cubits
long having two arms ; these when the elephants come to
drink in that river take their trunks in their hands and
pull them off. At the sight of a beautiful woman elephants
leave off all rage and grow meek and gentle. In Africa
there are certain springs of water which, if at any time
they dry up, they are opened and recovered again by the
teeth of elephants." The blue worm of the Ganges
referred to is no doubt the crocodile ; both in India and
Africa animals coming to the rivers to drink are seized by
lurking crocodiles, who fix their powerful jaws on to the
face (snout or muzzle) of the drinking animal and drag it
under the water. Thus the fable has arisen of the origin
of the elephant's trunk as recounted by Mr. Rudyard
Kipling. A young elephant (before the days of trunks),
according to this authority, when drinking at a riverside
had his moderate and well-shaped snout seized by a
crocodile. The little elephant pulled and the crocodile
pulled, and by the help of a friendly python the elephant
got the best of it. He extricated himself from the jaws of
death. But, oh ! what a difference in his appearance !
His snout was drawn out so as to form that wonderful

TUSKS USED IN DIGGING 131

elongated thing with two nostrils at the end which we call
the elephant's trunk, and was henceforth transmitted (a
first-rate example of an " acquired character ") to future
generations ! The real origin of the elephant's trunk is
(as I will explain later) a different one from that
handed down to us in the delightful jungle-book. I
do not believe in the hereditary transmission of acquired
modifications !

Topsell may or may not be right as to the result produced
on elephants by the sight of a beautiful woman. In Africa
the experiment would be a difficult one, and even in India
inconclusive. Topsell seems, however, to have come
across correct information about the digging for water by
an African elephant by the use of his great tusks — those
tusks for the gain of which he is now being rapidly
exterminated by man. Serious drought is frequent in
Africa, and a cause of death to thousands of animals.
African elephants, working in company, are known to have
excavated holes in dried-up river beds to the depth of 2 5 ft.
in a single night in search of water. It is probable that
the Indian elephant's tusk would not be of service in such
digging, and it is to be noted that he is rather an inhabi-
tant of high ground and table-lands than of tropical
plains liable to flood and to drought. The tusk of the
Indian elephant has become merely a weapon of attack for
the male, and there are even local breeds in which it is
absent in the males as well as in the females. The
mammoth was a near cousin of the Indian elephant, and
inhabited cold uplands and the fringes of sub-Arctic forests,
on which he fed. His tusks were very large, and curved
first outward and then inward at the tips. They would
not have served for heavy digging, and probably were used
for forcing a way through the forest and as a protection to
the face and trunk.

The trunk of the elephant was called " a hand " by old

I32 ELEPHANTS

writers, and it seems to have acted in the development of
the elephant's intelligence in the same way as man's hand
has in regard to his mental growth, though in a less degree.
The Indian elephant has a single tactile and grasping
projection (sometimes called " a ringer ") placed above
between the two nostrils at the end of the trunk ; the
African elephant has one above and one below. I have
seen the elephant pick up with this wonderful trunk with
equal facility a heavy man and then a threepenny piece.

The intelligence of the elephant is sometimes exag-
gerated by reports and stories ; sometimes it is not suffi-
ciently appreciated. It is not fair to compare the intelligence
of the elephant with that of the dog — bred and trained by
man for thousands of years. So far as one can judge,
there is no wild animal, excepting the higher apes, which
exhibits so much and such varied intelligence as the elephant.
It appears that from early tertiary times (late Eocene) the
ancestors of elephants have had large brains, whilst, when
we go back so far as this, the ancestors of nearly all other
animals had brains a quarter of the size (and even less in
proportion to body-size) which their modern representatives
have. Probably the early possession of a large brain at a
geological period when brains were as a rule small is what
has enabled the elephants not only to survive until to-day,
but to spread over the whole world (except Australia), and
to develop an immense variety and number of individuals
throughout the tertiary series in spite of their ungainly
size. It is only the yet bigger brain of man which (would
it were not so !) is now at last driving this lovable giant, this
vast compound of sagacity and strength, out of existence.
The elephant — like man standing on his hind legs — has a
wide survey of things around him owing to his height. He
can take time to allow of cerebral intervention in his actions
since he is so large that he has little cause to be afraid and
to hurry. He has a fine and delicate exploring organ in

ELEPHANTS USED IN WAR 133

his trunk, with its hand-like termination ; with this he can,
and does, experiment and builds up his individual knowledge
and experience. Elephants act together in the wild state,
aiding one another to uproot trees too large for one to deal
with alone. They readily understand and accept the guid-
ance of man, and with very small persuasion and teaching
execute very dextrous work — such as the piling of timber.
If man had selected the more intelligent elephants for
breeding over a space of a couple of thousand years a
prodigy of animal intelligence would have resulted. But
man has never " bred " the elephant at all.

The Greeks and Romans knew ivory first, and then
became acquainted with the elephant. The island of
Elephantina in the Nile was from the earliest times a seat
of trade in the ivory tusks of the African elephant, and so
acquired its name. Herodotus is the first to mention the
elephant itself; Homer only refers to the ivory by the word
" elephas." Aristotle in this, as in other matters, is more
correct than later writers. He probably received first-hand
information about the elephant from Alexander and some
of his men after their Indian expedition. The Romans
had an unpleasant first personal experience of elephants
when Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, landed a number with his
army and put the Roman soldiers to flight. But the
Romans then, and continually in after-times, showed their
cool heads and sound judgment in a certain contempt for
elephants as engines of war. They soon learned to dig
pits on the battlefield to entrap the great beasts, and they
deliberately made for the elephant's trunks, hewing them
through with their swords, so that the agonised and
maddened creatures turned round and trampled down the
troops of their own side. The Romans only used them
subsequently to terrify barbaric people, and as features in
military processions. But Eastern nations used them
extensively in war. In A.D. 217 Antiochus the Great

134 ELEPHANTS

brought 2 1 7 elephants in his army against 73 employed by
Ptolemy, at what was called "the Battle of the Elephants."
The battle commenced by the charging head to head of
the opposing elephants and the discharge of arrows, spears
and stones by the men in the towers on their backs.

An interesting question has been raised as to whether
the elephants used by the Carthaginians were the African
species or the Indian. There is no doubt that the ele-
phants of Pyrrhus and those known to Alexander were
the Indian, though they were taken in those days much to
the West of India, namely, in Mesopotamia, and it would
not have been difficult for the Cathaginians to convey
Indian elephants, which had certainly been brought as far
as Egypt, along the Mediterranean coast. An unfounded
prejudice as to the want of docility of the African elephant
has favoured the notion that the Carthaginians used the
Indian elephant. As a matter of fact, no one in modern
times has tried to train the African elephant, except here
and there in a zoological garden. Probably the Indian
" mahout," or elephant trainer could, if he were put to it,
do as much with an African as he does with an Indian
elephant. It would be an interesting experiment. In the
next place, there is decisive evidence that it was the African
elephant which the Carthaginians used, since we have a
Carthaginian coin (Fig. 12) on which is beautifully repre-
sented— in unmistakable modelling — the African elephant,
with his large triangular cape-like ears and his sloping
forehead. In the time of Hannibal there were stables for
over 300 of these elephants at Carthage, and he took fifty
with him to the South of France with his army for the
Italian invasion. He only got thirty-seven safely over the
Rhone, and all but a dozen or so died in the terrible passage
of the Alps. After the battle of Trebia he had only eight
left, and when he had crossed the Apennines there was only
one still alive, On this Hannibal himself rode.

GEOLOGICAL STRATA SINCE THE CHALK 135

Since the period when the white chalk which now forms
our cliffs and hills was deposited at the bottom of a vast
and deep ocean — the sea bottom has been raised, the chalk
has emerged and risen on the top of hills to 800 ft in
height in our own islands, and to ten times that height
elsewhere, and during that process sands and clays and
shelly gravels have been deposited to the thickness of some
2800 ft. by seas and estuaries and lakes, which have come
and gone on the face of Europe and of other parts of the
world as it has slowly sunk and slowly risen again. The
last 200 ft. or so of deposits we call the Pleistocene or
Quaternary ; the rest are known as the Tertiary strata.
They are only a small part of the total thickness of
aqueous deposit of stratified rock — which amounts to
60,000 ft. more before the earliest remains of life in the
Cambrian beds are reached, whilst older than, and therefore
below this, we have another 5 0,000 ft. of water-made rock
which yields no fossils — no remains of living things, though
living things were certainly there ! Our little layer of
Tertiary strata on the top is, however, very important. It
took several million years in forming, although it is only
one-fortieth of the whole thickness of aqueous deposit on
the crust of the earth. We divide it into Pliocene, Miocene,
and Eocene, and each of these into upper, middle, and
lower, the Eocene being the oldest. Our London clay and
Woolwich sands are lower Eocene ; there is a good deal
of Miocene in Switzerland and Germany, whilst the Pliocene
is represented by whole provinces of Italy, parts of central
France, and by the White and Red " crags " of Suffolk *

It is during this Tertiary period that the mammals — the
warm-blooded, hairy quadrupeds, which suckle their young

* I am inclined to think that the line between Pliocene and Pleistocene
or Quaternary ought, in this country, to be drawn between the White and
Red Crag of Suffolk. Glacial conditions set in and were recurrent from the
commencement of the Red Crag deposit onwards.

I36 ELEPHANTS

— have developed (they had come into existence a good
deal earlier), and we find the remains of ancestral forms of
the living kinds of cattle, pigs, horses, rhinoceroses, tapirs,
elephants, lions, wolves, bears, etc., embedded in the suc-
cessive layers of Tertiary deposits. Naturally enough,
those most like the present animals are found in late
Pliocene, and those which are close to the common
ancestors of many of the later kinds are found in the
Eocene, whilst we also find, at various levels of the Ter-
tiary deposit, remains of side-branches of the mammalian
pedigree, which, though including very powerful and remark-
able beasts, have left no line of descent to represent them
at the present day. We have been able to trace the great
modern one-toed horses, zebras, and asses, with their com-
plicated pattern of grinding-teeth back by quite gradual
steps (represented by the bones and teeth of fossil kinds
of horses), to smaller three-toed animals with simpler
tuberculated teeth, and even, without any marked break in
the series, to a small Eocene animal (not bigger than a
spaniel) with four equal-sized toes on its front foot, and
three on its hind foot. We know, too, a less direct series
of intermediate forms leading beyond this to an animal
with five toes on each foot and " typical " teeth. In fact,
no one doubts that (leaving aside a few difficult and
doubtful cases) all such big existing mammals, as I
mentioned above, as well as monkeys and man, are derived
from small mammals — intermediate in most ways between
a hedgehog and a pig — which flourished in very early
Eocene times, and had five toes on each foot, and " a
typical dentition." Even the elephants came from such a
small ancestral form. The common notion that the extinct
fore-runners of existing animals were much bigger than
recent kinds, and even gigantic, is not in accordance with
fact. Some extinct animals were of very great size —
especially the great reptiles of the period long before the

ANCESTRAL MAMMALS

137

Tertiaries, and before the chalk. But the recent horse, the
recent elephant, the giraffe, the lions, bears, and others, are
bigger — some much bigger — than the ancestral forms, to
which we can trace them by the wonderfully preserved and
wonderfully collected and worked-out fossilised bones dis-
covered in the successive layers of the Pliocene, Miocene,

FIG. 14.— Skeleton of the Indian elepkant. Only four toes are visible,
the fifth concealed owing to the view from the side.

and Eocene strata, leading us as we descend to more
primitive, simplified, and smaller ancestors.

It is easy to understand the initial character of the foot
of the early ancestral mammals. It had five toes. By
the suppression or atrophy of first the innermost toe, then
of the outermost, you find that mammals may first acquire
four toes only, and then only three, and by repeating the.

X38 ELEPHANTS

process the toes may be reduced to two, or right away to
one, the original middle toe. There is no special difficulty
about tracing back the elephants in so far as this matter
is concerned, since they have kept (like man and some
other mammals) the full typical complement of five toes
on each foot.

But I must explain a little more at length what was the
* typical dentition," — that is to say, the exact number and
form of the teeth in each half of the upper and the lower
jaw of the early mammalian ancestor of lower Eocene
times, or just before. The jaws were drawn out into a
snout or muzzle, an elongated, protruding " face," as in a
dog or deer or hedgehog, and there were numerous teeth
set in a row along the gums of the upper and the lower
jaw. The teeth were the same in number, in upper and
in lower jaw, and so formed as to work together, those of
the lower jaw shutting as a rule just a little in front of the
corresponding teeth of the upper jaw. There were above
and below, in front, six small chisel-like teeth, which we
call " the incisors." At the corner of the mouth above and
below on each side flanking these was a corner tooth, or
dog-tooth, a little bigger than the incisors, and more
pointed and projecting. These we call " the canines," four
in all. Then we turn the corner of the mouth-front, as it
were, and come to the " grinders," cheek-teeth or molars.
These are placed in a row along each half of upper and
lower jaw. In our early mammalian ancestor they were
seven in number, with broader crowns than the peg-like
incisors and canines, the bright polished enamel of the
crown being raised up into two, three or four cone-like
prominences. The back grinders are broader and bigger
than those nearer the dog-tooth. The three hindermost
grinders in each half of each jaw are not replaced by
" second " teeth, whilst all the other teeth are.

Now this typical set of teeth — consisting of twenty-

TYPICAL OR ANCESTRAL SET OF TEETH 139

eight grinders, four canines, and twelve incisors — is not
found complete in many mammals at the present day,
though it is found more frequently as we go back to
earlier strata.* Though some mammals have kept close to
the original number, they have developed peculiar shape
and qualities in some of the teeth as well as changes in
size. The common pig still keeps the typical number
(Fig. 15). But he has developed the corner teeth or
canines into enormous tusks both in the upper and lower
jaw, and the more anterior grinders have become quite
minute. The cats (lions and tigers included) have kept the
full number of incisors (see figs. 26 and 27, pp. 160, 161) ;
they have developed the four canines into enormous and
deadly stabbing " fangs," and they have lost all the
grinders but three in each half of the lower jaw and
four in each half of the upper jaw (twelve instead of
twenty-eight), and these have become sharp-edged so as
to be scissor-like in their action, instead of crushing or
grinding. Man and the old-world monkeys have lost
an incisor in each half of each jaw (see Pis. VII and VIII) ;
they retain the canines, but have only five molars in each
half of each jaw (twenty in all instead of twenty-eight).
Most of the mammals — whatever change of number
and shape has befallen their teeth in adaptation to their
different requirements as to the kind of food and mode of
getting it — have retained a good long pair of jaws and a
snout or muzzle consisting of nose, upper jaw, and lower
jaw, projecting well in front of the eyes and brain-case.

* Mammals having the number and form of teeth which I have just
described as typical — or such modification of it as can easily be produced
by suppression of some teeth and enlargement of others — are called Typi-
dentaU On the other hand, the whales, the sloths, ant-eaters, and arma-
dilloes, as also the Marsupials, are called Variodentata, because we cannot
derive their teeth from those of the Typidentate ancestor. They form lines
of descent which separated from the other mammals before the Typidentate
ancestor of all, except the groups just named, was evolved.

ELEPHANTS

2 3 4 5 6, 7

Molars

UPPER

FIG. 15. — The teeth in the upper and lower jaw-bone of the common
pig— drawn from photographs. A and B represent the right half of
the lower jaw (A) and the right half of the upper jaw (B) seen in
horizontal position. Inc. are the incisors or chisel-like front teeth,
three in number, in each half of each jaw and marked i, 2, 3. C
marks the canine or dog-tooth, which here grows to be a large tusk.
The molars, " grinders," or cheek teeth are marked i to 7. Figs,
c and D give a side view of the left halves of the upper (c) and of
the lower jaw-bone (D), with the teeth in place. The bone has been
partly cut away so as to show the fangs or roots of the teeth, which
are double in the molars, and even three-fold in molar No. 7. The
explanation of the lettering is the same as that given for figs. A
and B. The letter p in Fig. B points to a " foramen " or hole in
the upper jaw-bone. These drawings are introduced here as show

PECULIARITIES OF TEETH OF ELEPHANTS 141

Man is remarkable as an exception. In the higher races
of men the jaws are shorter than in the lower races, and
project but very little beyond the vertical plane of the
eyes, whilst the nose projects beyond the lips. Another
exception is the elephant. This is most obvious when the
prepared bony skull and lower jaw are examined, but can
be sufficiently clearly seen in the living animal. The
lower jaw and the part of the upper jaw against which it
and its grinders play is extraordinarily short and small,
The elephant has, in fact, no projecting bony jaw at all,
no bony snout, its chin does not project more than that of
an old man, and even the part of the upper jaw into which
its great tusks are set does not bend forward far from the
perpendicular (Fig. 14).

The elephant (see Fig. 14) has no sign of the six little
front teeth (incisors) above and below which we find in
the typical dentition and in many living mammals, nor of
the corner teeth (dog-teeth, or canines). In the upper
jaw in front there is the one huge tusk on each side, and
in the lower jaw no front teeth at all ! Then as to the
grinders. In the elephant these are enormous, with many
transverse ridges on the elongated crown, and so big that
there is only room for one at a time in each half of upper
and lower jaw. Six of these succeed one another in each
half of each jaw, and correspond (though greatly altered)
to six of the seven grinders of the typical dentition. Are
there amongst older fossil elephants and animals like
elephants any which have an intermediate condition of
the teeth, connecting the extremely peculiar teeth of the

ing the complete number of teeth which the ancestor of pigs, goats,
elephants, dogs, tigers, men, and even whales possessed. The re-
duction in number and the alteration in the shape of the primitive
full set of teeth is referred to in the present chapter on " Elephants,"
and in those on " Vegetarians and their Teeth " (p. 159), and on
" A Strange Extinct Beast " (p. 148).

142 ELEPHANTS

modern elephants with the typical dentition such as is
approached by the pig, the dog, the tapir, and the hedge-
hog? There are such links. We know a great many
elephants from Pleistocene and Pliocene strata — some from
European localities, more from India, and some from
America. A little elephant not more than 3 ft. high when
adult is found fossil in the island of Malta ; other species
were a little larger than the living African elephant.
Whilst the Indian elephant has as many as twenty-four
cross-ridges on its biggest grinding tooth (Fig. 13) there

FIG. 16. — A reconstruction of the extinct American mastodon
(Mastodon ohioticus) from a drawing by Prof. Osborne. Other
extinct species of mastodon are found in Europe.

is a fossil kind which has only six such ridges. But
besides true elephants we know from the Pliocene, Miocene,
and Upper Eocene of the old world, the remains of
elephant-like creatures (some as big as true elephants),
which are distinguished by the name " Mastodon"
(Fig. 1 6). And, in fact, we are conducted through a series
of changes of form by ancient elephant-like creatures
which are of older and older date as we pass along the series,
and are known as (i) Mastodon, (2) Tetrabelodon, (3)
Palaeomastodon, (4) Meritherium, until we come to some-
thing approaching the general form of skull and skeleton

EXTINCT RELATIVES OF ELEPHANTS

143

and the typical dentition of the early mammalian ancestor.
Mastodons of several species are found in Pliocene strata
in Europe and Asia ; detached teeth are found in Suffolk.
One species actually survived (why, we do not know)
in North America into the early human period, and whole
skeletons of it are dug out from morasses such as that of

FIGS. 17. — A, skull, and B. restored outline of the head of the long-
jawed extinct elephant called Tetrabelodon — the name referring to
its four large tusks — two above and two below.

" Big-bone Lick." The Mastodons had a longer jaw and
face than the elephants, though closely allied to them.
They bring one nearer to ordinary mammals in that fact,
and also in having (when young) two front teeth or
incisors in the lower jaw. Their grinders had the crowns
less elongated than those of elephants, and there were

I44 ELEPHANTS

only five cross-ridges — on the biggest — and these ridges
tend to divide into separate cones (Fig. 13). So here, too,
we are approaching the ordinary mammals, of which we
may keep the pig and the tapir in mind as samples. But
the Mastodons still had the great trunk and huge tusks of
the elephants.

Next we must look at Tetrabelodon (Fig. 17), and it is
this creature which has really revealed the history of the
strange metamorphosis by which elephants were produced.
The Tetrabelodon is known as " the long-jawed masto-
don," because, as was shown in a wonderfully well-preserved
skeleton from the Lower Pliocene of the centre of France,
set up in the Paris Museum, it had a lower jaw of
enormous length, ending in two large horizontally directed
teeth (Fig. 17). Instead of a lower jaw a foot long, as
in an elephant or in the common kind of mastodon — this
long-jawed kind had a lower jaw 5ft. or 6ft. long! The
tusks of the upper jaw were large, and nearly horizontal
in direction, bent downwards a little on each side of
the long lower jaw. This lower jaw seemed incompre-
hensible, almost a monstrosity — until it occurred to me
that it exactly corresponds to the elongated upper lip and
nose which we call the elephant's trunk — and that the
trunk of " Tetrabelodon " must have rested on his long
lower jaw. In descending to Tetrabelodon we leave
behind us the elephants with hanging unsupported trunk ;
the lower jaw here . is of sufficient length to support
the great trunk. When the lower jaw shortened in the
later mastodons and elephants the trunk did not shorten
too, but remained free and depending, capable of large
movement and of grasping with its extremity. Photo-
graphs, casts, and actual specimens of the extraordinary
skull of the long-jawed mastodon or Tetrabelodon and of
the creatures mentioned below may be seen in the Natural
History Museum.

ANCESTORS OF ELEPHANTS 145

Lastly we have the wonderful series of discoveries made
about twelve years ago by Dr. Andrews (of the Natural
History Museum) of elephant-like creatures in the upper
Eocene of the Fayoum desert in Egypt. Palaeomastodon
(the name given by Dr. Andrews to one of them) is a " pig-
like " mastodon, with an elongated, bony face, the tusks of
moderate size, and the lower jaw not projecting more than
a few inches beyond them, so that the proboscis is quite
short and rests well on it (Fig. 1 8). This animal had six
moderate-sized grinders (molars or cheek teeth) on each

FIG. 18.— Head of the ancestral elephant — Palaeomastodon — as it
appeared in life. It shows, as compared with the earlier ancestor,
an elongation both of the snout and the lower jaw. The tusk in
the upper jaw has increased in size, but is still small as compared
with that of later elephants. (After a drawing by Prof. Osborne.)

side of each jaw in position simultaneously, as may be seen
in the complete skull shown in Fig 19. Of other teeth it
had only the two moderate-sized front tusks above and
two very big, chisel-like " incisors " in the front of the
lower jaw. Exactly how these were used and for what
food no one has yet made out.

The remains, which finally bring the elephants into line
with the ordinary mammals with typical dentition, were
discovered also by Dr. Andrews and named " Meri-

IO

i46

ELEPHANTS

therium" by him, signifying "the beast of the Lake
Meris." This creature is not bigger than a tapir, and had
the shape of head and face which we see in that and the
ordinary hoofed animals (Fig. 20). It had no trunk, and
whilst it had six small and simplified mastodon-like
grinders in each half of each jaw, it had six incisors in the
upper jaw and a canine or corner tooth on each side. In

FIG. 19. — Restored model of the skull and lower jaw of the ancestral
elephant Palaeomastodon from the upper Eocene strata of the
Fayoum Desert, Egypt. It shows the six molar teeth of the upper
and lower jaw (left side), the tusk-like upper incisors and the large
chisel-like lower incisors in front.

the lower jaw there were only two large incisors besides
the cheek-teeth or grinders. Not the least interesting
point about Meritherium is that it tells us which of the
front upper teeth have become the huge tusks of the later
elephants. Counting from the middle line there are
in Meritherium three incisors right and three left. The
second of these upper teeth on each side is much larger

ORIGIN OF THE ELEPHANT'S TRUNK 147

than the others. It is this (seen in Fig. 20) which has
grown larger and larger in later descendants of this
primitive form and become the elephant's tusk, whilst all
the others have disappeared.

We now know the complete series of steps connecting
elephants with ordinary trunkless, tuskless mammals.
The transition from the " beast of Meris " on the one
hand to the common typidentate mammalian ancestor,
and on the other hand to the elephants, is easy, and

FIG. 20. — Head of the early ancestor of elephants— Meritherium —
as it appeared in life. Observe the absence of a trunk and the
enlarged front tooth in the upper jaw, which is converted in later
members of the elephant-stock or line of descent into the great
tusk. (After a drawing by Prof. Osborne.)

requires no effort of the imagination. His short muzzle
(upper and lower jaw), first elongated step by step to
a considerable length, giving us Palaeomastodon (Fig. 1 8).
Then the lower jaw shrunk and became shorter than it
was at the start, and the rest of the muzzle (the front part
of the upper jaw, carrying with it the nostrils), drooped
and became the mobile muscular elephant's trunk I

CHAPTER X
A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST

THE terraces of gravel deposited by existing rivers
and the deposits in caverns in the limestone regions
of Western Europe — the so-called " Pleistocene " strata—
contain, besides the flint weapons of man and rare speci-
mens of his bones, the remains of animals which are
either identical with those living at the present day
(though many of them are not living now in Europe) or
of animals very closely similar to living species. Thus we
find the bones of horses like the wild horse of Mongolia,
of the great bull (the Urus of Caesar), of the bison, of
deer and goats, of the Siberian big-nosed antelope, of the
musk-ox (now living within the Arctic circle), of the wild
boar, of the hippopotamus (like that of the Nile), and of
lions, hyenas, bears, and wolves. The most noteworthy
of the animals like to, but not identical with, any living
species are the mammoth, which is very close to the
Indian elephant, but has a hairy coat ; the hairy rhinoceros,
like, but not quite the same as, the African square-mouthed
rhinoceros ; and the great Irish deer, which is like a
giant fallow-deer. These three animals are really extinct
kinds or species, but are not very far from living kinds.
In fact, the most recent geological deposits do not contain
any animals so peculiar, when compared with living
animals, as to necessitate a wide separation of the fossil
animal from living " congeners " by the naturalist who

FOSSIL SKELETONS AND JAW-BONES 149

classifies animals and tries to exhibit their degrees of
likeness and relationship to one another by the names he
adopts for them. The mammoth is a distinct " species "
of elephant. It requires, it is true, a " specific " or " second "
name of its own ; but it belongs to the genus elephant.
Hence we call it Elephas primigenius ; whilst the living
Indian elephant is Elephas Indicus. The reader is referred
to the preceding chapter for further notes about elephants.

The strata next below the Pleistocene gravels and cave
deposits are ascribed to the " Pliocene age " — older than
these are the " Miocene " and the " Eocene," and then you
come to the Chalk, a good white landmark separating
newer from older strata.

We know now in great detail the skeletons and jaws of
some hundreds of kinds of extinct animals of very
different groups found in the Eocene, the Miocene, the
Pliocene, and the Pleistocene layers of clays, sands, and
gravels of this part of the world. Nothing very strange
or unlike what is now living is found in the Pleistocene —
the latest deposits — but when we go further back strange
creatures are discovered, becoming stranger and less like
living things as we pass through Pliocene to Miocene,
and on — downwards in layers, backwards in time — to the
Eocene.

Though the past history of the Mediterranean sea shows
that it was formerly not so extensive as it is now, and
that there were junctions between Europe and Africa
across its waters, yet the deeper parts of that sea are
very ancient, and some of the islands have long been
isolated. In Malta the remains of extraordinary species
of minute elephants have been found, one no larger than
a small donkey, and in the island of Cyprus an English
lady, Miss Dorothea Bate, has discovered the bones of a
pigmy hippopotamus (like that still living in Liberia)
no larger than a sheep. Miss Bate some three years

I5o A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST

ago heard of the existence of a bone-containing deposit
of Pleistocene age in lime-stone caverns and fissures
in the island of Majorca, and with the true enthusiasm of
an explorer determined to carry on some " digging " there
and see what might turn up. In the following spring she
was there, and obtained a number of bones, jaws, and
portions of skulls, which appeared at first sight to be those
of a small goat. Its size may be gathered from the fact that

FIG. 21. — Side-view of the skull and lower jaw of a goat. inc. i. The
three lower incisor teeth of the left side. can. i. The little canine
tooth grouped with them. p. The toothless front part of the upper
jaw. m. s. Upper molars or " grinders." m. i. Lower molars or
grinders. Compare this and the following figures with Fig. 15
showing the more complete " dentition " of the pig.

its skull is six inches long. These and the bones of a few
small finches were all that rewarded her pains. The bones
of fossil goats (of living species) are found in caves at
Gibraltar and in Spain ; so at first the result seemed dis-
appointing. But on carefully clearing out the specimens

THE SKULL AND TEETH OF GOATS 15!

and examining them in London, Miss Bate found that the
supposed goat bones obtained by her in Majorca were

inc. i.

Upper
Jaw.

FIG. 22. — Horizontal view of the teeth in the lower and upper jaw
of the goat. In front of the lower jaw the group of three incisors
(inc. i.) and one canine is seen, whilst the toothless bony plate (p.)
of the upper jaw, against which they work, is seen in the right-hand
half of the figure. The molars, " grinders," or cheek-teeth are
numbered I to 6 in each jaw.

really those of a new and most extraordinary animal, to
which (in a paper published in the ' Geological Magazine '

152 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST

in September, 1910) she has given the name " Myotragus
balearicus?

I must ask the reader now to look at the figures here given
(Figs. 2 1 and 22) of the skull and the lower jaw of a goat.
The lower jaw might (except for size) pass for that of a sheep,
ox, antelope or deer. They are all alike. There are on each
side six grinding cheek teeth (molars), and then as we pass
to the front we find a long, toothless gap until we come to
the middle line where the two halves of the jaw unite.

FIG. 23. — Side view of the skull of a typical "rodent " mammal, the
Coypu rat (Myocastor coypus) from South America, inc. s. Upper
incisor, inc. i. Lower incisor, m. s.t m. i. Upper and lower molars,
grinders or cheek-teeth.

There we see a little semicircular group of eight chisel-like
teeth, which work against the toothless pad of the upper
jaw opposed to them and are the instruments by which
these animals, with an upward jerk of the head, " crop "
the grass and other herbage on which they feed, to be after-
wards triturated by the grinding cheek teeth. A vast
series of living and of fossil animals, called the Ruminants
— including the giraffes, the antler-bearing forms called

THE TEETH OF RATS

deer, the cavicorn or sheath-horned bovines, ovines and cap-
rines, and the large series of antelopes of Africa and India —
all have precisely this form of jaw, this number and shape
and grouping of the teeth. Now let me call to mind the
lower jaw of a hare or rabbit or rat (Figs. 23 and 24).

inc. i.

me. 9.

FIG. 24.— View in the horizontal plane of the teeth of the left half
of the lower and the left half of the upper jaw of the Coypu
rat to show the single great gnawing incisor on each side, the four
flat grinding molars and the wide gap between molars and incisors.
Compare with Figs. 22 and 27.

There we find on each side the group of grinding cheek
teeth, with transverse ridges on their crowns, and a long,
toothless gap before we arrive at the front teeth. But
the front teeth are only two in number, one on each side,

154 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST

close to each other, very large, and each with a tremen-
dously long, deeply set root. They meet a similar pair ot
teeth in the upper jaw, and give the hare, rabbit, rats,
mice, beavers, and porcupines the power of " gnawing "
tough substances. These animals are hence called Rodents,
or gnawers, and the two great front teeth are called " rodent-
teeth." No arrangement of teeth could be much more
unlike than are the group of eight little chisel-like teeth of
the lower jaw of the Ruminants and the two enormous
gnawing teeth of the Rodents. Apparently the two rodent
incisors, or front teeth, of the lower jaw of the rat corre-
spond to the two middle incisors of the Ruminant's lower
jaw ; the other front teeth of the Ruminant have atrophied,
disappeared altogether. The rodent condition has been
developed from that of an ancestor which had several front
teeth and not two large ones only ; but we have not at
present found the intermediate steps.

The reader should compare the teeth of the goat and
the large rat here pictured with the more typical and
complete series of the pig, given in Fig. 15, p. 140. The
pig's teeth are the same in number as those of the
ancestral primitive typidentate mammal, and their form is
near to that of the ancestor's teeth.

Now I come to the extraordinary interest of Miss Bate's
goat-like or antelope-like animal from Majorca. Although
it is shown by its skull (Fig. 25) and other bones to be
distinctly one of the sheath-horned ruminants, very like a
small goat or antelope, the lower jaw, of which there are
several specimens, does not present in front the little group
^f eight small chisel-like " cropping " teeth, but, instead, two
enormous rodent teeth placed side by side, very deeply
fixed in the jaw, and quite like those of some rat-like
animals in shape. Hence the name given to this little
marvel by Miss Bate — "Myotragus," "the rat-goat." This
strange little animal also differs from goats and antelopes

THE RAT-TOOTHED GOAT 155

in having proportionately much thicker and shorter " feet"
(cannon-bones) than they have.

If the remains of this strange little creature had turned
up in more ancient strata — in Pliocene or Miocene — it
would not have been quite so astonishing. But it would
be still very remarkable, since it has all the characters of a
goat-like creature in the shape of its skull, its bony horn-
cores, its limb-bones, and its cheek-teeth ; and yet, as it

FIG. 25. — Drawing of the skull of the rat-toothed goat, Myotragus
— the new extinct beast discovered in limestone fissures in the island
of Majorca by Miss Bate. i. Side view of the skull and lower jaw.
2. Appearance of the two rat-like teeth as seen when the end of
the lower jaw is viewed from above.

were monstrously and in a most disconcerting way, protrudes
from its lower jaw two great rats' teeth. Nothing like it
or approaching it or suggesting it, is known among recent
or fossil Ruminants. They all without exception have a
lower jaw with the teeth of the exact number and grouping
which you may see in a sheep's lower jaw. We know
hundreds of them, both living and fossil, many from the

156 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST

Pleistocene, others from Pliocene deposits, and even from
the still older Miocene, but all keep to the one pattern of
lower jaw and lower jaw teeth. It is only in this little
island of Majorca, surrounded by very deep water and not
known to have nurtured any other animal so large in size
either in recent or geologic times, that we come upon a
Ruminant with horns like a goat's, but with great rat-like
front teeth in place of the semicircle of eight little cropping
toothlets. The wonderful thing is that the bones found by
Miss Bate are light and well preserved, evidently not very
ancient — probably late Pleistocene in age,

The questions which arise are : Where did the rat-goat
come from ? How did this utterly peculiar change in a
Ruminant's teeth come about ? With regard to the second
question, it is a matter of importance that although we
have hitherto not discovered any Ruminants with this
modification of the teeth, still less any cavicorn or sheath-
horned Ruminant so altered, yet it is by no means rare
amongst herbivorous mammals to find such rat-like teeth
making their appearance, whilst the smaller side-teeth of
the incisor group or front teeth disappear. The Australian
kangaroos and wombats are a case in point — so is the
lemur-like aye-aye of Madagascar (an insect eater). So
is the Hyrax or "damian" of the Cape, and also the
very ancient Plagiaulax from the prae-chalk Purbeck clay.
But perhaps the best case for comparison with the
Ruminants is that of the Rhinoceroses. There are a
great many species and even genera of fossil and recent
Rhinoceroses. An old Miocene kind (called Hyracodon)
has eight little teeth in the front of the lower jaw. In
a Pliocene kind of rhinoceros (called R. incisivus] these
are reduced to two, the middle two, which are of great
size and project far forward — like those of the rat-goat
of Majorca. Among living rhinoceroses the Indian
species have these two front teeth, but smaller, whilst the

ORIGIN OF THE RAT-TOOTHED GOAT 157

square-mouthed African rhinoceros has none at all ! This
helps us, as a parallel, to understand " the strange case "
of Myotragus. But, of course, the rhinoceroses are a
distinct line of animal descent — remote from Ruminants.
They are (like horses and tapirs) odd-toed hoofed-beasts —
not even-toed ones, as are pigs, camels, and Ruminants.

On first considering the question of the origin of the
rat-goat of Majorca, some naturalists will, no doubt, be
tempted to suggest that it is a case of a sudden " sport,"
a " mutation " as they now call it, and not a result of
gradual slowly developed reduction of the now lost teeth
and correspondingly gradual enlargement of the two
middle ones, taking many thousand generations to bring
about. The fact that the rat-goat is found on an island
cut off from competition with other animals will favour this
view. On the other hand, there is the important and
really remarkable fact that familiar as man has been for
ages with Ruminants of many kinds — such as sheep, goats,
cattle, deer — there is absolutely no case on record of an
" oddity " or " monstrosity " resembling the rat-goat's con-
dition occurring in the teeth of any of the hundreds of
thousands of these animals killed and eaten by man, and
therefore closely examined. Professor Bateson, who a few
years ago ransacked the museums of Europe for instances
of "discontinuous variation," or "sports," and wrote a
valuable book on the subject, did not discover any example
of the kind. Apart from the view, which is very generally
held, that such sudden "mutations" as "rat-teeth in a
ruminant " are — even should they occur — not perpetuated,
we are not really in any way driven to suppose that the
rat-goat of Majorca originated in that island. It is true
that we know nothing like it in the Pliocene and Miocene
of the Mediterranean region which could have been its
immediate ancestor. But probably the ancestors of the

158 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST

rat-goat were slowly developed from a Miocene sheath-
horned ruminant, a primitive sort of antelope in some part
of North-west Africa, or in an extension of it now sub-
merged in the Atlantic, and stragglers of this curious and
now lost Ruminant stock were left in Majorca when in
Miocene or early Pliocene times that island became
detached from its Hispano-African connection.

CHAPTER XI
VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH

NO mistake, said Huxley, is more frequently made by
clever people than that of supposing that a cause or
an opinion is unsound because the arguments put forward
in its favour by its advocates are foolish or erroneous.
Some of the arguments put forward in favour of the
exclusive use by mankind of a vegetable diet can be shown
to be based on misconception and error, and I propose
now to mention one or two of these. But I wish to guard
against the supposition that I am convinced in consequence
that animal substances form the best possible diet for man,
or that an exclusively vegetable diet may not, if properly
selected, be advantageous for a large majority of mankind.
That question, as well as the question of the advantage of a
mixed diet of animal and vegetable substances, and the best
proportion and quantity of the substances so mixed, must be
settled, as also the question as to the harm or good in the
habitual use of small quantities of alcohol, by definite careful
experiment by competent physiologists, conducted on a scale
large enough to give conclusive results. The cogency of the
arguments in favour of vegetarianism which I am about to
discuss is another matter.

In the first place it is very generally asserted by those
who advocate a purely vegetable diet that man's teeth are
of the shape and pattern which we find in fruit-eating or
in root-eating animals allied to him. This is true. The

160 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH

warm-blooded hairy quadrupeds which suckle their young
and are called " mammals " (for which word perhaps
" beasts " is the nearest Anglo-Saxon equivalent) show in
different groups and orders a great variety in their teeth.
The birds of to-day have no teeth, the reptiles, amphibians,
and fishes have usually simple conical or peg-like teeth,
which are used simply for holding and tearing. In some
cases the pointed pin-like teeth are broadened out so as to

FIG. 26. — Side view of the skull of a clouded tiger (Felis nebulosa)
to show the teeth, inc. 3. The three incisors, can. s. Upper
canine, corner-tooth, or dog-tooth, can. i. Lower canine, tn. s.
The four upper molars or cheek-teeth (called " grinders " in herbi-
vorous animals), m. i. The three lower molars or cheek teeth.

be button-like, and act as crushing organs for breaking up
shell-fish. The mammals alone have a great variety and
elaboration of the teeth.

In shape and size, as well as in number, the teeth of
mammals are very clearly related to the nature of their
food in the first place, and secondly to their use as weapons

TEETH OF GARNIVORS

161

of attack or of defence. When the surface of the cheek-
teeth is broad, with low and numerous tubercles, the food
of the animal is of a rather soft substance, which yields to
a grinding action. Such substances are fruits, nuts, roots,
or leaves, which are " triturated" and mixed with the saliva
during the process of mastication. Where the vegetable

can.a.

-rn.s

FIG. 27. — View in the horizontal plane of the teeth of the lower and
upper jaw of the same clouded tiger's skull, inc. i. Lower incisors.
inc. s. Upper incisors, can. i. and can. s. Lower and upper canine.
m. The cheek-teeth — three only in the lower jaw, a minute fourth
molar present in the upper.

food is coarse grass or tree twigs, requiring long and
thorough grinding, transverse ridges of enamel are present
on the cheek-teeth, as in elephants, cattle, deer, and rabbits
(see Figs. 1 3, 22, 24). Truly carnivorous animals, which eat
the raw carcases of other animals, have a different shape of
teeth. Not only do they have large and dagger-like

II

162 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH

canines or "dog-teeth " as weapons of attack, but the cheek-
teeth (very few in number) present a long, sharp-edged
ridge running parallel to the length of the jaw, the edges
of which in corresponding upper and lower teeth fit and
work together like the blades of a pair of scissors. The
cats (including the lions, tigers and leopards) have this
arrangement in perfection (see Figs. 26 and 27). They
cut the bones and muscles of their prey into great lumps
with the scissor-like cheek-teeth, and swallow great pieces
whole without mastication. Insect-eating mammals have
cheek-teeth with three or four sharp-pointed tubercles
standing up on the surface. They break the hard-shelled
insects and swallow them rapidly. The fish-eating whales
have an immense number of peg-like pointed teeth only.
These serve as do those of the seals — merely to catch and
grip the fish, which are swallowed whole.

It is quite clear that man's cheek-teeth do not enable
him to cut lumps of meat and bone from raw carcases and
swallow them whole, nor to grip live fish and swallow them
straight off (PI. VII). They are broad, square-surfaced
teeth, with four or fewer low rounded tubercles fitted to
crush soft food, as are those of monkeys (see Pis. VIII
and IX, and their description). And there can be no
doubt that man fed originally, like monkeys, on easily
crushed fruits, nuts, and roots. He could not eat like a cat.

A fundamental mistake has arisen amongst some of the
advocates of vegetarianism by the use of the words " carni-
vorous " and " flesh-eating " in an ill-defined way. Man
has never eaten lumps of raw meat and bone, and no one
proposes that he should do so to-day. Man did not take
to meat-eating until he had acquired the use of fire, and
had learnt to cook the meat before he ate it. He thus
separated the bone and intractable sinew from the flesh,
which he rendered friable and divisible by thorough grilling,
roasting, or baking. To eat meat thus altered, both chemi-

MIXED DIETS 163

cally and in texture, is a very different thing from eating
the raw carcases of large animals. Man's teeth are
thoroughly fitted for the trituration of cooked meat, which
is, indeed, as well suited to their mechanical action as are
fruits, nuts, and roots. Hence we see that the objection
to a meat diet based on the structure of man's teeth does
not apply to the use of cooked meat as diet. The use
by man of uncooked meat is not proposed or defended.

Yet, further, it is well to take notice of the fact that there
are many vegetarian wild animals which do not hesitate to
eat certain soft animals or animal products when they get
the chance. Thus, both monkeys and primitive men will
eat grubs and small soft animals, and also the eggs of
birds. Whilst the cat tribe, in regard to the chemical
action of their digestive juices, are so specialised for eating
raw meat that it is practically impossible for them to take
vegetable matter as even a small portion of their diet, and
whilst, on the other hand, the grass-eating cattle, sheep,
goats, antelopes, deer and giraffes are similarly disqualified
from any form of meat-diet, most other land-mammals can
be induced, without harm to themselves, to take a mixed
diet, even in those cases where they do not naturally seek it.
Pigs, on the one hand, and bears, on the other, tend natur-
ally to a mixed diet. Many birds, under conditions adverse
to the finding of their usual food, will change from vegetable
to animal diet, or vice-versd. Sea-gulls normally are fish-
eaters, but some will eat biscuit and grain when fish cannot
be had. Pigeons have been fed successfully on a meat
diet ; so, too, some parrots, and also the familiar barn-door
fowl. Many of our smaller birds eat both insects and
grain, according to opportunity. Hence it appears impos-
sible to base any argument against the use of cooked meat
as part of man's diet upon the structure of his teeth, or
upon any far-reaching law of Nature which decrees that
every animal is absolutely either fitted (internally and

164 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH

chemically, as well as in the matter of teeth) for a diet
consisting exclusively of vegetable substances, or else is
immutably assigned to one consisting exclusively of animal
substances. There is no a priori assumption possible
against the use as food by man of nutritious matter
derived from animal bodies properly prepared.

So far as d priori argument has any value in such a
matter, it suggests that the most perfect food for any
animal — that which supplies exactly the constituents
needed by the animal in exactly right quantity and
smallest bulk — is the flesh and blood of another animal of
its own species. This is a startling theoretical justification
— from the purely dietetic point of view — of cannibalism.
It is, however, of no conclusive value ; the only method
which can give us conclusions of any real value in this and
similarly complex matters is prolonged, full, well-devised,
well-recorded experiment. At the same time, we may
just note that the favourite food of a scorpion is the juice
of the body of another scorpion, and that the same
preference for cannibalism exists in spiders, many insects,
fishes, and even higher animals.

Another line of argument by which some advocates of
vegetarianism appeal to the popular judgment is by
representing flesh-food derived from animals as something
dirty, foul, and revolting, full of microbic germs, whilst
vegetable products are extolled as being clean and swe^t —
free from odour and putrescence and from the scare-
monger's microbes. This, I perhaps need hardly say, is a
gigantic illusion and misrepresentation. I came across it
the other day in a very unreasonable pamphlet on food by
the American writer, Mr. Upton Sinclair. Putrefactive
microbes attack vegetable foods and produce revolting
smells and poisons in them, just as they do in foods of
animal origin. It is true that on the whole more varieties
of vegetable food can be kept dry and ready for use by

DISEASE GERMS IN FOOD 165

softening with hot water than is the case with foods
prepared from animals. This is only a question of not
keeping food too long or in conditions tending to the access
of putrefactive bacteria. It is, on the whole, more usual
and necessary, in order to render it palatable, to apply
heat to flesh, fish, and fowl than to fruits. And it is
by heat — heat of the temperature of boiling water —
applied for ten minutes or more, that poison-producing and
infective bacteria are killed and rendered harmless. More
people have become infected by deadly parasites and have
died from cholera and similar diseases, through having
taken the germs of those diseases into their stomachs with
raw and over-ripe fruit or uncooked vegetables and the
manured products of the kitchen garden, than have suffered
from the presence of disease-germs or putrefactive bacteria
in well-cooked meat. Here, in fact, " cooking " makes all
the difference, just as it does in the matter we were
discussing above of the fitness of flesh and bone for
trituration by man's teeth.

Once we remember that man is not fitted for the " raw
meat " diet of the carnivora, but is fitted for the " cooked
meat " diet which he has himself discovered — alone of all
animals — we shall get rid of a misleading prejudice in
the consideration of the question as to whether civilised
men should or should not make cooked meat a portion
of their diet, with the purpose of maintaining themselves
in as healthy and vigorous a state as possible. Do not
let us forget that ancient Palaeolithic cave-men certainly
made use of fire to cook their meals of animal flesh, and
that probably this use of fire dates back to a still earlier
period when, in consequence of this application of the red,
running tongues of flame, which he had learned to produce,
primitive man was able to leave the warmer climates of
the earth and their abundant fruits, and to establish him-
self in temperate and even sub-Arctic regions,

166 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH

Experiments on a large and decisive scale in regard to
the value of the different foods taken by man and the
question of the desirability of cooked meat as part of his
diet have never been carried out, nor has the use of alcohol
been studied by direct experimental method on a large
scale. Inasmuch as the feeding of our Army and Navy,
of prisoners, lunatics, and paupers, is the business of the
State, it is obviously the duty of the Government to inves-
tigate this matter and arrive at a decision. It can be done
by the Government, and only by the Government. The
Army Medical Department is fully capable, and, I am told,
desirous, of undertaking this investigation. Five hundred
soldiers in barracks would find it no hardship, but an
agreeable duty (if rewarded in a suitable way), to submit
to various diets, and to comparative tests of the value of
such diets. There would be no difficulty in arranging the
experimental investigation. Fifty years ago similar work
(but not precisely in regard to the questions now raised)
was done by the Army Medical Department, under Parkes,
with most valuable and widely recognised results.

PLATE VII. — The series of teeth in the upper (i) and lower jaw (2) of a
modern European (natural size). The teeth are placed closely side
by side without a gap — an arrangement which does not occur in the apes
nor in any other living mammal, although it is found in some extinct
herbivores — the Anoplotherium and the Arsinoitherium. The shape of
the arch formed by the row of teeth should be compared with that
shown by the same arch in the Gibbon (PI. VII I). The crowns of the teeth
are very carefully drawn in this figure, which is from a plate published
by Professor Selenka.

It must be noted that the number of tubercles on the true molars
may be in exceptional cases one more or one less than that given
in this drawing which gives the most usual number. The word
" molar " is often used to include the five cheek teeth on each side
of each jaw, but more strictly the anterior bicuspid teeth are called
11 pre-molars," and the three larger teeth behind them, which have no
predecessors or representatives in the first or milk dentition, are called
true molars or simply " molars " — a rule we have followed here.

PLATE VII.

Teeth of the upper jaw of man.

Teeth of the lower jaw of man.

PLATE VIII.

TITS.--

2.

Teeth of the upper and of the lower jaw of the gibbon.

EXPLANATION OF PLATES VII AND VIII 167

In both upper and lower jaw we see the four incisors in the middle
(Inc. i, Inc. 2) ; on each side of them is the conical crown of a canine
— a tooth which is greatly enlarged in the ape (see PI. VIII), but
is no larger proportionately than it is here even in the most ancient
known human jaw, that from the Pleistocene of Heidelberg (see
'Science from an Easy Chair,' Methuen, 1910, p. 405). The two
small bicuspid " premolars " and the three large molars follow these
on each side in each jaw. The crown of the most anterior (or
"first " ) molar of the upper jaw has four cusps, tubercles, or cones on
it. It is " quadri-tuberculate." The second and the third molars of
the upper jaw have three such prominent tubercles (excluding a row of
small tubercles on the hinder margin of the second) ; they are, in fact,
tri-tuberculate ; whilst the two hindermost molars of the lower jaw
have four tubercles and are called quadri-tuberculate. The first molar
(M1) of the lower jaw has in this specimen five tubercles. In 60 per
cent, of European lower jaws this is the case. But in 40 per cent, this
tooth is quadri-tuberculate (see PI. IX). In Polynesians, Chinese,
Melanesians and negroes five tubercles are found on this tooth in 90
per cent, of the jaws examined. The apes are characterised by five
tubercles on this tooth, and they are found also on the first lower molars
of prehistoric men. Four tubercles only on this tooth is a departure
from the ape's condition and is found more frequently in Europeans.

It is obvious that these big molar teeth, as well as the two smaller
ones in front of them on each side of each jaw, are adapted for breaking
up rather soft, pulpy food, and not for cutting lumps of bone or raw
flesh, as are the molars of the clouded tiger (identical with those of all
species of the genus Felis), shown in Figs. 26 and 27, pp. 160,161,
nor for rubbing grain, grass or herbage to a paste, as are those of
the goat (Fig. 22), those of the coypu rat (Fig. 24), and those of the
elephants and mastodons (Fig. 13).

PLATE VIII. — Drawings of (i) the upper and (2) the lower series of teeth of
the Gibbon (Hylobates concolor\one of the anthropoid or most man-like
apes (enlarged by one third). If these drawings are compared with
those in PI. VII, showing man's teeth, the most striking difference seen
is that the "arch" or series of teeth is here elongated and squared, not
rounded in front, whilst there is plenty of room in both jaws for the lasi
or wisdom tooth, which is not the case in modern races of men, though
in the ancient Neander man's jaw and in that from Heidelberg there
is ample space for the last molar as in the apes. The next most
important difference is that in the gibbon the four canine teeth are
very large and tusk-like, and must certainly be of value as weapons
of attack — which man's are not. Connected with the large size of

168 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH

the canines is the presence of a gap (or "diastema" as it is called)
between the four front teeth or incisors of the upper jaw and the upper
canine — which allows the lower canine to fit in front of the upper canine
when the jaw is closed. The number of the tubercles or cones on the
molars (the two smaller pre-molars and the three hinder large molars)
can be compared in detail in these beautiful drawings from Professor
Selenka's work, which are the most careful and perfect which have
ever been published. The agreement of these teeth in man and the
gibbon is very close : but there are differences. The first, or most
anterior premolar of the lower jaw has one predominant cusp or cone ;
the second, like both in the upper jaw, is "bicuspid," or bi-tuberculate,
as in man. The three big molars of the upper jaw are closely similar to
those of man, with some small differences, the second being quadri-
tuberculate, whilst in man it is as often tri-tuberculate (as it is in PI. VII)
as it is quadri-tuberculate. But the two anterior big molars of the
lower jaw are seen to have each five well-marked cones, cusps or
tubercles; they are quinqui-tuberculate, whilst in man the first lower
molar is often quadri-tuberculate and the second even more frequently so.
The last lower molar (wisdom tooth) of the gibbon is like that of
man, quadri-tuberculate.

The details of the tubercles on these molar teeth distinctly justify
the conclusion that they are adapted in the two animals compared
— namely, man and the gibbon — to food of the same mechanical quality,
and this undoubtedly is fruit and nuts. Nevertheless such a form of
tooth is equally well adapted to the texture of cooked meat, which has
served many races of man for probably hundreds of thousands of years
as food.

PLATE IX.

left

left

Kg.l. Kg. 2.

OrangOUtan (five tubercles)

Fig. 3. Pig.4

Man (fiye tubercles)

right

left

Eg.5. Hg.6.

Man (four tubercles)

1

right

FIRST LOWER MOLAR.

EXPLANATION OF PLATE IX 169

PLATE IX. — The figures in this plate are enlarged drawings of the first
lower molar (the first or most anterior of the three big molars as dis-
tinct from the bicuspid pre-molars) intended especially to show :
(i) That the great East Indian ape, the orang-outan, has five tubercles
or cones on this tooth, of which three (numbered I, 2, 3) are on the
outer side (away from the tongue), as is seen also in the gibbon (PI.
VIII) ; further, that though the lower races of man usually show this
monkey-like character (figs. 3 and 4) (seen also in the lower jaw drawn
in Plate VIII), yet that frequently in Europeans (in as many cases as
40 out of 100 jaws examined) only four tubercles arefound on this tooth,
as shown in figs. 5 and 6. It seems that as compared with primitive
man and the " lower" existing races of man, Europeans are tending to
a reduction in the number of tubercles on the molar teeth as well as to
the " crowding out" or reduction in size and atrophy of the last molar
or wisdom-tooth. As compared with the cave-man of the Neander
race these differences in the teeth and in the shape and size of the jaw
— as well as more important differences in the bony skeleton (dis-
covered by Prof. Marcelin Boule, of Paris) — are sufficient to separate the
modern European and the Neander cave-man as distinct species of the
genus Homo. The teeth in this plate are magnified to 2\ times the linear
dimensions of the actual specimens. Figs i and 2 show the curious
" wrinkling " of the enamel surface of the tooth in the orang-outan,
which is shown by the other molars also in that ape. The figures are
copied from Selenka.

CHAPTER XII
FOOD AND COOKERY

A NIMALS, taking one kind with another, nourish
<L\. themselves on an immense variety of food. The
flesh and the blood of other animals of all kinds, warm or
cold, the leaves, twigs, fruits, juices of plants, putrid
carcases, hair, feathers, skin, bran, sawdust, the vegetable
mould or " humus " of the earth's surface, the sand of the
sea, with its minute particles of organic detritus, all serve
as food to different kinds of animals. Some are very
little fettered in their tastes, and are called " omnivorous,"
others are bound in the strictest way to a diet consisting
of the leaves of some one species of plant or the juices of
one species of animal. Some of the latter class, under
stress or privation, can accommodate themselves to a new
food very different in character and origin from that
which is habitual to them ; others have no elasticity in
this respect, and must have their exact habitual food-
plant or food-animal, unless they are to die of starvation.
Man exhibits his great powers of accommodation to
changed circumstances in respect of food as well as in
other matters. If we are to suppose, as is probable, that
our original ape-like ancestors fed exclusively upon fruits
and an occasional egg or juicy grub, how vast are the
changes in diet to which man has habituated himself!
Man is sometimes said to be omnivorous, but this is not
a sufficient description of the state of things which has

SPECIAL DIET OF VARIOUS RACES 171

grown up as he has spread over the earth's surface.
Every race — and even many a small group of men — has
its accustomed diet, to depart from which is a pain and a
difficulty, even though new kinds of food may be gradually
accepted and even become popular. Man has in this, as
in so many other things, a large range of possible accom-
modation, but he has at the same time habits the
continuance of which are necessary for the healthy working
of the nervous system. The psychical element in the
matter of food-habit is important in all higher animals,
but most of all in man. The digestive organs are con-
trolled by the nervous system, and the brain acts upon the
latter in such a way as to favour or to restrain the " appe-
tite " and the secretion of the elaborate digestive juices, so
that fear, surprise, disgust, and u nausea " (that strange
product of mental and physical reactions) may destroy
appetite and inhibit the digestive process. There are vast
populations of men who live on rice, or beans, or meal,
and never eat animal food, not even milk (after babyhood),
nor cheese, and would be, at a first attempt to eat it, " put
off" and disgusted by a mutton chop. There are others
who subsist almost entirely on fish, others who live on
dried beef, others who live on the fat of whales and seals,
and would be for a generation or two injured, half starved,
and some of them even killed, by a change of diet. Again,
there are others who consider that they must have and
would be " ill " unless they had the cooked flesh of an ox
or sheep as part of their daily food. Let us examine this
latter group a little more fully — a group to which the
nations of Europe belong, with the exception of the Italians,
who are essentially a meal-, fruit-, and cheese-eating
people.

Apparently at a very early time, even before the last
glacial period, man had learnt the use of fire, and roasted
or grilled the carcases of other animals which he killed

172

FOOD AND COOKERY

in the chase, in order to consume them as food. We have
no reason to suppose that man ever made use of the raw
flesh of higher animals as his habitual diet. His teeth
are not, and never were, from his earliest ape-like days,
adapted to true carnivorous diet. Cooked meat is not
the food of a carnivor, but is an adaptation of the flesh of
animals to the requirements of a frugivorous animal.
Probably the use of grain and cultivated vegetable food is
a later step in human progress than the roasting of meat.
The Neander-men, and even the later Reindeer-men
(Cromagnards), had no cultivated fields, but lived on
roasted meat (of beasts, birds, and fish) and wild fruits.
We know how thoroughly the most ancient Greeks
enjoyed the long slices of roasted meat cut from the chine,
as told in the Homeric poems, and everywhere in
Europe after the neolithic or polished-stone period, meat
was a main article of diet, in conjunction with the vegetable
products of agriculture. In this country, after the Norman
conquest, meat-eating was greatly favoured by the impor-
tant industry which grew up in hides. The land was well
suited for the pasturage of cattle, and owing to the small-
ness of the population and the abundance of cattle
slaughtered for their hides, meat was almost to be had for
the asking. It was thus that Englishmen became great
meat-eaters and that " the roast beef of Old England " was
established. Later the same superfluity of meat — in this
case, " mutton " — recurred and became general when wool-
growing and the manufacture of woollen goods developed
into important industries. Relatively to the population
there was more " meat " of oxen and sheep in this country
than on the continent of Europe, and this disproportion
has been maintained.

But the increase of population has led to a considerable
change in the diet of a very large proportion — the poorer
part — of the community. Whilst the families of the better-

FOOD AND HABIT 173

paid working class and all the middle and upper class
continue to eat meat, the agricultural labourer and the
poorer workmen in towns live chiefly on flour, sugar, bacon,
and cheese. Probably they have become habituated to
this, diet, and, provided that the quantity is sufficient, it
cannot be maintained that the diet, in which meat is
nearly or altogether absent, is unhealthy. Many vigorous
and muscularly well-developed populations in other lands
thrive on exclusively vegetable food.

A curious and not altogether comforting reflection is
that if the inexpensive and simple food of the agricultural
labourer is sufficient, the section of the community which
spends from five to ten shillings per head a day on a mixed
diet of meat, fish, eggs, and vegetables is guilty of waste
and excess. Here, however, the remarkable, and, in fact,
exceptional domination of " habit " (in the case of man),
in regard to both the actual articles of food and the mode
of its preparation, has to be recognised. Such and such
inexpensive and unskilfully prepared food may contain
more than the necessary amount of proteids (that is, matters
like flesh, the casein of cheese and of vegetables, and the
albumen of eggs), of hydro-carbons (i.e. fats), of carbo-
hydrates (*. e.y starch and sugar), yet if you were suddenly
to compel a man accustomed to well-cooked meat to live
on such food he would be unable to assimilate it, his
digestive organs would refuse to work, and he would
become, if not seriously ill, yet so ill-nourished and sickly
that he would be unfit for his work and readily fall a
victim to disease. It is, in fact, impossible to lay down
any scheme of diet based on the mere provision of the
necessary quantities of food materials whilst ignoring the
formed habits of the individual and the relation of the
psychical conditions which we call " taste," " appetite,"
"fancy," "disgust," to the actual processes of digestion and
the consequent efficiency of the proposed diet.

174

FOOD AND COOKERY

No doubt gradually, after a few generations, a whole
people may become healthily habituated to a diet which
would have been positively injurious to their forebears,
and no doubt individuals may be led by fortitude or by
necessity in time (perhaps weeks, perhaps years) to
acquire a tolerance, or even enjoyment, of food at first
repulsive, and therefore injurious. The difficulty in the
matter is not that of correctly determining what is
physiologically sufficient for the human animal, nor even
what would be a healthy diet for a community when once,
after a transition period of distress and injury, habituated
or " attuned " to that diet. The difficulty is to arrive at
a conclusion as to what is really the suitable and reason-
able diet for an individual — yourself or one like yourself
— having regard to the lifelong habits of the individual,
and the consequent nervous reactions established in him
or her in relation to the taste, quality, and mode of pre-
sentation of food. Robust people, so long as they get
what suits their own uncultivated taste, are apt to make
very light of what they call " fancies " about food, and
to overlook their real importance.

Feeding on the part of civilised man is not the simple
procedure which it is with animals, although many animals
are particular as to their food and what is called " dainty."
The necessity for civilised man of cheerful company at his
meal, and for the absence of mental anxiety, is universally
recognised, as well as the importance of an inviting appeal
to the appetite through the sense of smell and of sight,
whilst the injurious effect of the reverse conditions, which
may lead to nausea, and even vomiting, is admitted.
Even the ceremonial features of the dinner table, the
change of clothes before sitting down to the repast, the
leisurely yet precise succession of approved and expected
dishes, accompanied by pleasant talk and light-hearted
companionship, are shown by strict scientific examination

NERVOUS CONTROL OF DIGESTION 175

to be important aids to the healthy digestion of food,
which need not be large in quantity, although it should be
wisely presented.

These psychical conditions of healthy feeding are not
trivial matters, as we are too apt to suppose. They are
part, and a very important part, of the physiology
of nutrition, and so deserving of scientific inquiry and of
practical attention. They have been made the subject of
careful experiment by a Russian physiologist, Pavloff. At
a recent meeting of the British Association this matter
was brought under discussion in the Physiological Section,
and it was pointed out by the author of a very interesting
communication that the whole question as to what is and
what is not a sound and healthy diet is too often dealt
with by writers who ignore the psychical (or shall we say
the cerebral ?) factor. Cases were cited of dangerous
arrest of the power of digesting, or even of swallowing,
food which were cured by giving the patient some appa-
rently inappropriate and probably harmful article of food
for which he or she had a fancy, such as a grilled salmon-
steak, the last thing which would be spontaneously recom-
mended by a medical man to a patient who had been
suffering for weeks from inability to take food. The
willingness is all — the assent, the approval of the cerebral
centres, and the consequent unlocking of the whole
arrested mechanism of digestive secretions and movements.
Such a case is only an extreme instance. But it is
undoubtedly the fact that just as the sight of so small a
thing as a drop of blood, or even the word " blood," will
on occasion cause a strong, healthy man to faint, so quite
a small excess or defect in the accustomed quality of food
will at times arrest the appetite and digestive processes of a
healthy man. To many a healthy individual one among
many flavours and savours associated with agreeable food
is necessary in order that healthy appetite and proper

176 FOOD AND COOKERY

digestion may be set going, and the absence of the right
flavour and the presence of what is, in his experience, a
wrongf and disgusting smell or taste in the food set before
him, will produce nausea and complete arrest of the diges-
tive processes.

It is apparently owing to this cause that " tinned
meats " have proved to be of little value as rations for an
army in campaign, for exploring expeditions, and for
remote mining camps. It is not that such tinned meats
do not contain the necessary constituents of food, or that
they contain poisonous substances, but that they produce
a sense of disgust, and arrest the digestive processes.
Soldiers, travellers, and miners have assured me that they
prefer a dry biscuit and dried, or salted, or sugared meat,
to the supposed more " tasty " tinned meats, and that such
is the general experience of their comrades.

Of similar nature is another very serious trouble, in
regard to the healthy feeding of the modern Englishman,
which has come upon us in consequence of the quite
modern system of huge restaurants, whether in London
or in the very large hotels, which are now run in Swiss,
Italian and English summer resorts. Hundreds of
visitors are " catered for " daily. There is no attempt
at anything which deserves the name of cookery. Great
monopolists control the supplies, and contract to deliver
to these hotels, even in out-of-the-way localities, so
much ice-stored, " mousey " fish, " mousey " quails, stringy
meat, impossible vegetables, and fruits, gathered from
the cheapest markets of Europe and of a quality just
not bad enough to cause a revolt among the hotel
visitors. The heating of the food is done by patent
machinery in ovens and by the use of boiling fat. No
cook is in these circumstances possible, with his artistic
feeling for the production of a perfect result of skill and
taste. A kind of bottled meat-flavoured sauce, manu-

WHOLESALE FOOD, MECHANICAL COOKERY 177

factured from spent yeast, is used to make the soups, and
is poured, with an equally nauseating result, over the hard
veal, the tough chicken, the " mousey " quails, and the
tasteless beef and mutton, which are never roasted, but
are baked or stewed in boiling fat — though shamelessly
described as " rotis " in the pretentious and mendacious
" menu " placed on the dinner-table. The consequence is
that the tourist, who has been overfed at home, eats very
little, and his health benefits. But in such an hotel the
man who lives carefully when at home, and desires a
simple but properly cooked meal, is reduced to a state of
indigestion, semi-starvation and misery.

The Englishman who is disgusted by the new mechan-
ical methods of cookery in the great hotels of Continental
" resorts," returns to London, and finds the same atrocious
system at work — not only in the public restaurants, but in
his club. Nowhere in London can you rely on being
served with really fresh fish, however highly you may pay
for it. Rarely it is fresh, usually it is not. The ice
storage people take good care that you shall not obtain
fresh fish, and so retain your taste for it. Nowhere at
club or restaurant, with rare exceptions, can you obtain
meat roasted in the old-fashioned way on a roasting-jack,
carefully " basted " during the process, and served when
exactly cooked to a turn. There were, only a few years
ago, one or two such places surviving — both clubs and
restaurants — where proper roasting was done, but, like
the rest, they have now adopted lazy, economical, money-
saving methods. Their managers calculate that what they
do will serve. It is good enough for the crowd ! So at last
you abandon the efforts to obtain decent simple food, in
club or hotel, and dine with your friend en famille. The
same thing confronts you. The joint has been baked in an
oven, of which it smells, and is surrounded by a sickly
gravy, produced by pouring hot water over it ! In con-

12

178 FOOD AND COOKERY

versation with your hostess, you find that she knows nothing
whatever about even the simplest elements of the prepara-
tion of food. She tells you she avoids roasting because it
necessitates a large fire and an extra expenditure of £,$ a
year on coal, and she also purchases those mouldy, frost-
bitten potatoes instead of the best, because they cost half
as much as sound ones — and she herself does not care
for potatoes. They are fattening !

Sometimes at a restaurant or club, served by a foreign
" chef," a Yorkshire pudding, as hard as a stale loaf of
bread, is handed round in slabs with the so-called " roast "
beef. It is not roasted : it is baked beef, and the pudding
is an ill-tasting baked mess, also. Nowhere in London in
public or private house do I ever see the properly cooked
article. True Yorkshire pudding can only be made by
placing it under the reasting joint, which drips digestion-
promoting essences into the pudding whilst itself rotating,
hissing and spluttering — as did the joints roasted in the
caves long ago by the prehistoric Reindeer men. The
scientific importance of good roasting and grilling is that
a savour is thereby produced which sets the whole gastric
and digestive economy of the man who sniffs it and tastes
it, at work. Possibly our successors, a generation or two
hence, will have learnt to do without it, and will have
acquired as intimate and happy a gastronomic relation to
what now are for us the nauseous flavours of super-heated
fat (rarely renewed), and of the all-pervading gravy fabri-
cated by chemical treatment of yeast, as that which
we ourselves have acquired in regard to the old-established
and painstaking cookery of the early Victorian and many
preceding ages.

Medical men who are occupied as specialists with the
study of very young children have clearly demonstrated
that the implanting of tastes, tendencies and habits in
infants of from two to eight years of age has an immense

THE BURNT OFFERING OF THE JEWS 179

importance in their subsequent development. Character
and capacity are really formed in those early years. Food
preferences, no less than mental and moral qualities, are
then created. Yet the children of both rich and poor are
in these early stages either left to haphazard or entrusted
to ignorant nursemaids. For those of us who were not
born to the present system the transition to the new
methods of wholesale cookery is an abomination, and to
escape from them a matter of difficulty. We have to
secure an ancient roasting-jack and a large clear fire in our
own kitchen, and to instruct our cook — since no woman has
taught her what she ought to know — in the art of roasting
and grilling, in the preparation of Yorkshire pudding, in
the mystery of the marrow-bone and the proper and distinct
use of garlic, onions, shalots, chives, chervil, tarragon,
marjoram, basil, other herbs, and divers peppers, and finally
to train her in the supreme accomplishment of the season-
ing of a salad.

Maybe that the present established relations of our
appetites to the time-honoured savours, by which the
ancient Jews sought to propitiate the Deity, are destined
to be superseded. On the other hand it is quite possible
that all the juggling of modern " machine " cookery is a
false step, and injurious to digestion and health. It is
not unlikely that there is no relish which has so sure a
hold on the digestion of European man, no appeal to the
cerebral mechanism controlling the liberation of his gastric
juices, which is so infallible as that emanating from " well
and truly " roasted or grilled meat.

It is not easy to account for the present neglect of
decent cookery and the triumph of the sham French
cookery (for it is not French at all !) which is at present
foisted on a long-suffering public. Probably the enor-
mously increased number of visitors to foreign resorts and
of frequenters of restaurants in London have led to huge

i8o FOOD AND COOKERY

enterprise in " catering," and to a monopoly which has
driven out of existence the smaller establishments, where
alone the artist-cook can flourish. But it seems that the
neglect of decent cooking is also due in this country to a
racial incapacity and indifference which leads both men
and women to despise " taking pains " about small things,
and brings them into the world devoid of the desire to
carry out with skill those small enterprises on which much
of the sweetness and gaiety of life depends.

Even in the time of Charles II the skill and seriousness
of French cookery as compared with our own was
recognised. The high reputation of Scotch cooks at the
present day seems to be due to an inheritance of traditions
from the days of close association of the Scotch and
French Courts. Up to nearly 100 years ago roasting was
as usual a method of cooking meat in Paris as in London
There were " rotisseries " in Paris in the old days. High
prices and thrift have led to the decadence of roasting as a
popular method of cooking meat in France, but the great
" chef " in a private house in Paris still produces the most
perfect roast beef and roast saddle of mutton (better than
you will find in England) in the old-fashioned way. So
indifferent, or perhaps hopeless, are Englishmen in regard
to cookery that they drink a strong champagne through-
out dinner, content to drown the insipid taste of the food
in the fine flavour of a drink upon which they can rely.
An Englishman dining at a first-rate restaurant will usually
spend twice as much for wine as for food, whilst a French-
man will reverse the proportions. Another difference is
one for which women are responsible. In Paris a party
of French men and women at a table in a good restaurant
enjoy their food, laugh and talk with one another, and do
not concern themselves with the company at other tables.
It would be bad manners to do so. But English-speaking
women, when dining in public, seem to be chiefly interested,

WOMEN NEGLECT COOKERY 181

not in their food nor in their own party, but in pointing
out to one another the celebrities or notorieties or
eccentricities seated at other tables. So long as the
place is fashionable and noisy, the food is negligible and
neglected.

For some reason, which I am unable to discover, the
women of England (it is not the case with those of France
and Germany) have, with rare exceptions, no interest in or
liking for lt cookery," and yet the men have left the
management of it entirely in their hands. Male "chefs"
of English nationality are rare specimens, though they
are, as a rule, the best at grilling and roasting. On the
other hand, in France, where women no less than men
value and understand cookery, there is an enormous body
of professional male cooks. Englishwomen of means and
education have to such a degree neglected all knowledge
of cookery and of the quality and criticism of kitchen
supplies, such as meat, fish, birds, and vegetables, that there
is no one to teach the poor country girls (who become
cooks in the majority of households) the elements of the
very difficult and important duties which they are expected
— in virtue of some kind of inspiration or native genius —
to discharge with skill and judgment : nor is there any
head of a household capable of seeing that the necessary
care and trouble are given. It is wonderful, under the
circumstances, how clever and willing our domestic cooks
are. A considerable section of English middle-class
women at the present day are allowed by the men, who
should guide them so as to make them honourable and
useful members of the community, to grow up in complete
ignorance of the essential parts of the art of cookery.
This was not the case a hundred years ago. Now a large
proportion of them have been led by bad example and
foolish notions to give up such matters to " the servants,"
whether they are able to afford competent servants or even

i82 FOOD AND COOKERY

to judge of the competence of a servant or not. Many of
these " mistresses " now devote themselves exclusively to
"dress," "amusements," "charity," "politics," and dabbling
inconsequently in various crazes. They are not to blame.
It is the men who are to blame who deliberately neglect
to give to their womenkind a training and education
which shall make them real mistresses of household arts
and business, so that they may be thus filled with the
happy conviction (which is the one thing they most desire
and most often cannot gain) that they are of real use — are
really wanted — in the world.

In conclusion, let me tell of a great German sportsman,
Major von Wissman, Governor of German East Africa,
now no more, who came to see me at the Museum nine
years ago. It was his first visit to London, and I took him
to lunch at a famous grill-room. Happily, though roasting
is dying out, the art of grilling still survives in this country,
but nowhere else in Europe. Von Wissman said — "Can I
have beer where we are going?" "Yes, certainly," I said.
"German beer?" he asked. " No," I replied. "Something
much better." When we were seated, I ordered a pint
tankard of Reid's London stout for my friend. It was in
perfect condition. He put his lips to it in doubt, but did
not remove them until, with reverential drooping of the
eyelids, he had emptied the tankard. " The very finest
beer I have ever swallowed," he said. " What in the name
of goodness is it?" I told him, and ordered him more.
Soon a perfectly grilled chop and a large, clean, floury
potato were before him. He proceeded to eat, and was
really and unaffectedly astonished. " But this is marvellous,"
he said "wonderful! enchanting! I have never really
tasted meat before in my life. Reitzend! Colossal!" He
had a steak to follow, and I was pleased to have been
able to show him something which I knew (by experience
of that city) they could not produce in Berlin. Three

GREAT GERMAN'S APPRECIATION 183

days later I went over to the same hospitable grill-room
for a chop, and told the gifted grill-cook (the French, in
former centuries, had a proverb, " Anyone may learn to
be a cook, but one must be born a * r6tisseur ' ") of the
admiration he had excited in the Emperor William's friend.
" Yes, sir," he said, " I fancy he did like it, for he came
here by himself yesterday and the day before, and
took the same grills and stout." Von Wissman was
staying at the German Embassy, but was drawn all the
way to South Kensington by the sweet savour of the grill-
room— an instance of what the physiologists call "positive
chemotaxis."

What I have here written on food and cookery is no
" gourmet's " praise of indulgence in the pleasures of the
table, nor is it an expression of a mere personal preference.
It is a protest, based on scientific grounds, against the
neglect of one of the bulwarks of health — the honest
traditional cookery which flourished in London forty years
ago.

CHAPTER XIII

SMELLS AND PERFUMES

THE old saying, " De gustibus non disputandum" is
based upon the fact that both the liking and the
repulsion evinced by human beings for different odours
(including those odours which we call flavours) are not
matters of general agreement. Thus the smells of garlic
and of onions, and even of assafcetida, are to many men
among the most attractive and appetising in existence —
to very many they are, on the other hand, repulsive. High
game, a certain kind of putrid fish (" Bombay ducks "), and
again rotten cheese are attractive to many men and offensive
to as many more. Many animals revel in the smell and
flavour of carrion, and even of manure, which they devour.
There are well-known flowers which attract insects, not by
the possession of the sweet perfumes appreciated and
extracted by mankind, but by a smell like that of putrid
meat, which so far misleads blue-bottle flies as to cause
them to lay their eggs on the reeking blossom. So diverse
are the tastes of men and animals in these matters that it
is remarkable when we find agreement among them, as,
for instance, in the attraction for butterflies of those
delicate scents which also are agreeable to ourselves in
such flowers as the rose, the jasmine, the heliotrope and
the honeysuckle.

There seems to be no rule or principle at work by
which smells can be definitely classed as either pleasant or

SMELLS AND MEMORY 185

unpleasant. Even perfumes carried by some of the in-
habitants of Western Europe with the intention of making
themselves attractive to their fellow-citizens are often
repulsive to a certain proportion of those who come near
them, as, for instance, is the case with the extract of the
East Indian herb "patchouli." In regard to our other
senses there is a general agreement amongst mankind,
which extends also to all animals, as to what is agreeable
and what is disagreeable. There are definite mathematical
laws as to harmony and melody in sound and colour which
affect animals and ourselves to a large extent similarly.
Sweets are agreeable and bitters are disagreeable, though
it is the fact that the snail, which loves sugar, recoils from
saccharine, and there are " mites " (Acari) which feed with
avidity on bitter strychnine ! Excess of heat and of cold
is disliked by animals and all men, whilst the sense of
touch is pleasurably or painfully affected in much the same
way in most men and animals, more than is the case with
regard to any other of the senses. The sense of smell
depends upon immediate and personal experience of "asso-
ciation " for the determination of pleasure or pain, attrac-
tion or repulsion, as the result of its being called into
operation. It is a very general experience that odours
are more efficient in arousing memory than are mere colour
effects or sounds. Not only in animals with acutely
developed olfactory powers, but also in man, an odour — a
peculiar perfume — will start a whole chain of reminiscence
when sight and sound have failed to do so. It is due to
this close association with memory (conscious or uncon-
scious) that an odour is agreeable or disagreeable.

In itself an odour is neither attractive nor repulsive.
The acrid fumes of sulphur, chlorine, ammonia, and such
bodies are not simply " odours " but corrosive chemical
vapours, which act painfully upon the nerves of common
sensation within the air-passages of the nose and throat

186 SMELLS AND PERFUMES

and not exclusively, if at all, on the terminations of the
olfactory nerves. An odour — that which acts on the
special nerves of smell distributed in chambers of the nose
— acquires its attractive or its repulsive quality only as the
result of mental association with what is beneficial (suitable
food, mates, friends, safety, home, the nest), or with what
is injurious (unsuitable food, poison, enemies, danger, strange
surroundings, solitude). Hence it is intelligible that the
man accustomed to garlic or onions in his food is strongly
attracted by their smell. So too the man whose tribe or
companions have learnt by necessity to eat slightly putrid
meat, fish, and cheese is attracted by their odour, though
for others these odours are associated rather with what is
poisonous and injurious. The dislike of the smell of
sewer-gas and foul accumulations of refuse was not known
to former generations of men (even in European cities a
couple of Hundred years ago) any more than it is to-day
to the more unfortunate poorer classes, to many modern
savages, to hyenas, and several other animals and birds
which inhabit lairs and caves which they make foul. The
odour of putrescence has become actually painful and
almost intolerable to the more cleanly classes of mankind,
owing to the association with it, as the result of education,
of fear of disease and poisoning. Either conscious or
unconscious association of an odour with what is held,
either as the result of tradition or through personal expe-
rience, to be beneficial and of pleasant memory, or, on the
contrary, injurious and of painful connection, determines
man's liking for, and choice or rejection of, odours and
flavours. One can account with fair success on this basis
for one's own preferences and dislikes in the matter.

On the other hand, odours exist in vast variety amongst
plants and animals which have not acquired any special
association or significance. We find that some organisms
produce as a result of their chemical life material which

ACCIDENTAL QUALITIES 187

oxidises and gives out light and so these organisms are
" phosphorescent " without any consequence, good or bad,
to themselves. And then we come upon others (as, for
instance, the glow-worms and fire-flies) which have made
use of this " accidental " quality, and produce phosphores-
cent light in special organs so as to attract the opposite
sex. Again, we find that the red-coloured oxygen-seizing
crystalline substance haemoglobin exists in the blood of a
vast number of animals, and might as well be green or
colourless for all the good its colour does them. Yet here
and there the splendid red colour which this chemical
gives to the blood becomes of great importance as a "decora-
tion," or "sex-ornament." The comb of the domestic fowl,
the wattles of the turkey, but above all the supreme beauty
of the human race — the cherry-red lips and the crimson-
blushing cheek of healthy youth — owe their wonderful
colour to the red blood which flows through them. So at
last the redness of the oxygen-carrier is turned to account.
So it must be also with odorous substances. Many have
been called into existence, but few have been chosen in the
long course of animal evolution and selected as the impor-
tant means of repulsion or attraction.

There are odorous substances attached to many of
the lower animals which seem to have no significance,
but just happen to be the result of necessary chemical
changes, not aimed (so to speak) at their production. Of
course, it is very difficult to form a certain and definite
conclusion as to their uselessness as odours. For in-
stance, nearly all the sponges when fresh and filled with
living protoplasm have a curious smell which reminds
one of that given off by a stick of phosphorus. Marine
sponges have it, and so has the beautiful green or flesh-
coloured river sponge (common on the wood of rafts
and weirs in the Thames). A rather uncommon marine
worm, called Balanoglossus, or the acorn worm, has a very

i88 SMELLS AND PERFUMES

strong and unpleasant smell like that of iodoform. In
neither case is the nature of the odorous body known,
nor its use to the animal suggested. Smelts smell like
cucumbers : the green-bone fish and the mackerel smell
alike. One of the common earth-worms has a strong
aromatic smell, and the common snail, as well as the sea-
hare and one of the cuttlefishes (Eledone\ smells like
musk. Musk itself is produced, as a scent attracting
the opposite sex, by several animals — musk-deer, musk-
sheep, musk-rats. I am not now attempting to enumerate
the well-recognised odours of animals such as are extracted
from them by man in order to " opsonise " himself, but
am pointing to the more obscure cases. There is not a
very great or marked variety in the odours of fishes ;
but reptiles with their dry, oily skins give off various
aromatic smells, none of which are valued by man. Toads
have distinct odours, and one kind {Pelobates fuscus,
or the heel-clawS toad), common in Europe, but not British,
is known locally as the garlic toad on account of its smell.
There are amongst carnivorous mammals various smells
allied to that of civet which are not so agreeable to man
as that substance ; for instance, the odour of the fox and
of the badger, and yet more celebrated, the terrible, awe-
inspiring smell of the fluid emitted in self-defence by the
skunk from a sac in the hinder part of the body. Horses,
cows, goats, sheep, and the giraffe have their distinctive
odours. Many of the herbivorous animals secrete a colour-
less fluid from large glands opening on or near the feet,
and also from a gland in front of the eye (similar glands
occur in other strange positions), which has not a smell
familiar to man — that is to say, not one which has been
recognised and described — yet seems to be readily " smelt "
by the animals of its own kind. The bats — especially the
large frugivorous bats — have a very unpleasant, frowsy
smell.

BACTERIA AND SMELLS 189

An important fact about animal smells is that many
which we might be inclined to attribute to the animal
which diffuses them, are really due to the fermentative or
putrefactive action of bacteria which swarm on the skin
and in the intestines of animals. It is often difficult to
decide how far a peculiar animal odour is due directly to
a substance secreted by the animal, and how far the odour
of that substance is modified or even entirely produced by
the chemical changes set up in secretions of the body-
surface by bacteria. Several distinct repulsive smells
liable to occur on the human body are due to want of
cleanliness in destroying bacteria by proper antiseptics.
The fatty and waxy secretions of the skin are often
decomposed by bacteria, even before complete extrusion
from the glands in which they are formed, whilst the
decomposition of food in the mouth and intestines by
bacteria alters materially both the natural odour of the
animal's breath and the smell of the intestinal con-
tents. In young and healthy animals in natural conditions
there is some check — it is not easy to say what —
upon the putrefactive activities of the omnipresent bacteria.
The skin of a healthy young animal has a pleasant odour,
and its breath (notably in the case of the cow and the
giraffe) is naturally sweet-smelling. The same should be
the case, under perfectly healthy conditions, with human
beings.

There is one important cause of animal odours and
flavours upon which I have not hitherto touched. Many
animals acquire an odour or flavour directly from the food
upon which they feed. Certain odorous bodies are in the
food and are taken up into the blood of the consuming
animal unchanged, and are then thrown out by secreting
glands on the skin. This is the case with the odorous
substance of onions. People do not smell of onions after
they have eaten them in consequence of particles of onion

I90 SMELLS AND PERFUMES

remaining in the mouth. The volatile odoriferous matter
of the onion is absorbed into the blood. It passes out first
through the lungs and later through the small fat-forming
glands in the skin. It is difficult to ascertain how far
animals derive their odours in this way in a complete state
from their food, and how far they chemically construct
them afresh by their own activity. No doubt both
processes occur ; but in plants the odorous bodies are built
up entirely by the chemical action of the plant itself upon
simple salts of carbonic acid, ammonia and nitrates.
Animals can certainly take highly elaborated chemical
bodies into their digestive organs without destroying them
and absorb them unchanged into the blood and deposit
them in the tissues. Thus the canary is made to take up
the red colour of cayenne pepper and deposit it in the
feathers. Thus the green oysters of Marennes acquire
their colour from minute blue plants (diatoms) on which
they feed. And thus, too, the canvas-backed ducks of the
United States take into their tissues the odorous matter
of celery, and our own grouse the flavour of heather, whilst
fish-eating birds and whales in this way acquire a fishy
taste, So, too, the flounders and the eels of the Thames,
and even salmon in muddy rivers, acquire a taste like the
smell of river mud. It is probable that many of the odours
of animals (but by no means all) are thus derived directly
from their food, or are produced by very slight changes of
the odorous bodies absorbed in food. Mutton and beef
owe their savour in some degree to the scents of the
grasses on which sheep and oxen feed. And it is not im-
probable that the sheep-like smell which the Chinese detect
in the European, comes to the latter direct from his
general use of the sheep as food.

Plants are the great chemical manufacturers in the world
of life, and second to them come our human industrial and
scientific chemists. And though we must claim for animals

SOME REMARKABLE SMELLS 191

some power of manufacturing distinct odorous bodies from
inodorous nutritive matter assimilated by them, it is
probable that m many cases the odour which is characteristic
of an animal is derived by no very complicated change
from odorous bodies existing in its habitual food.

A curious case of a substance valued as perfume by
civilised man, and yet coming from a source whence sweet
odours would hardly be expected, is that which is known
as " ambergris," or " ambre gris " (grey amber). It is still
used in the manufacture of esteemed perfumes, and is sold
at five guineas the ounce. It is found floating on the
surface of the ocean, and is a concretion of imperfectly
digested matter from the intestine of a whale — probably
the sperm-whale. It is a grey, powdery substance, and in
it are embedded innumerable fragments of the horny beaks
and sucker-rings of cuttle-fishes — creatures which form the
chief food of the sperm-whale and other toothed whales.
I have already mentioned above that one of our common
cuttle-fishes (the Eledone moschata) has a strong odour of
musk and it is possible that ambergris owes its perfume to
the musk-like scent of the cuttle-fish eaten by the whale
in whose intestine it is formed. Another " smell " which is
extremely mysterious is that produced by two quartz-
pebbles, or even two rock-crystals, or two pebbles of
flint or of corundum, when rubbed one against the
other. A flash of light is seen, and this is accompanied
by a very distinct smell, like that given out by burning
cotton-wool. It is demonstrated — by careful chemical
cleaning before the experiment — that this is not due to
the presence of any organic matter on or in the stones
or crystals used. It seems to be an exception to the
rule that " odours " (as distinct from pungent vapours or
gases) are only produced by substances formed by plants
or animals. Perhaps that is not so completely a rule as I
was inclined to think. It is true that one can distinguish

iga SMELLS AND PERFUMES

the " smells " of chlorine, of bromine, and of iodine from
one another. And there are statements current as to the
distinctive smells of metals — though they may possibly be
due to the action of the metals on organic matter. In any
case it seems, according to our present knowledge, that the
smell given out by the rubbing of pieces of silica (quartz,
flint, etc.) is due to particles of silica (oxide of silicon)
volatilised by the heat of friction, which are capable of
acting specifically on the olfactory sense-organ.

CHAPTER XIV
KISSES

11 Among thy fancies, tell me this,
What is the thing we call a kiss ?
I shall resolve ye what it is."

— ROBERT HERRICK

ISSING is an extremely ancient habit of mankind
coming to us from far beyond the range of history, and
undoubtedly practised by the remote animal-like ancestors
of the human race. Poets have exalted it, and in these
hygienic days doctors have condemned it. In the United
States they have even proposed to forbid it by law, on the
ground that disease germs may be (and undeniably are in
some cases) conveyed by it from one individual to another.
But it is too deep-rooted in human nature, and has a sig-
nificance and origin too closely associated with human
well-being in the past, and even in the present, to permit
of its being altogether " tabooed " by medical authority.

There are two kinds of " kissing " practised by mankind
at the present time — one takes the form of " nose-rubbing "
— each kiss-giver rubbing his nose against that of the
other. The second kind, which is that familiar to us in
Europe, consists in pressing the lips against the lips, skin,
or hair of another individual, and making a short, quick
inspiration, resulting in a more or less audible sound.
Both kinds are really of the nature of " sniffing," the

13

194 KISSES

active effort to smell or explore by the olfactory sense.
The " nose-kiss " exists in races so far apart from one
another as the Maoris of New Zealand and the Esquimaux
of the Arctic regions. It is the habit of the Chinese, of
the Malays, and other Asiatic races. The only Europeans
who practise it are the Laplanders. The lip-kiss is dis-
tinguished by some authorities as " the salute by taste "
from nose-rubbing, which is " the salute by smell." The
word " kiss " is connected by Skeat with the Latin " gustus,"
taste ; both words signify essentially " choice." But it
would be a mistake to regard the lip-kiss as merely an
effort to taste in the strict sense, since the act of inspira-
tion accompanying it brings the olfactory passages of the
nose into play. Lip-kissing is frequently mentioned in the
most ancient Hebrew books of the Bible, and it was also
the method of affectionate salutation among the Ancient
Greeks. Primarily both kinds of kissing were, there can
be no doubt, an act of exploration, discrimination, and
recognition dependent on the sense of smell. The more
primitive character of the kiss is retained by the lovers'
kiss, the mother's kissing and sniffing of her babe, and by
the kiss of salutation to a friend returning from or setting
out on a distant journey. Identification and memorising
by the sense of smell is the remote origin and explanation
of those kisses. The kissing of one another by grown-up
men as a salutation was abandoned in this country as late
as the eighteenth century. " 'Tis not the fashion here,"
says a London gentleman to his country-bred friend in
Gongreve's * Way of the World.' But we have, most of
us, witnessed it abroad, and perhaps been unexpectedly
subjected to the process, as I once was by an affectionate
scientific colleague. Independently of the more ordinary
practice of kissing — there is the " ceremonial kiss " — the
kissing of hands, or of feet and toes, which still survives in
Court functions — whilst the Viennese and the Spaniards,

KISSING AND SMELLING 195

though they no longer actually carry out their threat,
habitually startle a foreigner by exclaiming — "I kiss your
hands." The Russian Sclavs are the most proiuse and
indiscriminate of European peoples in their kissing. I
have seen a Russian gentleman about to depart on a journey
" devoured " by the kisses of his relations and household
retainers, male and female. Among the poor in rural
districts in Russia this excessive habit of kissing leads to
the propagation of the most terrible ulcerative disease
among innocent people — as related by MetchnikofT in the
lectures on modern hygiene which he gave in London some
seven or eight years ago (published by Heinemann).

We may take it, then, that the act of kissing is primarily
and in its remote origin an exploration by the sense of
smell, which has either lost its original significance, and
become ceremonial, or has, even though still appealing to
the sense of smell, ceased to be (if, indeed, it ever was so)
consciously and deliberately an exercise of that sense.
This leads us to the very interesting subject of the sense
of smell in man and in other animals. There is no doubt
that the sense of smell is not so acute in man as it is in
many of the higher animals, and even in some of the
lower forms, such as insects. It is the fact that so far as
we can trace its existence and function in animals, the
sense of smell is of prime importance as distinguishing
odours which are associated either with objects or condi-
tions favourable to the individual and its race, or, on the
other hand, hostile and injurious to it. It never reaches
such an extended development as a source of information
or general relation of the individual to its surroundings as
do the senses of sight, hearing and touch. It depends for
its utility on the existence of odorous bodies which are
not very widely present, and are far from universal accom-
paniments of natural objects. Apart from some pungent
mineral gases, all odorous bodies are of organic origin.

ig6 KISSES

Even as recognised by the less acute olfactory sense of
man, the number and variety of agreeable and of dis-
agreeable scents, produced by various species of animals
and plants, is very considerable. But there is no doubt
that the number and variety discriminated by such animals
as dogs and many of the other hairy, warm-blooded beasts
is far greater. The nature of the particles given off by
odorous bodies which act on the nerve-endings of the
organs of smell of animals, is remarkable. They are vola-
tile ; that is to say, they are thrown off from their source
and float in the air in a state of extreme subdivision.
Unlike the particles which act upon the nerves of taste,
they are not necessarily soluble in water, and though often
spread through and carried by liquids, are in fact rarely
dissolved in water. The dissolved particles which act
upon the nerves of taste can be distinguished by man into
four groups — sweet, sour, bitter, and saline. But no such
classification of " smells " is possible. As a rule mankind
confuses the " taste " of things with their accompanying
" smell." The finer flavours of food and drink not included
in the four classes of tastes are really due to odoriferous
particles present in the food or drink, which act on the
terminations of the olfactory nerves in the recesses of
the nose, and excite no sensation through the nerves of
taste.

The part of the brain from which the nerves of smell
arise is of relatively enormous size in the lower vertebrates
— as much as one fifth of the volume of the entire brain
in fishes — a fact which seems to indicate great importance
for the sense of smell in those forms. Even in the mammals
(the hairy, warm-blooded, young-suckling beasts) the size
of the olfactory lobes of the brain and of the olfactory
nerves, and the labyrinthine chambers of the nose on which
the nerves are spread, is very large, as one may see by
looking at a mammal's skull divided into right and left

VARIATIONS IN THE SENSE OF SMELL 197

halves. And it seems immoderately large to us — to man
— because, after all, so far as our conscious lives are con-
cerned, the sense of smell has very small importance. Yet
man has a very considerable set of olfactive chambers
within the nostrils and has large olfactory nerves. Not
rarely men and women are found who are absolutely devoid
of the sense of smell, and the same thing occurs with
domesticated cats and dogs. In these cases the olfactory
lobes of the brain are imperfectly developed. It is found
that men in this condition suffer but little inconvenience in
consequence. We are able, through their statements, to
ascertain what parts of the savoury qualities of food and
drink belong to taste and what to smell. Such individuals
do not perceive perfumes, the bouquet of wine, or the
fragrance of tobacco, nor can they appreciate the artistic
efforts of a good cook. But they are spared the pain of
foul smells, and possibly in this way they may incur some
danger in civilised life through not being able to detect the
escape of sewer-gas or of coal-gas into a house, or the
putrid condition of ice-stored fish, birds, and meat. A
friend of my own, who is devoid of the sense of smell, in-
herited this defect from his father, and has transmitted it
to some of his children. I was surprised to find in con-
versing with him how often I alluded to smells, either
pleasant or unpleasant, when (as we had agreed he should)
he would interrupt me and say that my remark had no
meaning for him.

Some have a far more acute sense of smell than others,
and again some men, probably without being more acutely
endowed in that way, pay more attention to smells, and
use the memory of them in description and conversation.
Guy de Maupassant is remarkable as a writer for his
abundant introduction of references to agreeable and
mysterious perfumes, and also to repulsive odours. But
some men certainly have an exceptionally acute sense of

ig8 KISSES

smell, and can, on entering an empty room, recognise that
such and such a person has been there by the faint traces
— not of perfumery carried by the visitor — but of his
individual smell or odour. This brings us to one of the
most important facts about odorous bodies and the sense
of smell, namely, that not only do the various species of
animals (and plants) each have their own odour — often
difficult or impossible for man, with his aborted olfactory
powers, to distinguish — but that every individual has its
own special odour. As to how far this can be considered
a universal disposition is doubtful. It is probable that the
power of discriminating such individual odours is limited
(even in the case of dogs, where it is sometimes very highly
developed), to a power of discriminating the distinctive
smells of the individuals of certain species of animals, and
not of every individual of every species. Everyone knows
of the wonderful power of the bloodhound in tracking an
individual man by his smell, but dogs of other breeds also
often possess what seem to us extraordinary powers of the
kind. On a pebbly beach I pick up one smooth flint
pebble as big as a walnut. It is closely similar to thou-
sands of others lying there. I hold it in my hand without
letting my fox-terrier see it, and then I throw it. It drops
some eighty yards off among the other pebbles, and I
could not myself find it again. But the dog runs forward,
notes vaguely by ear and by eye the spot where it strikes,
and then commences a systematic circling within about ten
yards of the spot. In half a minute he pounces with the
utmost assurance on to one selected stone, and brings it to
me. It is invariably the stone which had been in my hand,
unseen by the dog, thrown by me, and detected by the smell
I have communicated to it.

Not only is the discrimination of individuals by the sense
of smell a very astonishing thing, but so also is the obvious
fact that the total amount of odoriferous matter which is

RADIATION AND ODOURS 199

sufficient to give a definite and discriminative sensation
through the organ of smell is of a minuteness beyond all cal-
culation or conception. These two facts — the almost infinite
individual diversity of smell and the almost infinite minute-
ness of the particles exciting it — render it very difficult to
form a satisfactory conclusion as to the nature of those
particles. It has been from time to time suggested that the
end-organs of the olfactory nerves may be excited, not by
chemically active particles, but by " rays," olfactive undula-
tions comparable to those of light. Physicists have not yet
been able to deal with the problem, but the recent discoveries
and theories as to radio-active bodies such as radium may
possibly lead to some more plausible theory as to the
diffusion and minuteness of odorous particles than any
which has yet been formulated. An example of the
minuteness of odoriferous particles is afforded by a piece
of musk which for ten years in succession has given off
into the changing air of an ordinary room " particles "
causing a readily recognised smell of musk, and yet is
found at the end of that time to have lost no weight, that
is to say, no weight which can be appreciated by the finest
chemical balance. An analogy (I say only an analogy,
a resemblance) to this is furnished by a pinch of the salt
known as radium chloride, no bigger than a rape-seed, and
enclosed in a glass tube, which will continue for months
and years to emit penetrating particles producing continu-
ously without cessation most obvious luminous and
electrical effects upon distant objects, the particles being
so minute that no loss of weight can be detected in the
pinch of salt from which they are given off.
The sense of smell is of service to animals —

(1) In avoiding enemies and noxious things.

(2) In tracing and following and discriminating prey or
other food.

(3) In recognising members of their own species ancj

200 KISSES

individuals of their own herd or troop, and in finding their
own young and their own nests.

(4) In seeking individuals of the opposite sex at the
breeding season.

It is in connection with the last of these services that
we come across some of the most curious observations as
to the production and perception of odorous particles.
Butterflies and moths and some other insects have olfactory
organs in the ends of the antennae and the " palps " about
the mouth. The perfumes of flowers have been developed so
as to attract insects by the sense of smell, as their colours
also have been developed to attract insects by the eye.
The insects serve the flowers by carrying the fertilising
pollen from one flower to another, and thus promoting
cross-fertilisation among separate individual plants of the
same species. But probably concurrently with this has
grown up the production of perfume by the scales on the
wings of moths and butterflies — perfumes which have the
most powerful attraction for the opposite sex of the same
species. Curiously enough (for these perfumes might very
well exist without being detected by man) some of the per-
fumes produced by butterflies are " smellable " by man.
That of the green-veined white is described as resembling
the agreeable odour of the lemon verbena. It is produced
by certain scales on the front border of the hinder wings
of the male insects, and not at all by the females, who are,
however, attracted by it, and flutter around the sweet-
smelling male. Other male butterflies produce a scent
like that of sweet briar, others like honeysuckle, others like
jasmine, and so attract the females. Other butterflies are
known which produce repulsive odours, and so protect
themselves from being eaten by birds and lizards. Again,
there are moths (for instance, the emperor moth, Saturnia),
the females of which produce a perfume which attracts the
males, and is of far-reaching power. The French ento-

ATTRACTION BY SMELL 201

mologist Fabre placed one of these female moths in a box
covered with net-gauze, and left it in a room with open
window, facing the countryside. In less than an hour the
room was full of male emperor moths — more than a
hundred arrived, although none had been previously visible
in the neighbourhood. They crowded over the box, and
even afterwards, when the female moth had been removed,
the perfume remained in the box, and the male moths
eagerly sought it. The perfume must have carried far
from the room where the female was, out into the woods
where it was perceived, and followed up to its source by
the male moths.

Such perfumes are very generally produced by little
pockets or glands in the skin, the- secretion having, in the
case of insects, birds and mammals, an oily nature. In
mammals they are largely produced by both males and
females, and serve to attract the sexes to one another.
Hairs are situated close to the minute odoriferous glands and
serve an important part in accumulating and diffusing the*
characteristic perfume. Musk and civet are of this nature,
and it is a significant fact that these substances are used
as perfumes by human beings. It would seem as though
mankind had lost either the power of satisfactorily perceiving
the perfumes naturally produced by the human skin, or that
the production of such perfumes had for some reason
diminished. Either condition would account for the use
by mankind of the perfumes of other animals and of
flowers. There are a variety of odorous substances produced
by different parts of the human body, of which some are
agreeable and others disagreeable. One of the most
curious facts in regard to odorous bodies is the close
resemblance between agreeable and repulsive odours, and
the readiness with which the judgment of human beings
may pronounce the same odour agreeable at one period or
place, and disagreeable at another. There also seems {o be

202 KISSES

a " dulling " of the power to perceive an odour which is a
consequence of constant exposure to that odour. Thus the
Chinese say that Europeans all smell unpleasantly, the
odour resembling that of sheep, although we do not observe
it ; whilst Europeans notice and dislike the smell of the
negro, a smell of the existence of which he is unaware.
The blood of animals, including that of man, has, when
freshly shed, a smell peculiar to the species, which has not,
however, any resemblance to that of the skin or of the waxy
glands of the same animal.

It seems that in regard to the exercise of the sense of
smell by man, we must distinguish not only greater from
less acuteness and variety of perception, but in the case of
this sense-organ, as in regard to the others, we must
distinguish " unconscious " from " conscious " sensation.
All our movements are guided and determined by sensations
of touch and sight, and to some extent, of hearing, of which
we are unconscious. A vast amount of our sense-experience
comes to us and is recorded without our having conscious-
ness of anything of the kind going on. It is probable that
the world of smells in which a dog with a fine olfactive
sense lives, produces little or nothing in the dog's mind
which is equivalent to our conscious perception of degrees
of agreeable and disagreeable odours. The dog is simply
attracted and repulsed in this direction and in that by the
operation of his olfactive organs, without, so to speak,
giving any attention to the sensation which is guiding him
or being " aware " of it. No doubt at times, and with
special intensities of smell, he is, in his way, conscious oi
a specific sensation. It is probable that whilst man's
general acuteness in perceiving and discriminating smells
has dwindled (as has that of the apes) in comparison with
what it was in his remote animal ancestry, yet he retains
a large inherited capacity of unconscious smell-sense, which
most of us are unable to recognise, although it is there,

UNCONSCIOUS GUIDANCE BY SMELL 203

operating in ourselves unknown to us and unobserved.
The consciousness of smell-sensations is what we value and
talk of. It does not extend to the more primal smell-
excitations, except in extraordinary individuals. Thus, it
seems to be not improbable that we are attracted or
repelled by other human individuals by the unconscious
operation upon us of attractive or repulsive odours, and
that the unaccountable liking or disliking which we some-
times experience in regard to other individuals is due
to perfumes and odours emanating from such persons,
which act upon us through our olfactory organs without
our being conscious of the fact. It seems that we can thus
arrive at a probable explanation of the universality of the
habit of kissing, and of " what is that thing we call a kiss."
It is not consciously used among civilised populations as a
deliberate attempt to smell the person kissed, but it
nevertheless serves to allow the unconscious exercise of
smell-preference, testing, and selection, with which are
mingled, more or less frequently, moments of conscious
appreciation of the complex of odours appertaining as an
individual quality to the person kissed.

CHAPTER XV
LAUGHTER

THE ancients associated laughter with the New Year.
I am not sure whether or no it is of good omen to
begin the New Year with laughter. Omens are such
tricky things that I have given up paying any attention
to them. One would think it might be held to be unlucky
to stumble on the doorstep as you set out from home, but
the old omen-wizards, apparently from sheer love of contra-
diction, said, " Not at all ! It is unlucky to stumble as
you come into the house, and therefore it is lucky to
stumble as you go out ! "

What is laughter? It is a spasmodic movement of
various muscles of the body, beginning with those which
half close the eyes and those which draw backwards and
upwards the sides of the mouth, and open it so as to
expose the teeth, next affecting those of respiration so as
to produce short rapidly succeeding expirations accom-
panied by sound (called " guffaws " when in excess), and
then extending to the limbs, causing up and down move-
ment of the half-closed fists and stamping of the feet, and
ending in a rolling on the ground and various contortions
of the body. Clapping the hands is not part of the
laughter " process," but a separate, often involuntary,
action which has the calling of attention to oneself as its
explanation, just as slapping the ground or a table or
one's thigh has. Laughter is spontaneous, that is to say,

WHY DO WE LAUGH? 205

the movements are not designed or directed by the
conscious will. But in mankind, in proportion as indivi-
duals are trained in self-control, it is more or less com-
pletely under command, and in spite of the most urgent
tendency of the automatic mechanism to enter upon the
progressive series of movements which we distinguish as
(i) smile, (2) broad smile or grin, (3)- laugh, (4) loud
laughter, (5) paroxysms of uncontrolled laughter, a man
or woman can prevent all indication by muscular move-
ment of a desire to laugh or even to smile. Usually
laughter is excited by certain pleasurable emotions, and is
to be regarded as an " expression " of such emotion just as
certain movements and the flow of tears are an " expres-
sion " of the painful emotion of grief and physical suffering,
and as other movements of the face and limbs are an
" expression " of anger, others of " fear." The Greek
gods of Olympus enjoyed " inextinguishable laughter."

It is interesting to see how far we can account for the
strange movements of laughter as part of the inherited
automatic mechanism of man. Why do we laugh ?
What is the advantage to the individual or the species of
" laughing " ? Why do we " express " our pleasurable
emotion, and why in this way? It is said that the out-
cast diminutive race of Ceylon known as the Veddas
never laugh, and it has even been seriously but erro-
neously stated that the muscles which move the face in
laughter, are wanting in them. A planter induced some
of these people to camp in his " compound," or park,
in order to learn something of their habits, language,
and beliefs. One day he said to the chief man of the
little tribe, " You Veddas never laugh. Why do you
never laugh ? " The little wild man replied, " It is true ;
we never laugh. What is there for us to laugh at ? " — an
answer almost terrible in its pathetic submission to a
joyless life. For laughter is primarily, to all races and

206 LAUGHTER

conditions of men, the accompaniment, the expression of
the simple joy of life. It has acquired a variety of relations
and significations in the course of the long development
of conscious man — but primarily it is an expression of
emotion, set going by the experience of the elementary
joys of life — the light and heat of the sun, the approach
of food, of love, of triumph.

Before we look further into the matter it is well to note
some exceptional cases of the causation of laughter. The
first of these is the excitation of laughter by a purely
mechanical " stimulus " or action from the exterior, without
any corresponding mental emotion of joy — namely by
" tickling," that is to say, by light rubbing or touching of
the skin under the arms or at the side of the neck, or on
the soles of the feet. Yet a certain readiness to respond
is necessary on the part of the person who is " tickled,"
for, although an unwilling subject may be thus made to
laugh, yet there are conditions of mind and of body in which
" tickling " produces no response. I do not propose to
discuss why it is that " tickling," or gentle friction of the skin
produces laughter. It is probably one of those cases in
which a mechanism of the living body is set to work, as a
machine may be, by directly causing the final movement
(say the turning of a wheel), for the production of which a
special train of apparatus, to be started by the letting loose
of a spring or the .turning of a steam-cock, is provided, and
in ordinary circumstance is the regular mode in which the
working of the mechanism is started. The apparatus of
laughter is when due to " tickling " set at work by a short
cut to the nerves and related muscles without recourse to
the normal emotional steam-cock.

Then we have laughter which is purely due to imita-
tion and suggestion. People laugh because others are
laughing, without knowing why. This throws a good deal
of light on the significance of laughter. It is essentially a

VARIETIES OF LAUGHTER 207

social appeal and response. Only in rare cases do people
laugh when they are alone. Under conditions which in
the presence of others would cause them to laugh they only
" chuckle " or smile, and may, though ready to burst into
laughter, not even exhibit its minor expressions when alone.
On the other hand, some sane people have the habit of
laughing aloud when alone, and there is a recognised form
of idiocy which is accompanied by incessant laughter,
ceasing only with sleep. Then there is that peculiar con-
dition of laughter which is called" giggling," which is laughter
asserting itself in spite of efforts made to restrain it, and
frequently only because the occasion is one when the
" giggler " is especially anxious not to laugh. This kind
of " inverted suggestion," as in the case where an individual
" blurts out " the very word or phrase which he is anxious
not to use, is obviously not primitive, but connected with
the long training and drilling of mankind into approved
" behaviour " by" taboos "and restrictive injunctions. Efforts
to behave correctly, by causing anxiety and mental dis-
turbance in excitable or so-called " nervous " subjects, lead
to an overmastering impulse to do the very thing which
must not be done !

It seems that laughter has its origin far back in the
animal ancestry of man, and is essentially an expression
to others of the joy and exhilaration felt by the laugher.
It is an appeal through the eye and ear for sympathy and
comradeship in enjoyment. Its use to social animals is in
the binding together of the members of a group or society
in common feeling and action. Many monkeys laugh,
some of them grinning so as to show the teeth, partly
opening the mouth and making sounds by spasmodic
breathing, identical with those made by man. I have seen
and heard the chimpanzees at the Zoological Gardens
laugh like children at the approach of their friend and my
friend, the distinguished naturalist Mr. George Boulenger,

208 LAUGHTER

F.R.S., recognising him among the crowd in front of their
cage when he was still far off. And I have often made
chimpanzees laugh — " roar with laughter," and roll over
in excitement — by tickling them under the arms. The
saying of Aristotle (inscribed over the curtain of the Palais
Royal Theatre in Paris) that "laughter is better than tears,
because laughter is the speciality of man," is not true. Not
only do the higher apes and some of the smaller monkeys
laugh, but dogs also laugh, although they do not make
sounds whilst indulging in "spasms of laughter." But their
distant cousin, the hyena, does laugh aloud, and its laugh-
ter agrees with that of the dog and with the laughter of
children and grown men in simpler moods in that it is
caused by the pleasurable emotion set up by the imminent
gratification of a healthy desire. The hyena laughs, the
dog grins and bounds, the child laughs and jumps for joy
at the approach of something good to eat. But it is a
curious fact that the whole attitude is changed when the
food is within reach, and the serious business of consuming
it has commenced! Nor, indeed, is the satisfaction which
is felt after the gratification of appetite accompanied by
laughter. It seems that the display of the teeth by drawing
back the corners of the mouth, which is called a "grin,"
and is associated in many dogs with short, sharp, demon-
strative barks, and in mankind with the cackle we call a
"laugh," is a retention, a survival, of the playful, good-
natured movement of gently biting or pulling a companion
with the teeth used by our animal ancestors to draw
attention to their joy and to communicate it to others.
Gradually it has lost the actual character of a friendly bite ;
the fore-feet or hands pull instead of the teeth ; the sound
emitted has become further differentiated from other
sounds made by the animal. But the movement for the
display of the teeth, though no longer needed as a part of
the act of gripping, remains as an understood and universal

THE LAUGH OF ESCAPE FROM DEATH

209

indication of joy and kindly feeling. So universal is it
that this friendly display of the teeth under the name
" smile " is attributed to Nature, to Fortune, and to deities
by all races of men when those powers seem to favour
them.

Laughter is, then, in its essence and origin, a communica-
tion or expression to others of the joyous mood of the
laugher. There are many and strangely varied occasions
when laughter seizes on man, and it is interesting to
see how far they can be explained by this conception of
the primary and essential nature of the laugh, for many of
them seem at first sight remote from it. There is, first
of all, the laughter of revivification and escape from death
or danger. After railway accidents, earthquakes, and
such terrible occurrences, those who have been in great
danger often burst into laughter. The nervous balance
has been upset by the shock (we call them "shocking
accidents "), and the emotional joy of escape, the joy of
recovered life, asserts itself in what appears to the onlooker
to be an unseemly, an unfeeling laugh. It is recorded
that one of the entombed French coal miners, who two
years ago were imprisoned without food or light for
twenty days a thousand feet below in the bowels of the
earth, burst into a ghastly laugh when he was rescued
and brought to the upper air once more. The Greeks
and Romans in some of their festal ceremonies made the
priest or actor who represented dead nature returning to
life in the spring, burst into a laugh — a ceremonial or
" ritual " laugh. Our poets speak of the smiles, and even
of the laughter of spring, and that is why laughter is
appropriate to New Year's Day. It is the laughter of
escape from the death of winter and of return to life, for
the true and old-established New Year's Day was not in
mid-winter, but a quarter of a year later, when buds and
flowers are bursting into life. It is recorded by ancient

'4

210 LAUGHTER

writers that the " ritual laugh " was enforced by the
Sardinians and others who habitually killed their old people
(their parents), upon their victims. They smiled and
laughed as part of the ceremony, the executioners also
smiling. The old people were supposed to laugh with joy
at the revivification which was in store for them in a
future state. So, too, the Hindoo widows used to laugh
when seated on the funeral pyre ready to be burnt. So,
too, is explained (by Reinach) the laughter of Joan of Arc
when she made her abjuration in front of the faggots
which were to burn her to death. Her laugh was caused
by the thought of her escape from persecution and of the
joyful resurrection soon to come. It was not an indication
that she was not serious, and that her abjuration of witch-
craft was a farce, as her enemies asserted.

More difficult to explain is the laughter excited by
scenes or narrations which we call ludicrous, funny,
grotesque, comic ; and still more so the derisive and con-
temptuous laugh. Caricature or burlesque of well-known
men is a favourite method of producing laughter among
savages as well as civilised peoples. Why do we laugh
when a man on the stage searches everywhere for his hat,
which is all the time on his head ? Why do we laugh
when a pompous gentleman slips on a piece of orange-
peel and falls to the ground, or when one buffoon unex-
pectedly hits another on the head, and, before he has had
time to recover, with equal unexpectedness hooks his legs
with a stick and brings him heavily to the ground ? Why
did we laugh at the adventures of Mr. Penley in "Charley's
Aunt"? In all of these "ludicrous" affairs there is an
element of surprise, a slight shock which puts us off our
mental balance, and the subsequent laughter, when we
realise either that no serious harm has been done or \hat
the whole thing is make-believe, seems to partake of the
character of the " laugh of escape." It is caused by a

THE LAUGH OF DERISION 211

sense of relief when we recognise that the disaster is not
real. We laugh at the " unreal " when we should be filled
with horror and grief were we assured that there was real
pain and cruelty going on in front of us. The laughter
caused by grotesque mimicry or caricature of pompous or
solemn individuals seems to arise from the same (more or
less unconscious) working of the mind as that caused by
some unexpected neglect of those social " taboos " or laws
of behaviour which we call modesty, decency, and propriety.
They either cause indignation and resentment in the
on-looker at the neglect of respect for the taboo, or, on the
contrary, the natural man, long oppressed by pomposity
or by the fetters of propriety imposed by society, suddenly
feels a joyous sense of escape from his bonds, and bursts
into laughter — the laughter of a return to vitality and
nature — which is enormously encouraged and developed
into " roars of merriment " by the sympathy of others
around him who are experiencing the same emotion and
expressing it in the same way.

The laugh of derision and contempt and the laugh of
exultation and triumph are of a different character. I
cannot now discuss them further than to say that they are
either genuine or pretended assertions of joy in one's own
superior vitality or other superiority. The "sardonic
smile " and " sardonic laughter " have been supposed by
some learned men to refer to the smiles of the ancient
Sardinians when stoning their aged parents. But they
have no more to do with Sardinians than they have with
sardines or sardonyx. The word " sardonic " is related to
a Greek word which means " to snarl," and a sardonic grin
is merely a snarl. In it the teeth are shown with
malicious intent, and not as they are in the benevolent
appeal of true laughter. Mrs. Grote, the wife of the great
historian (who was herself declared by a French wit to
furnish the explanation of the word " grotesque "), wrote

212 LAUGHTER

of "Owen's sugar-of-lead smile "-—referring to the great
naturalist, Richard Owen. There was no malice in the
description, for he had, as some others have, a very sweet
smile, accompanied by a strangely grave and disapproving
glare in his large blue prominent eyes. It was only
apparently sugar of lead ; really, it was sugar of milk —
the milk of human kindness. The smile of the lost
picture called " La Gioconda " is by fanciful people re-
garded as something very wonderful. It is really the
clever portraiture of the habitual "leer" of a somewhat
wearied sensual woman. It had a fascination for the
great Leonardo, but no profound significance.

CHAPTER XVI

FATHERLESS FROGS

ONE of the most interesting discoveries of recent date
in regard to the processes which go on in that all-
important material — protoplasm — which is the physical
basis of life and the essential constituent of "cells" — those
minute corpuscles of which all living bodies are built — was
made in 1910 by a French naturalist, M. Bataillon, and
has been examined and confirmed by another French
biologist, M. Henneguy. To explain this discovery, a few
words as to well-known facts are necessary. It is well
known that if we isolate a female frog at the egg-laying
season and let her swim in perfectly pure filtered water,
and proceed to deposit some of her eggs in that water, the
eggs will not germinate; they remain unchanged for a time
and then decompose — become, in fact, " rotten." It is a
matter of common knowledge that it is necessary for the
eggs to be "fertilised" in order that they may start on that
series of changes and growth which we call "development,"
and become tadpoles and eventually young frogs. The
" fertilisation " of the frog's eggs is effected in ordinary
conditions by the presence in the water of the pond, into
wh'ch the female sheds them, of microscopic sperm-filaments
(often called spermatozoa, or simply " sperms ") which are
shed into the water at the same time by the male frog.
The egg (the blackish-brown spherical body, as big as a

214 FATHERLESS FROGS

rape-seed, which is imbedded in a thin jelly, and is familiar
to those who are drawn by curiosity to look into the waters
of wayside ponds in spring) is a single cell or corpuscle of
protoplasm distended with dark-coloured and other granules
of nutrient substance. A single sperm (though requiring
the microscope to render it visible) is also a single cell.
It is a minute oval body, with a long serpentine tail of
actively undulating protoplasm. Hundreds of thousands
of these are shed into the water at the breeding season by
the male frog. One is enough to fertilise the egg. The
sperm-cells swim in the water, and are chemically attracted
by the eggs. As there are so many sperms, one of them is
sure to reach each black egg-sphere. It drives its way into
the substance of the egg, making a minute hole in its
surface ; then the protoplasm of the sperm fuses with the
protoplasm of the egg, and becomes intimately mixed with
it. The egg-cell has a " nucleus," that dense, peculiar,
deep-lying, and well-marked " kernel " of its protoplasm
which all cells have. It is of essential importance in the
life and activity of the cell. The sperm-cell has also a
" nucleus," and now (as has been carefully asertained) the
nucleus of the sperm and the nucleus of the egg-cell unite
and form one single nucleus. The egg is thereupon said
to be " fertilised " — that is to say, " rendered fertile." It
at once commences to move. Its surface ripples and
contracts and nips in deeply, so that the sphere is marked
out into two hemispheres. These are two "cells," or
masses of protoplasm, adhering to each other. Each is
provided with its own distinct nucleus or cell-kernel, for
the first step in the division of the egg-sphere is the
division within it of its newly constituted nucleus into two,
each half consisting of nearly equal proportions of the
mingled substance of the sperm-nucleus and the egg-
nucleus. The two first cells or hemispheres again divide,
and so the process goes on until the little black egg has

FERTILISATION OF THE EGG-CELL 215

the appearance of a mulberry, each granule of the berry
being a cell provided with its own nucleus derived from
the original nucleus formed by the fusion of the nuclei of
the paternal and maternal cells. In the course of a day
or two the division has proceeded so far that the resulting
" cells " are so small as to be invisible with a hand-glass,
and require one to use a high magnifying power in order
to distinguish them. And there are hundreds of them ;
the whole mass of the " egg " within, as well as on the
surface, has divided into separate cells. They go on
multiplying, take up water, and nourish themselves on the
granular nutritive matter present from the first in the egg-
cell. The little mass elongates, increases in size, and
gradually assumes the form of a young tadpole.

We see, then, that the process of fertilisation consists in
two things, the latter of which necessitates the former, viz. in
the breaking or penetration of the surface of the egg-cell by
the active sperm filament, and second, in the fusion of the
substance of the sperm-filament with that of the egg in
such a way that there is a distinct and intimate fusion of
the nucleus of the sperm filament with the nucleus of the
egg-cell. The recent discovery of M. Bataillon is this, viz.
that you can make the frog's egg develop in a perfectly
regular way and become a tadpole and then a young frog
without the admission to it of a sperm-filament or of any
substance derived from the male frog. All you have to
do — and the operation, though it sounds easy and simple,
is an exceedingly delicate and difficult one — is to prick
with a fine needle the surface of the little black egg-sphere
(not merely of the jelly surrounding it) when it is shed by
the female frog into perfectly pure water free from sperms
or anything of the sort. The slight artificial puncture
acts as does the natural puncture by the swimming sperm-
filament, and is sufficient ! The egg proceeds to develop
quite regularly. There is no fusion of the nucleus of the

2i6 FATHERLESS FROGS

egg-cell with any matter from the outside ; no paternal
" material " is introduced, but the nucleus of the egg-cell
divides just as though there had been ! The whole
progeny of cells, successively formed, are the pure offspring
of the maternal egg-cell and its nucleus. The tadpoles
and young frogs so produced are examples of what is
called " parthenogenesis " — that is to say, virginal reproduc-
tion— reproduction without fertilisation by material derived
from a male parent ! The needle, which gives off no
material, but simply makes a tiny break in the surface of
the egg, does all that is necessary !

To those not acquainted with all that has been ascer-
tained as to the reproduction of lower animals, such as
insects, crustaceans, and worms, this discovery will appear
more astonishing than it really is. We know of many
lower animals in which the egg-cells produced by the
females do regularly and naturally develop without the
intervention of a male and without fertilisation. In an
earlier volume5* of this " Easy Chair Series " I wrote of
this curious subject, and described the virgin reproduction
or parthenogenesis of the hop-louse and other plant lice,
of some moths, of some fresh-water shrimps, and of the
queen bee (who produces only drones by eggs which are
not fertilised). But I had to point out then that no case
was known of " parthenogenesis " — that is to say, repro-
duction by unfertilised eggs — among the whole series of
vertebrate animals, the fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds,
and mammals. The chief point of novelty in M. Bataillon's
discovery is that we have now an experimental -demon-
stration of parthenogenesis in a vertebrate animal, ant^in
one so highly organised as the frog. And equally ih-
teresting, indeed more important from the point of view
as to the real meaning and nature of fertilisation, is the
mode in which the parthenogenesis of the frog is set

* ' Science Irom an Easy Chair,' Methuen & Co., 1910.

EGG-CELLS DEVELOPING UNFERTILISED 217

going, namely, by a mere prick of the surface film of the
ripe egg !

There have, however, been important experiments on
the subject of the development of eggs without fertilisa-
tion in recent years, prior to these discoveries as to the frog's
egg. A favourite subject for such inquiries is the sea
urchin (Echinus of different kinds). The female sea
urchin, or sea egg, like its close allies the star fishes, lays
a great number of very transparent minute eggs (each
about the ^wtn °f an mcn m diameter) in sea-water, and
they are there fertilised by the mobile sperm-filaments
discharged by the males. The eggs are so transparent
and so easily kept alive in jars of sea- water that there is
no difficulty in watching under the microscope the pene-
tration of the egg by a sperm, and the fusion and other
changes in the nuclei. Delages of Paris, and Loeb of
California, have made valuable studies on these eggs.
Loeb has shown that they may be artificially started on
the course of development and cell division without fertili-
sation— simply by the action of minute quantities of
simple chemicals (fatty acids, etc.) introduced into the sea-
water by the experimenter. These chemicals appear to
act on the delicate pellicle which forms the surface of the
egg-cell in much the same way as the prick of a needle
acts on a frog's egg. A limited and delicately adjusted
disturbance of the cohesion (or of the surface-tension) of
the egg-cell seems to be all that is necessary for starting
the egg-cell on its career of development. It becomes, in
the light of these experiments, not so much a wonder that
egg-cells should develop " on their own," but that they do
not more frequently do so. It must be remembered that
the " germination " and development of unfertilised eggs,
even when the whole range of animals and plants is taken
into account (for plants also are reproduced by single cells
identical in character with the egg-cells and sperm-cells

218 FATHERLESS FROGS

of animals), that is to say, the existence of " partheno-
genesis " as a natural, regularly recurring process, is excep-
tional. We must distinguish cases in which it regularly
occurs as part of the life-history of an animal or plant
from cases in which it has been successfully brought about
by experimental " artificial " methods designed by man.
The plant-lice " naturally " reproduce through the summer
by unfertilised eggs producing only females, but in the
first cold of autumn males are hatched from some of the
eggs, and the eggs of this generation are fertilised and
bide through the winter, hatching in the following spring.
Some few moths and flies also reproduce naturally during
summer by unfertilised eggs, and the brine-shrimps and
some other fresh-water shrimps produce " fatherless "
broods from their eggs, sometimes for years in succession,
until " one fine day " some males are hatched, owing to
what causes we do not know. The queen bee naturally
and regularly lays a certain number of unfertilised eggs,
and these produce, not females as do the unfertilised eggs
of plant-lice, etc., but male bees — the drones — and it is
only from such eggs that the drones of bees are born.
These are the chief cases of regular and natural partheno-
genesis, but there are others which might be enumerated.
On the other hand, examples of artificially induced
development of eggs, not fertilised, are very few. The
first known came accidentally to notice. Female silk-worm
moths reared in confinement sometimes lay eggs when
kept apart from the male, and these have been found to
hatch, and give rise to caterpillars, which were not reared
to maturity. Other moths bred by collectors behaved in
the same way, but the grubs were reared to maturity, and
three successive generations of " fatherless " moths were
obtained. In these cases the hatching of unfertilised eggs
is not known to occur in a state of nature, although it
probably occurs occasionally. It has also been observed

M. BATAILLON'S DISCOVERY 219

— an important fact when considered with the history of
the frog's egg and the needle — that " brushing " the
unfertilised eggs of the silkworm and other moths, that is
to say, gently polishing the little egg-shells with a soft
camel's-hair brush, has the effect of starting development.
Taking two lots of unfertilised eggs adhering to slips of
paper, as laid by the mother moth, it is found that those
gently brushed will hatch, whilst those not brushed will
either not hatch at all, or in very small number. The
brushing seems to disturb the equilibrium of the proto-
plasmic egg-cell within the egg-shell just sufficiently to
set it going — going on its course of division and develop-
ment. The only other case of "artificially-induced
parthenogenesis " at present recorded is that of the
common frog, due to M. Bataillon. There are questions
of great interest still to be made out as the result of his
discovery. Can the fatherless brood be reared to maturity
and again made to yield a fatherless generation ? What
is the precise structure of the nuclei of the cells which
originate from the nucleus of the egg-cell only, and not
from a nucleus formed by the fusion of that with a sperm-
cell nucleus ? These and similar questions are the motive
of further careful study now in progress.

The important conclusion is forced upon us by these
experiments with a needle, that even in so typical and
highly organised a creature as one of the higher or five-
fingered, air-breathing vertebrates, the egg-cell does not
require any material admixture from the sperm-cell in
order that it may successfully germinate and develop, but
only a disturbance of equilibrium, which can be admini-
stered as well by a needle's point as by a sperm-filament !
Yet the whole process of sexual reproduction undoubtedly
has, as its origin and explanation, the fusion in the first
cell of the new generation from which all the rest will
arise, of the material of two distinct individuals. Thus

220 FATHERLESS FROGS

the qualities of the young are not a repetition of the
qualities of one parent, nor are they a mere mixture of
the qualities of both parents (for contradictory qualities
cannot mix). They are a new grouping of qualities com-
prising some of the one parent and some of the other,
and hence a great opportunity for variation, for departure
from either parent's exact "make-up," is afforded, and for
the selection and survival of the new combination. It is,
it would seem, only in exceptional cases and for limited
periods that uni-sexual or fatherless reproduction can be
advantageous to a species of plant or animal. Such cases
are those in which abundant food, present for a limited
season, renders the most rapid multiplication of individuals
an advantage to the species. But after this exceptional
abundance has come to an end, the more usual process of
reproduction by fertilised eggs (also necessary and advan-
tageous for the preservation of the race by "natural selection
in the struggle for existence " of the new varieties so
produced) is resumed until again the abundant food is
present, as in the annual history of plant lice and the
plants on which they feed.

CHAPTER XVII

PRIMITIVE BELIEFS ABOUT FATHERLESS
PROGENY

IN the preceding chapter I related the curious and
exceptional cases of " fatherless reproduction " by
means of true egg-cells, those cells of special nature pro-
duced in the organs called " ovaries," present in all but
the simplest animals and plants. These egg-cells are
usually, with elaborate sureness and precise mechanism
after liberation from the ovary, fertilised by (that is to
say, fused with) the complemental reproductive cells — the
sperm-filaments — produced by other individuals, the males.
But we must not forget — and, indeed, one should not
enter on the consideration of this subject without a know-
ledge of the fact — that vast numbers of animals and plants
reproduce themselves " asexually," as it is termed, namely,
by breaking-off or separating buds, branches, or other
good solid bits of their structure which, when thus separa-
rated, are capable of individual life and growth. Thus
plants very largely multiply, using this method in addition
to the sexual method of egg-cells and sperm-cells. One
may take " cuttings " from plants and rear them, and
plants also " cut " or detach such bits themselves, in the
form of runners, of dividing bulbs, of bulkules, and such
reproductive growths seen on the lily, on the viviparous,
alpine grass, and many other plants. Even a bit cut off
from the leaf of a plant (for instance, a begonia) will

222 SOME PRIMITIVE BELIEFS

sprout, root itself, and grow into a completely formed and
healthy individual. Animals, too, such as polyps or
zoophytes, and many beautiful and elaborate worms,
multiply by " fission," dividing into two or more parts,
each of which becomes a complete animal. This process
is not seen in any fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, or mammal,
nor in molluscs, nor in insects, crustaceans, myriapods, and
arachnids (spiders and scorpions). It is almost wholly
conf.ned to lower animals (worms and polyps) and to
plants, and hence is often called " vegetative reproduction."
The most remarkable case of its appearance among higher
forms is that of the marine ascidians, or tunicates* — close
allies of the true vertebrates — where reproduction by
budding and the formation of wonderfully elaborate star-
like forms produced by budding and the cohesion of the
budded individuals as one composite individual are well-
known. Their beautiful shapes and colours have been
reproduced in hundreds of exquisite pictures by our great
artist-naturalists. We thus have to recognise that there
are two distinct kinds of reproduction in living things.
One is " asexual," by means of division or separation of
large or special masses of their substance, made up of
ordinary tissue cells. Co-existing with this, often in the
same individuals, is the other method, the " sexual," by
means of detached egg-cells and sperm-cells which are
thrown off from the parents, and do not (except in rare
instances) proceed to develop unless the egg-cell is " fer-
tilised " by the fusion with it of a sperm-cell.

The whole subject of the reproduction of animals and
plants was, untL' the introduction of the microscope,
involved in obscurity and mystery. The Greeks and
Romans had necessarily very imperfect and erroneous
notions on the subject, and it was not until 300
years ago that William Harvey, the discoverer of the
* See p. 276 for some account of the Tunicates or Ascidians.

HARVEY AND MILTON^ 223

circulation of the blood, declared, as a general law, that
every living thing is born from an egg. During that 300
years his conclusion has been examined and modified,
corrected and expanded, and the microscope has at last
enabled us to see and follow the excessively minute
particles and structures by which sexual reproduction is
effected. Harvey's dictum was a step in advance when it
was made, for previously the belief was current that living
things were " bred " in all sorts of queer ways. It was
supposed that the putrefying flesh of a dead animal
actually was converted by a sudden process into maggots,
and that rotten wood would breed, out of its own sub-
stance, ship's barnacles and even young geese and mice —
an opinion contested only 200 years ago by Sir Thomas
Browne ! No difficulty was felt in admitting that whole
swarms of insects, fishes, and even herds of larger beasts
were spontaneously generated from mud, from putrid
matter, or from the waters of the sea. That, indeed, was
the popular notion set forth by the poet, John Milton, as
to the mode in which living things were " miraculously "
brought into existence at the beginning of things by the
" fiat " of the Creator. What more probable than that
such a creation should still be, here and there, at work ?
However, not three centuries ago, actual experiment
gradually convinced the learned that maggots are bred in
a dead body only from the eggs laid by parent flies, as
shown by the Italian Redi in 1668 who found that no
maggots were bred when he simply excluded the flies from
access to the dead body by covering it with wire gauze,
but that the blow-flies swarmed on the gauze and vainly
laid their eggs on it ! It was only gradually recognised
that birth by means of eggs or germs extruded from
parental organisms of the same history and character as
their offspring is the explanation of all such swarms of
flies, worms, and even mushrooms and moulds as had

224 SOME PRIMITIVE BELIEFS

been formerly ascribed to a mysterious power of breeding
these organisms possessed by inanimate dirt and refuse.

In spite of this progress in knowledge the belief in
" spontaneous generation " of such excessively minute
organisms as the bacteria and yeasts was general until
Theodore Schwann in 1836 performed with them just the
same experiment as Redi had performed with blow-flies
in 1668. He showed that if a putrescible liquid (for
instance, soup) were boiled in a retort so as to destroy all
germs, and then the open neck of the retort was kept heated
in a flame, so that no floating germs could enter alive, the
soup did not putrefy, and no bacteria or other organisms
appeared in it. The old notions, nevertheless, survive to
this day. Peasants, fisher-folk, and even uneducated
wealthy countrymen cling to them with the confidence
arising from profound ignorance. And occasionally a
man of some scientific training and knowledge astonishes
the world by a futile attempt to show that the old fancies
were true in regard, at any rate, to the lowest microscopic
forms of life. But these are but the echoes of the past ;
we do not believe nowadays in " spontaneous genera-
tion," nor in sudden transformations of lower into higher
forms of life. The doctrine, " omme vivum e vivo " — every
living thing (in the present condition of our earth) is born
from a living thing — is now held by scientific investigators
as a reasonable generalisation of experience.

On the other hand, Harvey's dictum, " Every living
thing comes from an egg," is only true in a limited sense,
namely, that whilst the individual among most larger
animals and plants is always traceable to an egg-cell
detached from a parental individual of a like kind or
species, there are whole groups and series of lower animals
and most plants in which the individual born or
" developed " from an egg-cell does not proceed when
grown to full size to reproduce in turn by eggs and fer-

REPRODUCTION BY BUDDING 225

tilising sperms, but divides into two or more individuals
or gives off detached buds or reproductive bulbs, which
become separate individuals, and only after these and
several successive generations of individuals have been
thus produced " asexually," by fission or by budding,
does a generation appear which produces true egg-cells
and sperm-cells and reproduces by their means. Thus
it is true that the individuals " budded off" or separated
by fission from an asexual parent can be ultimately
traced through one or more generations of previous
asexual parents to an egg-cell produced and fertilised in
the regular way, and with this important modification
Harvey's dictum is justified. These facts and the wonderful
histories of the animals and plants in which egg-and-
sperm-producing generations " alternate " with generations
which multiply by fission and budding have only been
worked out in detail and by the aid of the microscope
during the great century of scientific discovery which lies
just behind us. Often the two generations, reproducing,
the one by fission, the other by egg- and sperm-cells, are
alike in appearance, but often they are very different, and
have naturally been supposed at first to have nothing to
do with each other.

Thus some of the little " coralline polyps " and other
most beautiful little marine flower-like polyps attached to
rocks, weeds, and shells in the sea reproduce by budding
and division. But after a period of such growth and
such budding they produce on their stalks — jelly-fish !
These jelly-fish are budded and thrown off by them, as
glass-like swimming bells, which lead an independent life,
seize prey, nourish themselves, and grow to a size varying
from that of a sixpence to that of a cart-wheel. These
" bells " are commonly known as " jelly-fish." They dis-
charge thousands of egg-cells into the sea and fertilise
them with sperms ! From those fertilised eggs grow young

IS

226 FATHERLESS PROGENY

polyps, which fix themselves to rocks or weeds, and grow
up to bud and multiply by fission, and eventually to pro-
duce again by fission a generation of jelly-fishes ! Such a
marvellous history of alternating modes of reproduction has
been discovered, and described in greatest microscopic detail
and with most ample pictorial representations of all the
minutest structures of the organisms studied, not only in
many marine polyps, but also in the case of many para-
sitic worms, such as the tape-worms and the liver-flukes.
Some of the most fascinating cases, on account of the
beauty of the little creatures concerned, are found amongst
the surface-swimming Ascidians of the sea — the glass-like
Salps (see p. 303). But our common ferns and mosses also
show this same alternation of sexual and sexless genera-
tions, the two generations differing greatly in size, form,
and structure from one another, whilst the whole history
of "flowers" and their structure is bound up with a wonder-
ful " telescoping " or rolling of the two generations (sexless
and sexual) into one plant ! (See Chapters VII and VIII.)
It was not until long after Harvey's time that these
things were understood, and there was every excuse — in
the absence of observation of the facts, especially those
yet to be revealed by the microscope — for the erroneous
suppositions and explanations which were formerly enter-
tained as to the mode of reproduction of the less familiar
plants and animals. If we go back to the starting-point
of European science, to the great Aristotle, we find that
he had formed singularly correct conclusions as to the
reproduction of the larger kinds of animals, though he
knew nothing about " sperms," having no microscope, and
only icgarded the fluid produced by male animals as
exercising a fertilising effect on the eggs, which in many
instances are large enough for anyone to see. But, of
course, he could not have any knowledge of the egg-cell,
nor does he say anything about the reproduction of

STORIES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS 227

plants. Later, however, the sexuality of flowering plants
was taught by his pupils, and at the time of the
Roman Empire there was a very definite belief among
learned men (such as Pliny) that the larger plants and
animals reproduce by eggs or by seeds produced by the
females which require to be " fertilised " by a product
formed in the males — the spermatic fluid in the case of
animals and by the pollen in the case of a few flowering
plants (e.g. the date-palm). But there was no idea of
holding this as a general and universal law. From Pliny
to Harvey and later, those who concerned themselves with
natural history accepted without difficulty any strange
accounts or appearances as to the reproduction or the
sudden production in fanciful and astonishing ways of
the lower and smaller animals and plants. They did not
expect these inferior creatures to have the same methods
of reproduction as the higher and bigger creatures. It is
only now, since the later years of the nineteenth century,
that we are able to show that all animals and plants, even
the minutest microscopic kinds, reproduce by the formation
and separation of egg-cells, and that these egg-cells are
(in all but a few exceptional cases) fertilised by sperm-
cells, which are smaller than the egg-cells, and usually
provided with active swimming filaments.

Not only did our mediaeval ancestors believe all sorts
of fancies as to the propagation of lower animals and
plants, but they were quite prepared to accept stories as
to reproduction in the case of higher animals, and even in
mankind, by irregular methods, such as parthenogenesis,
or the defect of an ordinary male parent. In the Middle
Ages in Europe, and earlier in the East, the belief in the
frequent occurrence of the birth of a child which had no
human male parent was common. It was, so to speak, an
admitted though irregular occurrence. A very curious
thing is that when such cases were supposed to occur, they

228 FATHERLESS PROGENY

were not ascribed to any natural process such as we now
recognise in the " parthenogenesis " of insects and crus-
taceans, but to the visitation of the mother by a spirit —
a floating, volatile demon or angel (known as an "incubus"
in the Middle Ages) — beneficent or malicious as the case
might be. Stones of the nocturnal visits of these mys-
terious ghostly " incubi " are on record in great number
and variety, both in European and Oriental tradition and
legend. There seems to have been a readiness to believe
the theory of paternity from among the hidden world of
goblins, fairies, and sprites which was very naturally made
use of by a woman and her relatives when she could not
produce the father of her child.

We come across examples of such beliefs in invisible
agents of paternity even among the more cultivated
Romans. Thus Virgil in his " Georgics " cites as a fact
that mares are fertilised by the wind. His words are
given on the next page.

It is now known that, quite apart from any motive of
concealment of the true paternity of their offspring, some
of the native tribes of Australia have the belief that, as the
regular and normal thing, children are begotten by strange
fairy-like spirits which haunt the rocks and trees of certain
localities and enter the future mother as she passes by
these haunted rocks and trees. These Australian " black
fellows " hold that the human father counts for nothing in
the matter. The belief of these Australian savages is
referred to by writers on the subject (Mr. Andrew Lang
and others) as " the spiritual theory of conception."
There are some reasons for thinking that this curious
theory and the accompanying ignorance as to the natural
causes of conception were widely spread among primeval
men. The fact that most trees are fertilised by the wind
(which carries to their female flowers the invisible powder,
or pollen, of the male flowers, conveyed in the case of
smaller plants which have gay-coloured flowers by bees

SPIRITUAL THEORY OF CONCEPTION 229

and butterflies) may have been noticed by primitive man,
and have started the belief that there are fertilising spirits
or demons in the air. However the fancy arose, it is
only a parallel to the strange fancies as to spontaneous
generation of all sorts of animals and plants current 200
years ago among civilised men. And, further, it is worth
noting that the uncanny belief in the " incubus " which was
generally prevalent in the Middle Ages may possibly be
considered as a survival in (or incursion into) Europe of
the primitive spiritual theory of all human conception, and
of the fertilising activity of the haunting spirits of the air
which was held by primeval man, and is still found in full
force among the Arunta tribes of Australia.

"Ore omnes versae in Zephyrum stant rupibus altis
Exceptantque leves auras et saepe sine ullis
Conjugiis vento gravidae, mirabile dictu."

GEORGIC iii. 275.

(Facing the west on lofty rocks
All stand and sniff the buoyant breeze
And often — marvellous to tell —
Without conjunction with a sire,
Bear young engendered by the wind.)

CHAPTER XVIII
THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN

THE tradition of the existence of dwarfs, not as isolated
examples, but as a race with their own customs,
government, and language is familiar among civilised people,
and exists among scattered and remote savages. We have
all heard of them in that treasury of primitive beliefs — the
nursery. Therefore, the fact that there are at this moment
in various parts of the world dwarf or pygmy tribes of
men, living in proximity to but apart from those races
which have a stature identical with our own, has a great
fascination and interest. Some few races of men have an
average height of an inch, or thereabouts, greater than that
of the people of the British Islands, whilst some are
shorter by as much as two or three inches. But, on the
whole, it may be said that, putting aside the pygmy races,
of which I am about to write, mankind generally does not
show a very striking range of normal stature — the mass
in any race or region of the globe varying from 5ft. 4in.
to 5ft. 8in., and tending to the higher rather than the
lower figure.

The pygmy races are sharply separated from normal
mankind by as much as a foot, and even more, in average
stature, ranging from 4ft. to something less than 4ft. i lin. in
height. They are, enumerating them in the order of their
purity of race and completeness of their isolation : ( i ) The

CHARACTERISTICS OF PYGMIES 231

Mincopies, or Andaman Islanders ; (2) the Congo pygmies
(comprising the tribes known as the Akkas, or Tiki-Tikis,
the Bambutis, the Watwas, the Obongos, and Bayagas) ;
(3) the bushmen of South Africa ; (4) the Aetas of the
Philippine Islands ; (5) the Samangs of Malacca, and very
similar isolated pygmy tribes which have been observed in
New Guinea, and also in the Solomon Islands and in
Formosa. The Veddas of Ceylon, the Senois of Malacca,
and the Toalas of Celebes are apparently races which
have resulted from the " crossing " of true pygmies with
other normal-statured races inhabiting the islands in which
they are found. The Brahouis of Beloochistan and the
" monkey-men," or Bandra-Loks, east of the Indus, appear
also to belong to the pygmy race.

Next to their agreement in small size, the most inter-
esting fact about the pygmies we have just emumerated
is that, notwithstanding the wide area over which they
are found in scattered, isolated communities — viz. from
the Congo to South Africa on the one hand, and, on the
other hand, from Central Africa to the Indian Ocean, and
on to New Guinea, the Philippine Islands, and Formosa
— yet they all have short, round skulls of full average
brain capacity, and have their hair growing in tightly
curled-up peppercorn-like tufts — two characters found
combined in no other race. They usually have finely-deve-
loped, straight foreheads, and the jaws do not project
strongly ; the lips are usually fine and thin, and the nose,
though very broad, is not always greatly flattened. They
are well-shaped, well-proportioned little people, neither
grotesque nor deformed. To a great extent their
corporeal features suggest an infantile or child-like stage
of development, and the same is true of their intellectual
condition and of their productions. Their habitations
are very primitive, either caves or low clay-made huts, of
the shape of half an egg. They do not make pottery,

232 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN

and neither keep herds nor till the ground, contenting
themselves with such food as wild fruits and roots and the
animals they kill with spear or arrow or capture in traps.
They do not mutilate or bedaub their bodies (though the
Andamanese indulge in a kind of " tattooing "). Among
them the struggle for life does not exist in its more brutal
forms. They take care of the sick and feeble, the children,
and the old people. Cannibalism is unknown amongst
them ; they punish murder and theft. They are honest, and,
moreover, are monogamous, and punish adultery, which is
rare among them. Their religion is remarkably simple. It
is limited to reverence for a Supreme Being, without any
offering of sacrifice, and they do not worship ancestors
nor exhibit the superstitions known as "animism." It has
been argued that these characteristics, taken together,
indicate a primitive condition of humanity. On the other
hand, many writers regard them as degenerate offshoots
of negro-like races of larger stature and more complicated
mental development.

There is no name by which the whole series of these
small-sized people is indicated excepting the ancient
designation of "pygmies." Many careful students ot
human races separate the pygmies of Africa as " negril-
loes " from the pygmies of Asia, whom they designate
" negritoes," and it is held that the negrilloes (Congo
pygmies and bushmen) hold the same relation to African
negroes and Zulus as the negritoes (Andamanese, and
scattered tribes in New Guinea, the Philippines, For-
mosa, and the Solomon Islands, as well as in Malacca
and Annam and in the north-west and in other parts of
Hindustan) hold to the full-sized, frizzly haired Papuans.
This, no doubt, is a convenient way of stating the case,
but the important fact remains that the pygmies of purest
race, both of Africa and Asia, have the remarkable
characteristics in common which we have noted above.

COLOUR OF THE SKIN 233

Their bodily and mental peculiarities certainly suggest,
whether the suggestion can be verified or not, the former
existence in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia of a
widely spread pygmy race of uniform character, a race
which has been, to a large extent, destroyed by other
races of larger and more powerful individuals, but has
also in many regions (especially on the Asiatic Continent)
intermarried with the surrounding larger people, and
given rise to hybrid races. At the same time, it seems
that in other regions this race has, by isolation in forests
and mountain ranges and by the exercise of special skill
in the use of poisoned arrows and in the arts of conceal-
ment, evasion, and terrorising, succeeded in maintaining its
existence and primitive independence dating from remote
prehistoric times.

Whether we regard the pygmies as one race or as the
result of local modification of larger races, it is noteworthy
that they are of lighter tint than the black races close to
or among whom they live. Some, both of the African
and Asiatic pygmies, are very dark brown — practically
black — but many are of a paler and yellowish tint. We
must not forget that the babies and quite young children
of negroes are nearly " white." The Asiatic pygmies,
notably the Andamanese, are darker than their African
fellows. It must necessarily be difficult in studying such
a race to make due allowance not merely for admixture
of blood from surrounding populations, but to estimate
correctly what the little people have learnt in the way of
art and habit from their neighbours and what is their own.
The Andaman Islanders, though provided with metal by
trading, still use the sharp-edged splinters of volcanic
glass-stone to shave their heads, which they keep entirely
bald!

It is one of the merits of the showman's enterprise in
modern times that he brings to a great city like London

234 THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN

groups of interesting savages, without imposture and
without ill-treatment, and enables us to see and talk with
them almost as though we had travelled to their remote
native forests. It would certainly be a successful and
worthy enterprise on the part of the Anthropological
Society of London to start a garden and houses such as
those maintained by the Zoological Society, but arranged
so as to receive some five or six groups of interesting
" savages." The society would be responsible for careful
and humane treatment of their guests, and return them
after a sojourn, say, of a couple of years, to their native
country and replace them by specimens of other races.
Under the auspices of showmen I have seen Zulu Kaffirs,
Guiana Indians, North American Indians, Kalmuck
Tartars, South African bushmen, and Congo pygmies in
London, besides many hundreds of African negroes of
various tribes. Farini's bushmen and Harison's Congo
pygmies were perfect samples of the dwarf race about
which I am writing. But I also saw and examined care-
fully, in 1872, at Naples, with my friend Professor Panceri,
the two African pygmies, Tebo and Chairallah, who were
the first to reach Europe. They were subsequently
adopted by and lived for some years under the care of
Count Miniscalchi Erizzo. They were very intelligent,
and learnt to read and to write well, and to play difficult
music on the piano, with feeling and appreciation. We
were especially concerned to determine by the stage of
growth of their teeth and other indications whether they
were merely ordinary young negroes, as some anthro-
pologists supposed, or really representatives of the dwarf
race as asserted by the traveller Miani, who bought them
in exchange for a dog and a calf, in the country of the
Mombootoos, south of the Welle River, and west of the
Albert Nyanza. They were still young and growing
when we examined them, but Tebo ceased growth when

EGYPTIAN STORIES OF PYGMIES

235

he had reached a stature of 4 ft. 8 inches. We had no
difficulty in coming to the conclusion that they were,
when we saw them, really of exceptionally small stature
for their age as indicated by the teeth which were in place
in their jaws.

The Akkas living near the sources of the Nile were
known to the ancient Egyptians, and were the foundation
of stories and fabulous exaggerations among the ancient
Greeks. Even before Homer these stones existed, and
the little people were called " pygmies," which means " of
the length of the forearm " (Greek, pugme"). Homer

FIG. 28. — Copy of a figure from a-§roup drawn on a Greek vase (dating
from 300 B.C.), representing a number of the pygmies of the remote
Upper Nile engaged in battle. The resemblance of the peaked
cap and of the beard to those of the little figures carved by Black
Forest peasants and intended to represent the mythical "gnomes"
or dwarf mining-elves is noteworthy. (From Saglio and Deren-
berg's ' Dictionnarie des Antiquite's Grecs et Romaines.')

refers to the wars of these pygmies with the cranes, and as
a matter of fact the African pygmies do wage a kind of
war upon the great cranes which swarm in the marsh-land
of their country. Naturally enough the really small size
of the African pygmies (they are about 4 ft. in 'height, some
two or three inches less, some as much as eight inches
more) was exaggerated by report and tradition, just as the
really big eggs of the great extinct ostrich-like bird of
Madagascar were represented in the story of Sindbad, in,

236 THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN

the " Arabian Nights," as being as large as the dome of a
temple, and the bird large in proportion. The Egyptians,
as we have seen, knew the pygmy Akkas, and Egyptian
fact was ever the romance of the Greeks.

Herodotus mentions the African pygmies from beyond
the Libyan desert, citing, as is his wont, the accounts of
certain travellers with whom he had conversed, and a
later Greek writer tells of a pygmy race in India, a state-
ment which our present knowledge confirms. It is a
curious fact that Swift's Lilliputians are thus traceable to
the Central African dwarf race, for Greek legend related
that Hercules visited the country of the pygmies, where
on waking from sleep he found one division of the army
guarding his right leg, another his left, and others his arms.
Hercules got up, swept them all into the lion's skin which
he used as a cloak, and went on his way, shaking out his
small tormentors from their prison as though they were so
many ants. It seems fairly certain that Swift derived the
initial scene in his story of Gulliver's adventures among
the Lilliputians from this legend.

Miani's pygmies were members of a tribe discovered by
the distinguished traveller Schweinfurth, who, in 1870,
was the first to visit the country of the Niam-Niam, to
the west of the sources of the Nile, and had the honour
of showing that the myths of the ancient Greeks as to a
nation of pygmies were based on fact, and that the
definite words of Aristotle as to the existence of these
pygmy people on the upper reaches of the Nile were
correct. Schweinfurth found to the south of the Niam-
Niam country a tribe of full-statured negroes called the
Mombootoos, whose chief, Moonza, kept close to the
Royal residence a colony of pygmies who were called in
that country by the name " Akkas." Schweinfurth
ascertained that they are spread to the number of many
thousands along the borders of the great Congo forest.

CONGO AND NEW GUINEA PYGMIES 237

and form numerous tribes. They are very generally well
treated by their more powerful neighbours, as by Moonza.
Partly from fear of their poisoned arrows and their crafty
methods of attack and subsequent disappearance into the
forest, partly on account of a superstitious dread of them,
the Congo pygmies are not only tolerated, but protected,
by the larger people. They alone are at home in the
steaming darkness of the immeasurable forest into which
no other natives dare to enter.

It is a remarkable fact that the Egyptologist Mariette
had, before these discoveries, found on an ancient Egyptian
monument the portrait of a dwarf inscribed with the word
" akka " — the identical name by which they are known at
this day in the region where Schweinfurth found them.

Public interest in the pygmy race was re-aroused three
years ago by the announcement that the party of English
naturalists at that time exploring the interior of New
Guinea had come across a tribe of these little people in
the mountains of that island. The existence of these
pygmies in New Guinea was already well known, but
fuller accounts of them will be valuable. The Italian
traveller Beccari, in 1876, speaks of them as " Karonis,"
and states that they occupy a chain of mountains parallel
to the north coast of the north-west peninsular of the
island. D'Albertis, Lawes, and other travellers have seen
and described individuals of the pygmy race of the
mountains of New Guinea. It is interesting to find that
they are described as having the body covered with fine,
woolly hair, a feature which is recorded by Schweinfurth,
by Stanley, and by an ancient Greek writer, in regard to
the Congo pygmies of Africa, and led in former times to
the notion that the old traditions and accounts of African
pygmies referred, not to human beings, but to chimpanzees!

The Laplanders are the only very small-sized people in
Europe, but they run from 5 ft. upwards, whereas the

238 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN

negritoes and negrillos run from about 4 ft. to less than
5ft. The Lapps (of whom there are about 25,000 in
Finmark and Lapmark) are a thick-set, round-headed
(brachycephalic), dark-yellow race, and have always been
credited with powers of witchcraft and magic by their
neighbours and by modern sailors. They live in immediate
contact with the Finns (both are Mongolian races), who are
very tall and have fair hair and blue eyes. Some writers
have supposed that the Lapps are the remnants of a small
race which was formerly spread over the whole of Europe,
and was exterminated or driven out by the larger races.
But we have no evidence in favour of this view and strong
evidence against it, since we now know the skulls and
skeletons of a great number of the prehistoric inhabitants
of Europe belonging to the Bronze, to the Neolithic, and
to the Palaeolithic periods. None of these skeletons belong
to an abnormally small-sized race, though the Bronze-age
people were smaller than their predecessors and successors.
The cave-dwellers of the " reindeer " epoch of the Palaeo-
lithic period were big men, with fine, high skulls, and even
the earlier Palaeolithic men of the glacial period, the man
of the Neanderthal, the couple from Spy, and the three
recently dug up near Perigueux (of whom I have written
in another book),* were not diminutive men. It is true
they were not tall — only about 5 ft. 4 in. in height — but
they were very powerful and muscular, and totally different
physically from the Lapps or from any of the tropical
pygmy men. It is a remarkable fact that in one cave at
Mentone, on the Riviera, explored by the Prince of Monaco,
two skeletons have been found belonging to a shortish,
negro-like race (indicated by the form of the skull), and
apparently a little later in date than the Neandermen.
We must remember that at that remote date there was
continuous land connection between Europe and Africa.

* 'Science from an Easy Chair,' Methuen, 1909.

THE CAUSES OF SMALL SIZE 239

There is, in fact, no reason to suppose that a pygmy race
ever existed in Europe, though, of course, individuals of
exceptionally small stature are often produced, and in
some regions the whole population is shorter than it is in
others.

A very interesting question in connection with the origin
and significance of pygmy races of men is, " Why is any
race smaller in size than another?" Every species
among the higher animals has its standard size from which
only in the rarest cases are tl erj departures. That in
itself is a curious fact. How was the standard size
determined, and how is it maintained ? The whole
question lies there. At first sight it seems to many people
quite simple to account for " pygmies " ; they will tell you
that the poor creatures are half-starved and so unable to
grow to full size. That explanation does not, however,
meet the case, for the African and Asiatic pygmy races
are just as well nourished as most of their neighbours.
Also if we look a little further we find that the women of
every race are smaller than the men, and often much
smaller. That is not because they are ill-nourished as
compared with the men. And, again, we find very closely
similar species of animals existing side by side, one a
large species and the other a small one, having the same
opportunities of obtaining regular nourishment. There
are many instances, but take for example the beautiful
Great Koodoo antelope of Africa, with its fine spiral horns,
which measures 5ft. at the shoulder, and the Little Koodoo,
a complete miniature of it existing alongside of it, and
standing only 3ft. 5 in. at the shoulder. Take the two
common white butterflies of this country, the Large White
and the Small White, also the Large Tortoiseshell butter-
fly and the small. Take the instance of many plant
genera of which larger and smaller species are found

240 THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN

growing side by side. The difference in size in these
cases cannot be traced to any insufficiency of nutrition in
the smaller kind.

It is evident that difference of size in animals has some
deep-lying cause, which is not merely the greater or less
abundance of food. Numerous specimens of a perfectly
well-formed elephant, closely allied in structure to the
Indian elephant, but only 3 ft. high, are found fossil in
Malta and the neighbouring Mediterranean region, and
in Liberia a species of hippopotamus, distinct from that of
other African regions, is common, which is not bigger than
a common pig. Pygmy hogs, pygmy deer, pygmy
buffaloes (and many other pygmy animals) are known as
thriving wild species, so that it seems clear that there are
other causes at work than semi-starvation in the produc-
tion of pygmy races.

A second suggestion which is sometimes made is that
the smaller race, or smaller species of two allied forms, is
the original one, and that the larger forms have developed
from these and established themselves, without completely
destroying the smaller original race. This view has at
various times been favoured in regard to the pygmy race
of man. There is something plausible in the view that
these little men are nearer than normal mankind are to
the monkeys, and the fur-like hairiness of their skin has
been cited in support of it ; but a fatal objection is that
the men of the pure pygmy race of Africa and Asia are
really not more, but less, monkey-like than many full-sized
savages. They have heads and faces nearer in shape tc
those of Europeans than have the Australians, the Tas-
manians, and the negroes. They are more intelligent,
shrewd, and skilful than their full-sized neighbours. It is
quite possible that they are a very ancient race — more
ancient, in their isolation and freedom from complicated
customs, habits, and modes of life than other savages—

THE CAUSES OF SMALL SIZE 241

but they are not primitive in the sense of being ape-like
in structure or in want of mental capacity.

A third possibility in regard to the pygmy people is
that they have been "selected" by natural conditions
which favoured the survival of small individuals, and thus
established a small race — just as man has established
small races of horses, dogs, cattle, or what not, by
continually selecting small individuals for breeding, until
he has produced such races as the Shetland pony, the toy
terrier, and the Kerry cow. It is necessary to discover
or to suggest (if this explanation is to be accepted) what
precisely is the advantage, in a state of nature, to a small-
sized race in being of small size. The guess is made that
the small people can more easily hide, whether in forest
or among the rocks and caves of mountainous regions,
from aggressive larger-sized mankind. The objection to
this view is that though it may explain the present habits
and dwelling-places of some of the pygmy race, it is not
capable of explaining their first segregation and formation
as a distinct race. Another general advantage which
small animals have over larger ones of the same species is
that if the food of the species is widely distributed but
limited in amount, a hundred individuals weighing 5st.
each will secure more of it than fifty individuals weighing
lost. each. The total weight of individuals is the same,
but the smaller series will cover twice the area and have
twice as much opportunity to secure the limited amount
of food, whilst, in proportion to their size, requiring less. It
cannot be doubted that, other things being equal, this
obvious relation must tend to limit the increase in size of
animals which have to search for their special food, and
must favour small races.

Some writers have supposed that small limited areas,
such as small islands, favour the production of small races
by some mysterious law of appropriateness similar to that

16

242 THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN

which lays down that " who drives fat oxen should himself
be fat." The pygmy buffalo of the island of Celebes, the
Anoa, is cited as an instance, and the pygmy men of the
Andaman Islands as another. But there are plenty of
facts which would lead to an exactly opposite conclusion.
Gigantic tortoises are found in the Galapagos Islands and
in the minute islands of the Indian Ocean, and never on
the big continents. Gigantic birds bigger than ostriches
abounded in the islands of New Zealand and Madagascar.
Some of the tallest races of men are found in the Pacific
islands, whilst the tallest European population is that of
the north of the island called Great Britain. Probably
the real relation of islands to the matter is that owing to
their isolation and freedom from the general competition
of the vast variety of living things in continental areas,
they offer unoccupied territory in which either excep-
tionally small or exceptionally big races may flourish — if
once they reach the island shelter, or are by variation
produced there — without competitive interference.

An important consideration in regard to the formation
and segregation of a human variety or race is that
mankind shows a tendency to segregate in groups, like
with like. To a large extent this is true also of animals,
but in man it acquires a special dominance, owing to the
greater activity in him of psychical or mental influences in
all his proceedings. The " cagots " of mid-France are the
descendants of former leper families. They remain
separated from the rest of the population, and do not now
know why, nor do their hostile neighbours. Such
" outcast " or " accursed " tribes and family groups are
found also in Great Britain, and throughout the world.
Possibly the " pygmies " owe their preservation to this
tendency. Virchow regarded the Lapps as a race
produced by disease — a pathological product. It is
possible that former liability to disease and present

SMALLNESS A CORRELATION 243

immunity from it is the final explanation of the tropical
pygmy race. In the United States black pigs are able to
eat, without harm, a common marsh herb, the " Red-root "
Lachnanthes tinctoria, which kills other pigs. Hence a
black race is established, not because it is black, but be-
cause, in it, blackness is " the outward and visible sign of
an inward and chemical grace " — that is to say, of a physio-
logical or chemical power of resistance to, and immunity
from, the poison of an otherwise nutritious plant. Such
" correlations " were described by Darwin, and are of
extreme importance and interest — far more so than is, at
present, recognised by naturalists. I am inclined to the
supposition that the obvious outward signs, the round head,
bombous forehead, furry skin, and diminutive size of the
pygmies are the outcome of an inward physiological con-
dition peculiar to them, which has enabled them to resist
disease or to eat certain kinds of food, or possibly to
develop great mental acuteness, and so has led to the
establishment of these peculiar small people as a race,
without their smallness itself having anything to do with
their selection and preservation. In that case smallness
would be a " by-product," a " correlated " character, not
the " effective life-saving " character.

CHAPTER XIX

PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS

AFTER the last great extension of glaciers in Europe,
during which nearly all of Great Britain and the
North of France and Germany were buried with
Scandinavia under one great ice-sheet — and when this ice-
sheet had receded, and the climate was like that of the
Russian " steppes," cold and dry — there were men
inhabiting the caverns on both sides of the Pyrenees.
The tract of land which we call " Great Britain " was a
part of the Continent of Europe. There was no " English
Channel." The Thames and the Rhine opened by a
common mouth into the North Sea. The mammoth and
the hairy rhinoceros still lingered on in France and the
more central regions of Europe. Wild horses, the great
ox (Aurochs), the bison, ibex, chamois, were abundant,
and the thick-nosed Saiga antelope, now confined to the
Russian and Asiatic steppes, was present. The most
abundant and important animal immediately north of the
Pyrenees was the reindeer. The cave-men of France and
Central Europe were a fine race — living by the chase, and
fabricating flint knives and scrapers, fine bone spearheads
and harpoons, as well as occupying themselves in carving
ivory and reindeer antlers, so as to produce highly artistic
representations of the animals around them.

They rarely attempted the human face or figure, and
when they did were not so successful as in their animal

EARLY CARVINGS AND PICTURES 245

work. They also painted on the walls of some of their
caverns, with red and yellow ochre, carbon, and white
chalk, representations — usually about one-third the size of
nature — of some of the most important animals of the
chase. They must have used lamps, fed with animal fat,
to illuminate the walls, both when they were at work on
the pictures and also afterwards, when they exhibited the
finished pictures to the less gifted members of the
tribe, as wonderful, even magical, appearances. It is
uncertain to what extent races of men succeeded one
another or were cotemporaries in this period in Europe,
but there is good reason for attributing the cave pictures
to an early occupation of the caves by men who also
carved, in ivory and stone, small figures of women resem-
bling the Hottentot Venus — whilst the later occupants
made no such statuettes, but carved in relief on bone or
engraved it.

This was probably not less than 50,000 years ago, and
may well have been much more. Earlier than the date
of these Reindeer men (the Magdalenians, Solutrians and
the Aurignacians*), in the preceding cold, humid period
of the glacial extension (probably from 80,000 to I 50,000
years ago) these and other caves were occupied by an
inferior race — the Neandermen. They could not carve
beasts on ivory nor paint, but could make very good and
well " dressed " flint weapons, and could make large fires
in and about the caves, both to cook their meat and to
keep off the wild beasts (lions, bears, and hyenas), who
contended with the strange, low-browed Neandermen for
the use of the caves as habitations.

* A brief account of the skulls and implements of primitive man, with
illustrations, is given in the first series of ' Science from an Easy Chair,1
published in 1910 by Methuen & Co., but the reader should consult the
forthcoming new edition of 'Ancient Hunters ' by Professor Sollas for an
extended and well-illustrated account of the successive phases and races of
prehistoric mankind.

246 PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS

On this side of the Pyrenees the Reindeer men have
left some wall-pictures, and new discoveries of great
importance in the form of rock carvings of human figures
as well as pictures and huge figures of horses, etc., are
being made in France as I write these lines. But the
best preserved and most numerous wall pictures are
those of the cave of Altamira near Santander. These
comprise some partially preserved representations in
yellow, red, white, and black of the great bison, the wild
boar, the horse, and other animals. A group representing
some twenty-five or more animals (each about one third
the size of nature), irregularly arranged, exists on a part
of the roof, and others are found in other parts of the
cavern. Among the wall-pictures made by ancient cave-
men are numerous drawings of human beings in masks
representing animals' heads — probably indicating the
" dressing-up " in animal masks of priests or medicine-
men in the way in which we know to-day is the
custom among many savage tribes. Twenty-seven
of these " decorated " caverns were known in 191 o —
eleven in Spain, one in Italy, and fifteen in South and
Central France — and others are continually being discov-
ered. The most careful and critical examination by
scientific men leaves no doubt as to the vast antiquity of
these paintings, and as to their dating from a time when
the animals painted (including in some cases mammoth
and rhinoceros, as well as bison, reindeer, wild boar, ibex,
red deer, bear, and felines) were existing in the locality.
The covering up of some of the drawings (which are
partly engraved and partly painted) by earthy deposits
and by encrustations of lime, and the presence in the cave
deposits of the worked flints and bones characteristic of the
Reindeer men, leave no doubt that these pictures are of that
immense antiquity which we express by the words "Quater-
nary period," " Upper Pleistocene " or " Reindeer epoch."

PAINTINGS IN CAVERNS 24?

It is, of course, only in accordance with what one would
expect that these pictures are of very varying degrees of
artistic merit. But some (a considerable number) are
quite remarkable for their true artistic quality. In this
respect they differ from the rock paintings of modern
savage races — the Bushmen of South Africa, the
Australians, and the Californian Indians — with which,
however, it is instructive to compare them. Many of them
agree in their essential artistic character with the carvingand
engraving of animals on bone and ivory so abundantly
produced by the later Reindeer men. It is also the fact
that these Franco-Spanish wall paintings were executed at
different periods in the Reindeer epoch. Some are more
primitive than others; some are very badly preserved, mere
scratched outlines with all the paint washed away by the
moisture of ages ; but others are bright and sharp in their
colouring to a degree which is surprising when their age
and long exposure are considered. The French pre-
historians, MM. Cartailac and the Abbe Breuil, have pro-
duced a sumptuous volume containing an account, with
large coloured plates, of the best preserved of the Altamira
paintings — a copy of which I owe to the kindness of
H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco, who has ordered the publi-
cation of the work at his own charges. This has been
followed by an equally fine work under the same auspices,
ilustrating the wall-pictures of the Cavern of the Font-de-
Gaume in the Dordogne, for which we have to thank the
Abb6 Breuil. A further volume on Spanish Caves has
also appeared from the same source in the present year.
It is not surprising that the country folk, who, in some
of the Spanish localities, have known the existence
of these paintings from time immemorial, should regard
them as the work of the ancient Moors, all ancient
work in Spain being popularly attributed to the
Moors, as a sort of starting-point in history. It is,

24S PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS

however, very remarkable that little damage appears to
have been done by the population to the paintings, even
when they exist in shallow caves or on overhanging rocks.
No doubt weathering, and the oozing of moisture, and the
flaking caused by it, has destroyed most of the Pleistocene
paintings which once existed, and it is an ascertained fact
that some — for instance, those of Altamira — are breaking
to pieces owing to the opening-up and frequentation of
the caverns.

It has been remarked that, although these paintings
belong to what is called the " reindeer epoch," yet in the
cave of Altamira there are no representations of reindeer,
but chiefly of bison and wild boar. It is also remarkable
that in the case of the painted rock shelters of Calapata
(Lower Aragon) and of Cogul (near Lerida, in Catalonia),
no reindeer are represented ; but on the former there are
very admirable drawings of the red deer, and on the latter
silhouettes of the bull, of the red deer, and the ibex. In
fact, no representations of reindeer have been observed on
cave walls or rock-shelters south of the Pyrenees. It is
possible that this may be due to the date of the Spanish
paintings being a good deal later than that of those French
cave-paintings which show reindeer, mammoth, and
rhinoceros. And we have to bear in mind that in the
North of Africa (Oran) engraved drawings on exposed
rocks are known, which are for good reasons attributed to
the Neolithic period ; that is to say, they are later than
the Reindeer epoch of the Palaeolithic period, whilst some
are even much later.

In any case we have to remember that there are two
very different and possible explanations of the presence or
absence either of certain animals' bones or of representa-
tions of certain animals in one " decorated " cave and not
in another. The one explanation is that animals have
succeeded one another in time in Western Europe —

PAINTING OF HUMAN FIGURES 249

changing as the climatic conditions have changed — and
that when, in two cave-decorations or cave- deposits
compared, the animals are different, the cause may be
that the one deposit or cave-decoration is more recent
than the other. The other explanation is that (as we well
know) at one and the same moment very different animals
occupy tracts of land which are only a hundred miles or
so apart, but differ in climate and general conditions. At
this moment there are wild bears and also wolves in
France, but none in England ; the elk occurs in Sweden
and Russia, but not in the West of Europe ; the porcupine
in Italy and in Spain, but not in France. As late as the
historic period the African elephant flourished on the
African shore of the Mediterranean, but not in Spain ;
now it is not found north of the Sahara at all. So we
have various possibilities to consider in comparing the
animal pictures on the cave walls of Spain with those
found in France, and may well suspend judgment till we
have knowledge of a greatly extended area.

I am anxious to draw attention in this chapter to the
painted group of ten human figures lately discovered on a
rock shelter at Cogul, near Lerida, in Catalonia, and
figured and described in the admirable French journal
called * L'Anthropologie.' These figures are those of
young women dressed in short skirts and curious sleeves,
the hair done up in a conical mass rising from the sides
to the top of the head. Each figure is about ten inches
high. The great interest about these drawings is that
they are probably tens of thousands of years old, and
present to us the women of the reindeer or late
Pleistocene epoch. No other such painting of the
women of this period is known, and the astonishing
thing is that, though these are by no means fine
specimens of prehistoric art, yet there is a definitely

250 PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS

modern look about the figures and a freedom of
touch about the drawing which makes one think at first
that the picture is some modern, hasty but clever sketch
in silhouette of a number of short-skirted school-girls at
play. The waist is extremely small and elongated, the
skirt, or petticoat, bell-shaped, and the whole figure
" sinuous." One of the figures appears to have a cloak or
jacket, but the breasts and legs are bare.

Some three years ago Sir Arthur Evans discovered in
the palace of the ancient Kings of Crete coloured frescoes

FIG. 29. — Reproduction of drawings from a rock shelter near Lerida
in Catalonia, representing a group of women clothed in jacket and
skirt with " wasp-like " waists. The original figures are ten inches
high, and the drawing probably dates from the late Palaeolithic
period.

some 3500 years old representing in great detail elegant
young women with greatly compressed waists, strongly-
pronounced bustles, and elaborately ornamented skirts.
These Cretan paintings of prehistoric young women, both
in costume and pose, are like nothing so much as the
portraits of distinguished ladies of the fashionable world
of Paris exhibited by the painter, Boldini, in the " Salon."
It is remarkable that explorers should have found con-

ARTISTIC SYMPATHY

251

temporary paintings of young ladies who lived nearly as
long before Cleopatra as she lived before us. And it is
still more remarkable that those young ladies were " got
up " in the same style, and apparently aimed at much the
same effects of line and movement, as those which have
become the latest fashion in Paris, and may be described
as sinuous and serpentine. Not only is that the case, but

FIG. 30. — A further portion of the same group as that shown in Fig. 29.
In front is a small deer-like animal,

it is evident that the painter of Knossos, the Minotaur
city, and M. Boldini have experienced the same artistic
impression, and have presented in their pictures the same
significance of pose and the same form, from the tip of
the' nose to the ends of the fingers and the points of the
toes — thus revealing a sympathy reaching across many
ages. It seems to me that the same artistic impression
is to be detected in the still earlier paintings of the wasp-

252 PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS

vvaisted little ladies of the Cogul rock-shelter in Catalonia.
We find here the same sinuous figure with exaggeratedly
compressed waist, prominent bosom, and emphasised
haunches. But it is many, perhaps forty, thousand years
earlier ! One is led to wonder whether this type of human
female — to-day expressed with such masterly skill by
Boldini — may not be at the back of the mind of a portion
of the human race — that which populated what are now
the shores of the Mediterranean, and probably came there
travelling northwards from the centre of Africa. Possibly
they brought with them that tendency to, and admiration
for, megalopygy which is evidenced by the makers of
the earliest known palaeolithic cave sculptures (the
Aurignacians), and has persisted in some degree
ever since in Europe — a tendency and a taste which
are on the one hand totally absent in the East and
Far East (Japan), and on the other hand have a strong
development in the modern Bushmen (and the related
Hottentots), an African race, and like the Spanish cave-
men, rock painters.

I am able to reproduce here (Plates X and XI),
through the kindness of Sir Arthur Evans and Dr. Hogarth,
the keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, two
very interesting drawings — showing certain features in
the dress of women in the prehistoric race which
inhabited the island of Crete for some three thousand
years previous to the date of these representations, which
is about 1600 B.C. They are interesting to compare both
with the much more ancient figures from the Spanish
cave and with modern female costume. The first (Plate
X) is a figure in coloured pottery (faience), representing
either a votary or priestess of a goddess to whom
snakes were sacred. The petticoat of this lady is
very modern, being long, decorated with flounces (a series
of five) and bell-shaped. The dress is further remarkable

PLATE X.

PLATE X. — Votary or priestess of the goddess to whom snakes were
sacred. The original is a statuette in faience, ten inches high, and
was discovered by Sir Arthur Evans in the palace at Knossos in
Crete. It dates from 1600 B.C.

PLATE XI.

253

PLATE XI. — Fresco drawing of two female acrobats from the palace at
Knossos, date about 1400 B.C. The originals were discovered by Sir
Arthur Evans.

254 PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS

for a tight ring-like girdle which greatly compresses the
waist and emphasises the broad hips. The little statue is
about ten inches high, and was found by Sir Arthur Evans
at Knossos, the ancient buried city, the capital of Crete, in
the Later Palace. Its date is that of the close of the
Minoan period, namely 1600 B.C. The two figures in
Plate XI are copied from frescoes representing acrobatic
women from the bull-ring, also from the Later Palace at
Knossos, and are a couple of centuries later in date.
Religious ceremonies in connection with the worship of the
bull (whence the fable of the minotaur) were practised in
Knossos, and possibly there was a kind of baiting of
bulls and jumping over and away from the infuriated
animals such as may be seen at this day in the South of
France and in Portugal. Possibly the employment of
girls in this sport gave rise to the story of the -maiden
tribute from Athens to be sacrificed to the Cretan minotaur.
The drawings are remarkable for the pose — that of the
left-hand figure resembling an attitude assumed in boxing,
whilst the dress — a kind of maillot or " tights " — is
gripped round the waist by a firm ring (like a table-
napkin ring), the compression of which is no doubt
exaggerated. This fresco and many others of extra-
ordinary interest, as well as much beautiful pottery and
the whole of the plan of the city, its public buldings,
granaries, library and sewers at several successive ages
(the remains lying in layers one over the other), were
discovered and described by Sir Arthur Evans, who is
still at work on the wonderful history and art of these
prehistoric Cretans, from whom the Mycenaeans of the
mainland of Greece were an offshoot.

The point to which I chiefly desire to call attention is that
this Cretan people practised compression of the waist, and
so have a certain point of agreement with the prehistoric
race of Lerida represented in Figs. 29 and 30 and with

AURIGNAGIANS AND BUSHMEN ALLIED 255

Boldini's modern ladies. We know from carvings and
pottery that the men as well as the women of the
Mycenaean people wore a tightly-compressing girdle.
The form of figure thus produced — viz. relatively small,
flexible waist, and large hips with protruding buttocks —
seems to be a less pronounced variety of that of the small
ivory figures of Aurignacian age (late Palaeolithic) found
in cave deposits of France and of that of the Bushmen
women. It seems as though the " ideal " female figure
or that admired and pictured by these races and by the
modern Latin races is the same in its main features, and
differs altogether from that admired in the Far East.
Such deeply seated tastes may possibly (indeed, not
improbably) be due to a common origin of the Mediter-
ranean and African peoples distinct from that of the
Mongoloid Asiatic races.

CHAPTER XX

NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR

I CAME across a discussion the other day as to whether
it is right to tell children and to let them believe that
Santa Claus puts Christmas presents in their stockings,
and that Peter Pan really comes in at the window and
teaches nice little boys and girls to float through the air.
I was surprised that anyone should be so singularly
ignorant of child-nature as to hold that children really
believe these things. Children have a wonderful and
special faculty of " make-believe " which is not the same
as " belief." All the time when a child is indulging in
" make-believe " (a sort of willing self-illusion or waking
dream) its real, though tender, reasoning-power is merely
"suspended/' and is not offended or outraged. That
power can on emergency be brought to the front, and the
little one will say, " Of course, they're not real," or, " I
always knew he didn't really come down the chimney."
So that I do not think anyone need be anxious as to
doing harm or laying the foundations of future distrust by
telling fairy-tales to the very young. If told in the right
form and spirit they are received by six-year-old and older
children readily and naturally as belonging to that deli-
cious world of " make-believe " which (as one of their
own orators, I believe, has said) " children of even the
meanest intelligence will not be guilty of confounding
with that very inferior every-day world of reality in which

MAKE-BELIEVE AND NEW YEAR 257

we find, much to our regret, that it is necessary to spend
so large a part of our time." The power of make-believe
is almost limitless, and makes its appearance even in the
speechless infant of less than two years old, who will
gather fruit from a coloured picture, generously offer you
a bite, and pretend to swallow the rest itself. Make-believe
must have been a very big factor in the life of the ape-like
predecessors of prehistoric man.

Deception in the world of reality is very different from
make-believe, and a terrible thing. To the child— decep-
tion in regard to real things, whatever excuses adults may
put forward in its defence, is well-nigh unforgivable. To
be one who never says " it is " when it is not, nor " it
will be " when it will not be — that is to be a friend on
whom a child rests in perfect trust and happiness.

What have these thoughts to do with the New Year ?
Merely this, that it is not only with and for children that
we make-believe at this season — we all of us, more or
less, indulge in a make-believe about the New Year. As
the clock strikes its twelve notes at midnight on December
3ist, and all the bells of a great city are heard hovering in
the air, sending forth their sweet sounds from far and near
into the fateful night, there are few of us who have not a
feeling that a great event has occurred. A physical change
has set in — the Old Year is dead and gone, and the New
year, something tangible, which you can let in at the door or
the window — has just come into being, and is there waiting
for us. We are, of course, indulging in " make-believe,"
for there is no New Year, with any natural, noteworthy
thing to mark its commencement, starting at midnight on
December 3ist. New Years begin every day and hour,
and it is by no means agreed upon by all nations of the
earth to pretend that the ist of January is the critical day
which we must regard as that portentous epoch, the begin-
ning of the New Year. This choice of a day was made by the

17

258 NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR

Romans, and that wonderful man Julius Caesar had a
great deal to do with it ; modern Europe adopted his
arrangement of the year or calendar. But the Jews have
their own calendar and their own New Year's Day, which
varies from year to year from our September 5th to our
October 7th. It is, however, to them always the first
day of the month Tishri, and the first day of their new
year. The Mahomedans took the date of the flight of
Mohammed from Mecca to Medina — the night of July
I5th, 622 A.D. — as the commencement of their " era,"
and its anniversary is the first day of their month Muhar-
ram and the first day of their year — their New Year's
Day. As, although they reckon twelve months to the
year, their months are true lunar months, and are not
corrected as are those in use by us (as I will explain
below), their year consists of 354 days 8 hours, and so
does not run parallel to our year at all. Their New
Year's Day, which began by being our July i6th, was in
the next year coincident with our July 6th, then in three
successive years it occurred on different days of June,
and so on through May, April, and the preceding months,
so that in thirty-two and a half of our years their New
Year's Day has run through all our months and comes
back again to July.

So much for New Year's Days ; they are arbitrary selec-
tions, and though the Roman New Year's Day, or January
ist, has been precisely defined and fixed by the determina-
tion by astronomers of the position of the earth on that
day in its revolution around the sun, yet the original selec-
tion of January ist for the beginning of the year seems to
have been merely the result of previous errors and negli-
gence in attempting to fix the winter solstice (which now
comes out as December 22nd). This is the day when the
sun is lowest and the day shortest; after it has passed
the SUD appears gradually to acquire a new power, and

DIVISIONS OF TIME 25g

increases the duration of his stay above the horizon until
the longest day is reached — the summer solstice (June
2ist). Julius Caesar took January istfor New Year's Day
as being the first day of a month nearest to the winter
solstice. The ancient Greeks regarded the beginning of
September as " New Year."

Were mankind content with the measure of time by the
completion of a cycle of revolution of the earth around the
sun — that is the year— and by the revolution of the earth
on its own axis— that is the day or day-night (vu^^lpov)
of the Greeks — the notation of time and of seasons
would be comparatively simple. No one seems to know
why or when the day was first divided into twenty-four
hours, nor why sixty minutes were taken in the hour and
sixty seconds in the minute. The ancient astronomers of
Egypt and China, and their beliefs in mystical numbers,
have to do with the first choosing of these intervals in un-
recorded ages of antiquity (as much as 2000 or 3000 B.C.).
The seven days of the week correspond to the five
planets known to the ancients, with the addition of the
sun and the moon. But the Greeks made three weeks
of ten days each in a month. The true year — the exact
period of a complete revolution of the earth around the
sun — is 365 days 5 hours 18 minutes and 46 seconds.
It was measured with a fair amount of accuracy by very
ancient races of men, who fixed the position of the rising
sun at the longest day by erecting big stones, one close
at hand and one at a distance, so as to give a line
pointing exactly to the rising spot of the sun on the
horizon, as at Stonehenge. They recorded the number of
days which elapsed before the longest day again appeared,
and they marked also the division of that period by the
two events of equally long sunlight and darkness — the
spring and the autumn " equinox." It is obvious that if
they took 365 days roughly as the period of revolution

260 NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR

they would (owing to the odd hours and minutes left
out) get about a day wrong in four years, and it was the
business of the priests — even in ancient Rome the
pontiffs were charged with this duty — to make the cor-
rection, add the missing day, and proclaim the chief
days of the year — the shortest day, the longest day, and
the equinox-days of equal halves of sunshine and dark-
ness. In ancient China, if the State astronomer made
a wrong calculation in predicting an eclipse he was
decapitated.

It is easy to understand how it became desirable to
recognise more convenient divisions of the year than the
four quarters marked by the solstices and the equinoxes.
Various astronomical events were studied, and their regular
recurrence ascertained, and they were used for this
purpose. But the most obvious natural timekeeper to
make use of, besides the sun, was the moon. The moon
completes its cycle of change on the average in 29^ days.
It was used by every man to mark the passage of the year,
and its periods from new moon to new moon were called,
as in our language, " months " or " moons," and divided
into quarters. It is, however, an awkward fact that
twelve lunar months give 354 days, so that there are
eleven days left over when the solar year is divided into
lunar months. The attempt to invent and cause the
adoption of a system which shall regularly mark out the year
into the popular and universally recognised "moons/' and
yet shall not make the year itself, so built up, of a length
which does not agree with the true year recorded by the
return of the rising sun to exactly the same spot on the
horizon after 365 days and a few hours, has been through-
out all the history of civilised man, and even among
prehistoric peoples, a matter of difficulty. It has led to
the most varied and ingenious systems, entrusted to the
most learned priests and state officers, and mostly so com-

THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE CALENDAR 261

plicated as to break down in the working, until we come
to the great clear-headed man Julius Caesar.

In the very earliest times of the city of Rome the
solar year, or complete cycle of the seasons, was divided
into ten lunar months covering 304 days, and it is not
known how the remaining days necessary to complete the
solar revolution were dealt with, or disposed of. The
year was considered to commence with March, probably
with the intention of getting New Year's Day near to the
spring equinox. The Celtic people and the Druids, with
their mistletoe rites, kept New Year also at that time.
The ten Roman months were named Martius, Aprilus,
Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October,
November, December. In the reign of the King Numa
two months were added to the year — namely, Januarius at
the beginning and Februarius at the end. In 452 B.C.
February was removed from the end and given second
place. The Romans thus arranged twelve months into
the year, as the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks had
long before done. The months were made by law to
consist alternately of twenty-nine and of thirty days (thus
keeping near to the average length of a true lunar cycle),
and an odd day was thrown in for luck, making the year
to consist of 355 days. This, of course, differs from the
solar year by ten days and a bit. To make the solar year
and the civil or calendar year coincide as nearly as might
be Numa ordered that a special or " intercalary " month
should be inserted every second year between February 23rd
and 24th. It was called " Mercedonius," and consisted of
twenty-two and of twenty-three days alternately, so that
four years contained 1465 days, giving a mean of 366^
days to each year. But this gave nearly a day too much
in each year of the calendar (as the legal or civil year
is called) as compared with the true solar year, agree-
ment with which was the object in view. So another law

262 NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR

was made to reduce the excess of days in every twenty-four
years. Obviously the superintendence of these variations,
and the public declaration of the calendar for each year,
was a very serious and important task, affecting all kinds
of legal contracts. The pontiffs to whom the duty was
assigned abused their power for political ends, and so
little care had they taken to regulate the civil year and
keep it in coincidence with the solar year that in the time
of Julius Caesar the civil equinox differed from the
astronomical by three months, the real spring equinox
occurring, not at the end of what was called March by
the calendar, but in June !

Julius Caesar took the matter in hand and put things
into better order. He abolished all attempt to record by
the calendar a lunar year of twelve lunar months ; he
fixed the length of the civil year to agree as near as might
be with that of the solar year, and arbitrarily altered the
months ; in fact, abandoned the " lunar month " and
instituted the " calendar month." Thus he decreed that
the ordinary year should be 365 days, but that every fourth
year (which, for some perverse reason, we call "leap"
year) should have an extra day. He ordered that the
alternate months, from January to November inclusive,
should have thirty-one days and the others thirty days,
excepting February, which was to have in common years
twenty-nine, but in every fourth year (our leap year)
thirty. This perfectly reasonable, though arbitrary,
definition of the months was accompanied by the altera-
tion of the name of the month Quintilis to Julius, in
honour of the great man. Later Augustus had the name
of the month Sextilis altered to Augustus for his own
glorification, and in order to gratify his vanity a law
was passed taking away a day from February and putting
it on to August, so that August might have thirty-one
days as well as July, and not the inferior total of thirty

POPE GREGORY'S TEN DAYS 263

previously assigned to it ! At the same time, so that
three months of thirty-one days might not come together,
September and November were reduced to thirty days, and
thirty-one given to October and December. In order
to get everything into order and start fair Julius Caesar
restored the spring equinox to March 25th (Numa's date
for it, but really four days late). For this purpose he
ordered two extraordinary months, as well as Numa's
intercalary month Mercedonius, to be inserted in the year
47 B.C., giving that year in all 445 days. It was called
" the last year of confusion." January ist, forty-six years
before the birth of Christ and the 7o8th since the founda-
tion of the city, was the first day of " the first Julian year."
Although Julius Caesar's correction and his provisions
for keeping the " civil " year coincident with the astrono-
mical year were admirable, yet they were not perfect. His
astronomer, by name Sosigenes, did his best, but assumed
the astronomical year to be n min. 14 sec. longer than it
really is. In 400 years this amounts to an error of three
days. The increasing disagreement of the " civil " and
the " real " equinox was noticed by learned men in succes-
sive centuries. At last, in A.D. 1582, it was found that the
real astronomical equinox, which was supposed to occur on
March 25th, when Julius Caesar introduced his calendar
(not on March 2ist, as was later discovered to be the
fact), had retrograded towards the beginning of the civil
year, so that it coincided with March nth of the calendar.
In order to restore the equinox to its proper place
(March 2ist), Pope Gregory XIII directed ten days to be
suppressed in the calendar — of that year — and to prevent
things going wrong again it was enacted that leap-year
day shall not be reckoned in those centenary years which
are not multiples of 400. Thus Pope Gregory got rid
of three days out of the Julian calendar, or civil year, in
every 400 years, since 1600 was retained as a leap-year,

264 NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR

but 1700, 1800 and igoo, though according to the former
law leap-years, were made common years, whilst 2000
will be a leap-year. In order to correct a further minute
error, namely, the fact that the calendar year as now
amended is 26 sec. longer than the true solar year, it is
proposed that the year 4000 and all its multiples shall be
common years, and not leap years. This is a matter
which, though practical, is of distinctly remote im-
portance. Some people like to look well ahead.

The alteration in the calendar made by Pope Gregory
was successfully opposed for a long time in Great Britain
by popular prejudice. It was called " new style," and
was at last accepted, as in other European countries, but
has never been adopted in Russia, which retains the " old
style." An Act of Parliament was passed in 1751 order-
ing that the day following September 2nd, 1752, should
be accounted the fourteenth of that month. Many people
thought that they had been cheated out of eleven days of
life, and there were serious riots ! The change had been
already made in Scotland in the year 1600 without much
outcry. The Scotch were either too " canny " or too dull
to " fash " themselves about it.

Let us now revert for a moment to the proceedings of
Oriental potentates in regard to astronomers, a class of
scientific functionaries whom they have from remote ages
been in the habit of employing. It appears that in China
there is no attempt to make the civil year or year of the
calendar coincide with the astronomical year. The astro-
nomical year is reckoned as beginning when the sun enters
Capricorn, our winter solstice, and is thus more reason-
ably defined than is the commencement of our New Year,
which is nine days late. Twelve months are recognised ;
the first is called Tzu,»the second Chou, and the third
Yin, and the rest respectively Mao, Chen, Su, Wu, Wei,
Shen, Yu, Hsu, Hai. Put the calendar year, on the other

THE ASTRONOMER ROYAL AND THE SHAH 265

hand, begins just when the Emperor chooses to say it
shall. He is like the captain of a ship, who says of the
hour, " Make it so," and it is so. With great ceremony
he issues a calendar ten months in advance, fixing as he
pleases all the important festive and lucky days of the
year. Various emperors have made New Year's Day in
the fourth, third, second, first, or twelfth month. It has
now been fixed for many centuries in the second astro-
nomical month. I have mentioned above that the ancient
Greeks reckoned the New Year as beginning about the
end of September. But the reckoning differed in the
different States, and so did the names of the months.
Although the Greek astronomers determined the real solar
year with remarkable accuracy, and proposed very clever
modes of correcting the calendar so as to use the lunar
months in reckoning, there was no general system
adopted, no agreement among the " home-ruling " States.
I have stated above that the official Chinese astronomers
sometimes get their heads cut off for not correctly fore-
telling an eclipse. Illustrating this there is the following
story of a visit paid about forty years ago to the Observa-
tory in Greenwich Park by the Shah of Persia of that
date. The Persians have many close links with the
Chinese, and share their view of astronomy as a sort of
State function, in which the Emperor has special authority.
The Shah accordingly made a great point of visiting the
British State observatory, in company with King Edward,
who was then Prince of Wales. Sir George Airy was the
Astronomer Royal, and showed the party over the build-
ing and gave them peeps through telescopes. " Now show
me an eclipse of the sun," said the Shah, speaking in
French. Sir George pretended not to hear, and led the
way to another instrument. " Dog of an astronomer,"
said the Shah, " produce me an eclipse ! " Sir George
politely said he had not got one and could not oblige the

266 NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR

King of Kings. " Ho, ho ! " said the Shah, turning in
great indignation to the Prince of Wales. "You hear!
cut his head off! " Sir George's life was, as a matter of
fact, spared, but in the course of a year he retired, and
was succeeded by another Astronomer Royal. On his
appointment that gentleman was astonished at receiving a
letter of congratulation from the Shah of Persia. The
Shah evidently thought that his blood-thirsty request had
been attended to, though with some delay. He proceeded
to tell the new Astronomer Royal that he had a few days
before writing witnessed a total eclipse of the sun in the
observatory at Teheran. This was perfectly correct. The
suggestion was that the Teheran astronomers knew their
business, and had the good sense to arrange an eclipse
when a Royal visitor wished for one, and so escape
decapitation — a course which the kindly Shah evidently
wished to indicate to the new and young Astronomer Royal
as that which he should pursue in order to avoid the fate
of his unhappy and obstinate predecessor. The attitude
of the Shah towards science is one which is not altogether
unknown in this country.

CHAPTER XXI
EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS AND SPERMACETI

MOST people think of Easter as a Christian festival,
but it is really in name and origin a pagan one.
The word " Easter " is the modern form of " Eastra," the
name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring (in primitive
Germanic, " Austro"). The Germans, like ourselves, keep
its true pagan name, " Ostern." The Latin nations use
for Easter the word Pascha (French, Paque), the Greek
form of the Jewish name for the feast of the Passover,
with which it is historically associated by the Christian
Church. Terrible quarrels have occurred in early ages
over fixing Easter Day and its exact relation to the
Jewish calendar. This is the explanation of its being
" a movable feast " and of the consequent inconvenience
to Parliament, schoolboys, and Bank-holiday-makers at
the present day. It must be admitted that when Easter
comes as early as it sometimes does those who have but
the short spring holiday of the Easter week-end are
hardly used. Instead of enjoying the sunny spring
weather of Austro, and the flowers and the bursting buds
which an Easter at the end of April often gives, they
have to put up with the dreary chill of arid March, and
this, absurdly enough, is all on account of a mistaken
attempt at accuracy made by the Church some sixteen
hundred or more years ago in trying to bring the
Christian festival into line with the Jewish Passover. Jf

268 EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS, SPERMACETI

it were desired to celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection
each year on the day corresponding astronomically with
that indicated in the Gospels, the Astronomer Royal
would have no difficulty in exactly fixing the day, making
due allowance for the changes of the calendar and for the
irregularities of the Jewish year. I do not know what
day in what month such a calculation would finally
establish as that of the ecclesiastical festival, but the
Bank Holiday and the Anglo-Saxon Easter might be
dealt with separately, and assigned, once for all, to the
end of April, the real " opening " or spring month.

The yellow " tansy cakes " which used to be, and the
coloured eggs which still are, given away at Easter,
throughout Europe, are not of Christian origin, but
belong to the Roman celebration (at the same season,
viz., April I2th to 15th) of the goddess of Plenty — Ceres.
Eggs are the symbols of fecundity and the renewal of
life in the spring. They were decorated and given in
baskets by rich Romans to their friends and dependents
at this season. " Hot-cross buns " are peculiar to England,
and no doubt have a Christian significance. They have
not survived in Scotland, although Easter eggs are well
known there (sometimes they are called " pace-eggs "),
nor on the Continent, where " Pascal eggs" are an insti-
tution. " Buns " owe their name to the old Norse word
" bunga," a convexity or round lump, preserved also in
our words " bunion " and " bung." In Norman French it
became " bonne," and in the fourteenth century was applied
to the round loaf of bread given to a horse ; the loaf was
called Bayard's bonne (pronounced " bun "). In some
parts of England a " bunny " still means a swelling due
to a blow.

The April fish, the " poisson d'Avril," is the polite
French term for what we call an " April fool." But why
a. fish is introduced in this connection I am unable to

THE REAL SHAMROCK 269

say. The custom of sending people on fool's errands on
the First of April is probably due to the change of the
calendar in France in 1564 ; but there is a Hindoo feast
on March 3ist, when similar jokes are perpetrated. It is
called " Huli," which, in accordance with phonetic laws,
readily becomes " Fooli." This is probably only a
coincidence.

A curious Easter custom in country districts in England
used to be (perhaps still is) that called " lifting " or
" heaving." On Easter Monday two men will join hands
so as to form a seat ; their companions then " by right
of custom " compel the women they may meet to sit, one
after the other, on the improvised throne and be lifted or
heaved as high as may be. On Easter Tuesday the
women perform the same rite upon the men. Strangers
thus assailed have been much disconcerted and have
recorded their astonishment in " notes of travel." The
custom is said to be a popular degeneration of the cele-
bration of the Resurrection.

An early Easter falls little in advance of St. Patrick's
Day, when there is much " wearing of the green " and
questioning as to what plant is " the real shamrock."
This matter has become so involved and developed by
wild enthusiasm, ignorance, and false sentiment that it is
difficult to deal with it. A distinguished Irishman once
showed me the " shamrock " he was wearing in his button-
hole as " the true " plant of that name. He assured me
that he had studied the subject from boyhood and knew
well the true and the false. " What is its flower like ? "
I asked him. " It never has a flower at all," he said.
Another injustice to Ireland, one must suppose, or a
miracle of St. Patrick's ! His " green " was a bit of the
small variety of the common clover, Trifolium repens,
which, of course, produces the usual tuft of florets or

270 EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS, SPERMACETI

clover-head. It is true that this plant has now been
vulgarly substituted for St. Patrick's shamrock. The
shamrock is not really the common clover nor any variety
of it. The common Dutch clover and its varieties were
introduced into Ireland two hundred years ago from
England and are not Irish at all ! The true shamrock is
the delicate liitle wood-sorrel, Oxalis acetosella, which
has a beautifully formed three-split or trefoil leaf of the
most vivid green colour, and a white flower like that of a
geranium. It is called " fairy-bell " by the Welsh, and
was believed to ring chimes for the elfin folk. It was
also greatly esteemed for its acid flavour and for various
reputed medicinal and magical properties by the Druids
and among the early inhabitants of Great Britain and
Ireland. Pliny says it never shelters a snake, and is an
antidote to the poison of serpents and scorpions — a good
reason for its association with St. Patrick ! It had already
a reputation and sanctity when, if tradition be true, St.
Patrick used its threefold leaf to symbolise the doctrine
of the Trinity.

It is much rarer to find the wood-sorrel trefoil with a
fourth leaflet than it is to find the clover trefoil so provided.
The two plants belong to families widely separated from
one another. The ancient architectural decoration of
trefoil carving, and also the heraldic shamrock in the
arms of the United Kingdom, represent the leaf of the
wood-sorrel, and not that of the clover. No doubt there
has been some sentimental intention in putting forward
the humble, abundant, down-trodden dwarf-clover, the
very sod itself of Ireland (really introduced from England)
as " the shamrock ! " But, as often happens in such cases,
truth and the ancient and honourable tradition of a beau-
tiful thing have been wantonly disregarded in order to do
business in cheap sentiment. Traders are always ready
to take advantage of an ignorant public. Common sprats

SHAM SHAMROCK 271

are called " sardines," the name of another and rarer fish, in
order to conceal the fact that they are sprats : clarified
horse fat is called " fresh country butter," and Irish
regiments are made to decorate themselves with common
clover under the delusion that it is the shamrock. Other
plants have been from time to time utilised to usurp the
title of " shamrock." Thus the small Lucerne clover or
medicago is often sold as " shamrock " to Irish patriots,
and the watercress has been solemnly put forward as the
true shamrock simply because old writers tell us, as evi-
dence of the barbarous state of the Irish, that they fed
upon shamrocks and watercress. The true shamrock
(the wood-sorrel) was formerly greatly valued all over
Europe as a salad and a flavouring herb on account of its
leaves containing oxalic acid. It was used for the manu-
facture of oxalic acid, which was sold as " salts of lemons "
for removing iron-mould. It was the basis of the soup
and of the green sauce for fish, in which the dock-sorrel
(Rumex) has now taken its place. The name " shamrock "
is an old Irish word, written " seamrag," and means a
little " trefoil." Curiously enough there appears to be
an Oriental word, " shamrakh," which I am told is of
Arabic origin, and also means a trefoil. In English
writers from the seventeenth century onwards the Irish
shamrock is variously written of as " shamroots, " shame-
rags " (this and the next following with hostile intent),
" shame-rogues," " sham-brogues," and " sham-rug."

I am sorry to say that Shakespeare does not mention
the shamrock at all. No Irishman who knows the little
oxalis or wood-sorrel could wish for a more beautiful floral
emblem of the Emerald Isle, or dream of letting the vulgar
Saxon intruder — the dwarf clover — take its place. Perhaps
it is the Ulstermen who have set up the foreign " Dutch "
cover to replace the true shamrock, the wood-sorrel.
These changes are easily made. For instance, "green " is

272 EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS, SPERMACETI

not the original national colour of Ireland, but light blue
— Cambridge blue !

This chapter is one of varied material, and I now pass
abruptly from fresh emerald leaflets to the waxy crystals
stewed out of the fat of a monster's head. There has
seldom been a controversy so entertaining as that between
Dr. Bode (the talented director of the Art Gallery of
Berlin) and his opponents, in regard to the age of the wax-
bust which he purchased not long ago for ^8000 in Bond-
street in the belief that it was the work of Leonardo da
Vinci. Science has had its share in the examination of
the bust. The last scientific contribution to the matter
was the discovery by an analytical chemist, Dr. Pinkus,
that the waxy mixture of which the bust is composed
consists in definite proportion of spermaceti. Now since
spermaceti was not used before the year 1700, the bust
cannot (say Dr. Bode's opponents) have been made by
Leonardo da Vinci, who died in the early part of the six-
teenth century. " Nonsense ! " reply Dr. Bode's supporters,
" Shakespeare makes Hotspur speak of ' parmaceti/ and
it was well known to the doctors of Salerno in 1 100 A.D.,
and probably used by the ancients."

Nevertheless, the opponents of Dr. Bode are right. I
am sorry, because Dr. Bode is, in regard to " works of
art," a most able expert, and I think it is better that
experts should always be right. Spermaceti was known,
probably from classical times onwards, as a rare and
precious unguent, " resolutive and mollifying," as M. Pomel,
" chief druggist to the late French King Louis XIV," says
in his treatise on drugs, translated into English in 1737.
It was applied as a liniment for hardness of the skin and
breasts, and was also taken internally. Shakespeare's
reference to it is " parmaceti for an inward bruise." The
fact is it was known and used in small quantity before

LEONARDO OR LUCAS? 273

1 700 A.D. in connection with medicine and the toilet, but
was not consumed by the thousand tons a year, as it was
after the hunting of the sperm whale or cachalot (Pkyseter
mecrocephalus) had been set a-going by the brave fisher-
men of Nantucket and the Northern Atlantic coast of
America in 1690. In 1730 or thereabouts the English
and the Dutch also sent out ships to take part in this
perilous industry, which is now again, in its dwindled con-
dition, exclusively American. It is the pursuit of by far
the biggest and fiercest animal which man has doomed to
extinction. Those who enjoy such stories of adventure
should read Mr. Bullen's personal narrative, ' The Cruise
of the Cachalot.' It was at the end of the eighteenth
century that spermaceti became so abundant in the market
that candles of it were manufactured and sold cheaper
than those of wax. From about 1860 it was superseded
by paraffin and other wax-like products ; and it was at its
cheapest period, and when it was most widely in use, that
Lucas, the English artist, who made many wax busts and
statuettes, is known to have mixed it, in the form of " old
candles," with beeswax, in order to form the composition
which he used in his works. The evidence given by the
chemist, Dr. Pinkus, appears to me to be conclusive
(even without the evidence of the old clothes stuffed into
the hollow of the bust) against the theory that the Bode
wax-bust of Flora is more ancient than the nineteenth
century, and much in favour of its being the work of
Lucas, who is exceptionally known as a wax-modeller
of repute sixty years ago, who did use spermaceti.

Spermaceti is a perfectly definite chemical body, which
can be recognised without chance of error. It is a com-
bination of palmitic acid and a peculiar hydrocarbon,
called (after the whale) " cetyl," and easily forms pure
crystals. Before sperm whales were hunted it was obtained
in relatively small quantity from individual sperm whales,

18

274 EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS, SPERMACETI

which by misadventure landed themselves on the coast of
France, Spain, or Great Britain, and was eagerly pur-
chased by the apothecaries and perfumers of the great
cities of Europe. There are several records of such
strange mistakes on the part of the great sperm whale.
Only ten or fifteen years ago one was stranded on the
Lincolnshire coast, whilst the specimen exhibited in the
Natural History Museum was washed ashore at Thurso
in Caithness. The spermaceti is found dissolved in the
more ordinary oil (or fat), which occupies a huge region
above the bones of the upper jaw and gives the sperm
whale its barrel-shaped head. It separates on cooling,
from the liquid oil, in crystalline flakes, forming great
masses, which are purified by re-melting and cooling. In
early times the fine waxy, flaky material thus obtained
was known in samples of a few ounces, and sold by
apothecaries. It was known that it came from a whale,
and was believed to be the seed or sperm of that animal,
hence its name " spermaceti." M. Pomel, whom I cited
above, believed it to come from the brain of the whale called
"cachalot." No one would have dreamt in the sixteenth
century of mixing this precious stuff with beeswax for
modelling purposes. At that date one would as soon
have mixed amber with pitch. That reminds me that
" grey amber " or " ambergris " is also a product of the
sperm whale not to be confounded with spermaceti. It
is an unhealthy intestinal concretion like bezoar stones (see
p. 94), only exceptionally produced. It is found floating in
the ocean, and is recognised as coming from the cachalot
owing to its being largely made up of the horny beaks of
cuttle-fish, upon which the cachalot feeds. It is still
used in perfumery, and fetches the extraordinary price
of four guineas the ounce. A piece weighing 4^ oz. may
be seen in Cromwell Road.

Though the oils (or fats) of plants and animals are

VARIOUS FATS 275

very similar to one another in appearance, there are a
very large number of them differing chemically from one
another. Thus the fat or oil of dozens of different nuts
and plant-products and of lower animals and fishes, and
of sheep, oxen, pigs, dogs, elephants, and men contain
different and special chemical substances, corresponding
to the " cetyl " which is present in the fat of the sperm
whale's head. Many of them have acquired as a result
of experience and tradition special value for some special
purpose. Several oils have peculiar fitness and great
value for oiling delicate machinery ; others are used in
curing leather, for burning, and for medicinal ointments,
whilst a large variety is used as human food.

CHAPTER XXII

THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE TADPOLES
OF THE SEA

r I ^HERE are many strange and curious animals thrown
up in quantities on the seashore after storms which
an observant wanderer may pick up as he strolls along
the sand. The subsiding waves, one after another, briskly
flow to his feet, and deliver a little sample of the weeds
and other growths uprooted in shallow depths beyond the
low-tide mark. For the big waves of a stormy sea are
not merely surface appearances ; they tear and rend the
sea bottom of the shallow water beyond the line of
" breakers," dislodging all sorts of adherent animals from
the hidden rocks, and even turning over the sandy bottom
in which burrowing worms, as a rule, remain safely housed,
but are now carried helplessly along by the force of the
deep hidden disturbance, and thrown alive on to the
beach. Many a rare prize is thus obtained by the
naturalist, for the waves will search and bring the spoil to
shore fron? submarine rock-clefts and sand-beds into
which the " dredge " cannot penetrate.

Common objects on the storm-strewn shore are oval,
rough, but translucent sacs, as big as one's thumb, colour-
less and of fleshy texture (Fig. 31). Sometimes they are
attached to bits of weed, but usually are free, though
the broken appearance of one end shows them to have
been dislodged from attachment to rocks by the force of

SEA SQUIRTS 277

the recent storm. Not only are these little sacs common
on the shore after storms, but they are taken in the oyster-
dredge (or naturalist's dredge) by hundreds. When you
handle one of these apparently lifeless sacs, you are sur-
prised to feel it give a slight movement of its own, and to
see a fine jet of water issue from it. North-Sea fisher-
men, who come across these and many such creatures,
have no name for them, but class them all with supreme
disgust as " trash." What they want is fish, and (with
characteristic Anglo-Saxon short-sightedness) they ignore
everything else. They know next to nothing even about

FIG. 31 . — Two kinds of Ascidians or " sea squirts " of half the natural
size. A is the kind known as Ascidia mammillata, B is a red-
coloured species of the genus Cynthia allied to Ascidia. It shows
on distinct prominences the mouth at the top of the sac-like body
and the opening of the peri-branchial chamber on the right. Root-
like processes of the sac are given off from its lower end and
serve to fix it to a rock or stone.

the fish and bait, which are so important to them ; the
more sapient among them declare the eggs of the lump-
sucker to be those of the herring, and the acorn-barnacles
on the tidal rocks to be the young of the limpet. Hence
they have no name for the little translucent sacs just
mentioned ; but boys call them " sea-squirts," and that
name has been adopted. Naturalists call them Ascidians.

278

TADPOLES OF THE SEA

The Neapolitan fishermen, unlike their northern brethren,
have names for several kinds of Ascidians and for a great
number of the marine creatures of no market value,
which they come across in searching the shallow regions
of the Bay of Naples for shell-fish.

If you cut one of these Ascidians open with a pen-knife
you will find that the sac is very thick and tough, though
translucent. Within it you will see a coiled intestine,
surrounded by reddish-coloured soft material. Careful

FIG. 32. — A dissection of an Ascidia. The thick-walled sac has been
cut all round and half of it removed. We see on the left (at the top)
the mouth leading into the enlarged gullet, perforated like trellis-
work, and from this we trace the re-curved intestine which opens
into the peri-branchial chamber on the right. This chamber itself
opens to the exterior by the spout-like process on the right. Lying
in the chamber just above the anus is a single egg. Above the egg
we see a pale oblong body, pointed at each end. This is the brain.
In the " body-cavity " around the intestine many eggs are seen, and
at the lower end of it a curved striped body which is the heart.

dissection of the dead Ascidian with the aid of a lens and
delicate forceps and scissors, when it has been pinned to
a leaded plate of cork in a shallow dish containing weak

THE ANATOMY OF A SEA SQUIRT 279

rectified spirits of wine, shows (see Fig. 32) that it has a
complicated " anatomy." At the end of the sac opposite
to that by which it is attached in life to stones or weeds
one detects the animal's mouth, provided with a fringe of
very small tentacles. The mouth leads into a large flat-
tened chamber, extending through three fourths of the sac.
Its wall looks like a piece of gauze, perforated with rows
of innumerable fine holes. This is the enlarged gullet of
the Ascidian, and the sea-water which enters the mouth
is forced by the lashing of microscopic whips (called
" cilia ") to stream through the fine holes which they
fringe into an equally large flattened chamber lying over
the gullet. This second chamber is provided on one side
(not far from the mouth) with an upstanding opening
leading through the tough body wall or sac to the exterior.
This is " the peri-branchial chamber," so called because the
perforated wall of the gullet has fine blood-vessels run-
ning along its meshes, and acts as a gill or branchial breath-
ing apparatus. The water streaming into the mouth and
through the meshes of the gullet wall into this chamber,
and by its " pore " or orifice to the exterior, oxygenates
the blood as it courses along the bars of the network.

The solid particles of a nutritious nature (often micro-
scopic plants and animalcules) which enter with the water
into the gullet are strained off by its sieve-like wall, and
pass at its lower end into the coiling intestine, which is
visible when one first roughly opens an Ascidian. The
intestine does not open to the exterior, but after forming a
loop turns on itself and opens into the peri-branchial cham-
ber, so that the current of water passing through that cavity
carries away the matter discharged from the intestine
through the branchial pore to the exterior. Thus the
Ascidian is provided with an elaborate apparatus which
makes one continual stream of water drawn into its mouth
serve as a carrier of food particles to the digestive gut, of

280 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

oxygen to the blood, and as a flushing, purifying current,
carrying away the refuse of the gut. I have mentioned
that the Ascidian has blood. Its blood is colourless, but
is contained in a fine branching system of blood-vessels,
which pass, as two branching trees, one from each end of a
muscular, regularly beating little heart. There is a curious
thing about the Ascidian's heart, it receives the blood
from the set of vessels at one end of it, and pumps it on
into the vessels at the other end. After some twenty or
thirty beats it stops, and then its wave of contraction
starts again, but in the reverse direction, so that what
were veins bringing in the blood become arteries carrying
it away, whilst the former arteries act as veins. After
the same number of beats or contractions of the heart
there is again a brief pause, and the action is again
reversed. And so it goes on. There are an extraordinary
number and variety of kinds of Ascidians, some large
some minute, some sac-like and fixed, some glass-like in
transparency and floating in the sea. Others are con-
joined to form star-like flat encrusting growths of brilliant
colours on submarine rocks (Fig. 33). They all have this
peculiar reversible heart (which can be watched for hours
with the microscope in the small transparent kinds), and
no other animals are known with a heart acting in the
same way.

The common sac-like sea-squirt which we are anato-
mising is a big kind called " Ascidia mentula" There
are a few bigger, as much as 4 in. in length, but most are
very much smaller, not larger than beans or peas. Our
sea-squirt has a digestive gland (of red colour), and also
masses of germ-cells (egg-cells and sperm-cells) between
the folds of its intestine. It has a fine set of muscular
bands and slips, which by their contraction can elongate
or shorten the sac, close or expand the mouth and the
branchial orifice, and squeeze the water from it. It has

THE SEA-SQUIRT'S GOAT

281

also a minute brain, a knob the size of a large pin's head,
consisting of nerve-cells, from which pass nerve-fibres to
the muscles, and also to certain organs of touch and
taste. The thick translucent sac, which forms the coat of
our Ascidian, is a complete closed sac, except for the two
holes not far from one another, where the mouth and the
orifice of the branchial chamber respectively open (see
31)- This coat or sac is one of the most peculiar

FIG. 33.— Brilliantly coloured star-like growths united by a common
dense jelly so as to form a mat, which adheres to a piece of brown sea-
weed. This is the compound Ascidian called Botryllus. Each star
consists of eight or nine little creatures like the Ascidian of Fig. 32,
but they are united side by side to one another and have one
common aperture (seen as a black dot in the centre of each star)
for their peri-branchial chambers. Each of the constituent indi-
viduals of a star has its own mouth near the edge of the circle.
The drawing is of the natural size,

and characteristic structures of all the varied kinds of
Ascidians. They have, in reference to it, received the
name " Tunicata." It consists of a dense, more or less
transparent deposit, in some kinds as hard as horn and a

282 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

quarter of an inch thick, in others soft and flexible, on the
surface of the delicate living layer of the Ascidian's
body. In some respects it may be compared to the
hard horn-like layer (called " crust " or " shell ") on the
surface of the body in large insects and in lobsters and
crabs. But it differs from that layer in its chemical
nature, which is similar to the wood of plants rather than
to the horn and shell of other animals, and also in the
fact that living protoplasmic cells from the epidermic
layer, which underlies it and secretes it, pass into it and
continue to live in it as detached floating or embedded
cells.

The sac-like creature which I have just described lives
a perfectly quiescent existence, not unlike that of an
oyster. It is fixed by one end of its sac-like body, and
simply keeps up by means of the lashing hairs with which
its gullet is beset a constant stream of sea-water entering
its mouth and filtering through its sieve-like pharynx, and
so through its branchial chamber and orifice to the
exterior. One cannot but be struck with the fact that the
mechanism with which the Ascidian is provided — heart,
blood-vessels, brain and nerves, and muscles, besides the
elaborate perforated pharynx — is an extremely complex
one for a creature which leads a sort of vegetating exis-
tence, motionless within a tough protecting sac. What is
the origin and history of the Ascidians or Tunicata ? To
what other animals are they related by descent and
cousinship ? The answer given to these questions fifty
years ago was that they were a sort of soft-shelled oysters
— in fact, they were classed with the mollusca (the snails
and whelks, clams, oysters, and cuttle-fish). Then when
their structure was more fully ascertained, they were con-
sidered as a group apart — a puzzle. It was only when
their growth from the egg was studied by the most refined
microscopical methods that their real nature became

THE SEA-SQUIRT'S YOUNG

283

apparent. The Ascidians, like other animals, produce
eggs, which are duly fertilised, and in many cases grow
without any delay into the shape and form of their
parents. But — fortunately for our information in regard
to a very interesting chapter of natural history — not all
the kinds of Ascidians grow as directly and simply as pos-
sible from the egg to the parental form. Some (and our
common Ascidia vientula is among them) actually hatch
from the egg as tadpoles — smaller than the full-sized
tadpoles of the common frog, but nevertheless tadpoles —
tadpoles with oval, conjoined head and body, as in those

ASCIDIAN

FIG. 34. — The tadpole of a frog and of an Ascidian compared — both
much enlarged, the Ascidian more than the frog. A very notice-
able difference is that the mouth of the Ascidian tadpole is on the
top of its head, whilst that of the frog's tadpole is in front and faces
downwards.

familiar to us, and a long, fin-fringed tail, which, by its
rapid, wriggling strokes to right and left, drives the little
creature through the salt water (Fig. 34).

These are our " tadpoles of the sea," Ascidian tadpoles.
Their superficial appearance was known to naturalists
for many years before the details of their internal structure
and its mode of formation from the first embryonic cells
into which the egg-cell divides were ascertained. The
resemblance of the little marine Ascidian tadpoles, a quarter
of an inch long, to a frog's tadpole was noted, and regarded

284 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

as a coincidence in form of no special significance, and ex-
plained on the principle that " like mechanical needs must
produce like forms," even in kinds of animals so remote from
one another as Ascidians and Vertebrates. The Ascidian
tadpole was considered merely as an exceptional " swim-
ming larva," or young form, occurring in a group the young
of which do not usually swim. Then came (in 1866) the
study of the minute structure of the Ascidian tadpole by
the great Russian discoverer, Kowalewsky, followed by
many other investigators. The result was a very impor-
tant one for all future conceptions as to the genetic rela-
tionships of animals — the making out of the pedigree of
animals. The chief facts established were that the
Ascidian tadpole has the same structure in several impor-
tant points as we find in the frog's tadpole, and must be
identified as a vertebrate animal — a member of that great
line of descent or branch of the animal pedigree which
includes fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals !
All the vertebrate animals have an elastic rod running
from head to tail, a sort of supporting axis, to which the
muscles are attached. It is called the " notochord," and
whilst in some fishes (for instance, lampreys and sturgeons)
it remains rod-like and unchanged throughout life, in most
vertebrates it becomes enclosed in rings of bone, which
are the bony vertebrae or jointed " back-bone" familiar to
us, not only in fishes, snakes, birds, and joints of butchers'
meat, but also in our own backs. The frog's tadpole has
this notochord and so has the Ascidian tadpole (Fig. 35),
and they are formed in the same way in the very
young condition, namely, by a nipping-ofT of a long
fold or '* pleat " of the wall of the young creature's
simple gut or digestive cavity ! The fold becomes
closed, solid, and gelatinous, and converted into a firm,
flexible rod ! That is one great point of resemblance
between the two tadpoles, and it is of significance,

GILL-SLITS

285

because no other animals besides vertebrates possess such
a spinal rod.

We have seen that the frog's and the Ascidian's tadpole
alike possess the " notochord." The next point of
resemblance is that both tadpoles have on each side of
the gullet a pair of slits (becoming more numerous in
later stages of growth), which allow the water, taken in by
the mouth, to stream out again on each side (see Fig. 35).
All vertebrates (even man and monkeys) have in very
early life these " gill-slits." They remain permanently in
fishes as the breathing organs or gills, and so they do

QIU SUIS

FIG. 35- — A diagram of the anatomy of the tadpoles of the frog (upper
figure) and of the Ascidian (lower figure). The notochord or
skeletal spinal rod, the gill slits, and the brain and spinal cord are
seen in each.

in the Ascidian in the form of multiplied perforations
of the gullet, as we have seen (Fig. 32). But no other
animals besides vertebrates have these slits. In the
frog's tadpole and in that of the Ascidian the body-
wall grows out over the gill-slits, so as to form a
protective chamber, the peri-branchial chamber or gill
chamber, with a spout like pore, to let the water stream
away, but in the frog's tadpole the terminal opening o<"
the intestine is not covered in by the walls of this cham-
ber as it is in the Ascidian's tadpole and in the adult

286 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

Ascidian. The third point of agreement in the two tad-
poles is that, as in all vertebrates, we find in both a hollow
brain and spinal cord running along the back, from head to
tail — in fact, a tubular nerve-cord, lying above the skeletal
elastic rod or notochord (see Fig. 35). In very young
stages of growth of the Ascidian tadpole, the nerve-tube is
formed from the outermost layer of the skin by the pro-
duction of a trough, or groove, along the back — the sides
of which close in. This is the way in which the central
nervous mass — the brain and spinal cord — of all verte-
brates is formed, and it is so formed in them alone, and in
no other animals. The Ascidian tadpole, like the frog's
tadpole, has a swollen, rounded brain in its head, from
which the pipe-like spinal cord extends right away along
the little animal to the end of its tail. The sensitive part
of the eye — the retina — is, in all vertebrate animals, in
its earliest phase of growth, a bulb-like outgrowth of the
hollow brain. That is its nature in the young frog's
tadpole. The retina of the eye is not formed as a part of
the brain in any other animals besides the vertebrates.
But in the Ascidian tadpole the likeness to the vertebrates
is kept up in this respect also, giving us a fourth point of
agreement between them, shared by no other animals. We
find in the transparent young Ascidian tadpole, not two
eyes, but a single little "retina "and black-coloured spot of
pigment, actually within the hollow brain (Fig. 36). The
" retina " is (as in all vertebrates, and in vertebrates alone)
part of the brain-wait ; but there is no need for it to grow
outwards to the surface, since the light can pass through
the transparent tissues to it. It has been wittily
remarked of the Ascidian tadpole that " his eye is single
and his whole body is full of light." The same is true of
the wonderful little fish-like creature called the Lancelet,
or Amphioxus.

Thus, then, we have seen four extremely peculiar and

STRUCTURE OF SEA-SQUIRTS TADPOLE 287

important structures in which tfie Ascidian tadpole and
the frog's tadpole agree — structures which are possessed
by all vertebrates and by no other animals. And not
only do these structures, as shown in the Ascidian tad-
pole, agree in their shape and relations to other parts
with the similar structures of vertebrates, but actually in
their mode of building up, cell by cell, from the primitive
egg-cell, the structures compared are demonstrated by
careful microscopic study to be identical. What, then,
must we conclude ? This is a case of cumulative evidence.
If one met — say, near the North Pole — a race of men with

FIG. 36. — A drawing of the head of an Ascidian tadpole seen as a
transparent object under the microscope. C marks the tail, only
partly shown ; K is the gullet ; N is the nervous system tapering
to form the spinal cord n behind and expanding in front to form
the hollow brain N'. On the inner wall of this we see O the eye
and a an auditory organ; o is the aperture of the mouth; ch the
notochord (unshaded) ; d the intestine ; 5 is one of a pair of ad-
hesive outgrowths by which the tadpole fixes itself permanently to
a piece of rock.

the colour and appearance of New Zealanders, one would
say, "It is very curious ! They are like New Zealanders."
But if one found that they could speak the Maori language
and no other, it would be rendered nearly certain that
they were New Zealanders. If after this you found that
they decorated themselves with the tattoo-markings of
New Zealanders, and then that they possessed weapons and
carvings of the Maori pattern, your conclusion would be

288 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

placed beyond doubt. Each piece of evidence multiplies
enormously the chances against the resemblance being due
to coincidence, and not to identity of race. So it is w:*h
our tadpoles of the sea. They do not merely resemble
vertebrates — they are vertebrates ; they belong to that
great line of the animal pedigree. The strange immobile
mollusc-like sacs known as " Ascidians " or " sea-squirts,"
so unlike the little tadpoles from which they grow, are

•MAIN
NOTOCHORD

FIG. 37. — Two stages in the fixation of the Ascidian tadpole by its
head to a rock and its subsequent degeneration or simplification.
In the upper figure the tail is seen to be withering and the brain
no longer is elongated to form a spinal cord. In the lower figure
the shape of the young animal is much changed, the tail has
almost entirely withered up, and the region affixed to the rock has
grown relatively large.

simplified or " degenerate " as compared with that so-called
" larval " or transient youthful stage of growth. Though
we only find this history in the growth from the egg of a
few of the Ascidians, yet all — those which never pass
through a tadpole stage of growth, have to be embraced
in our conclusion. The Ascidians are simplified sac-like
vertebrates.

FIXATION OF THE SEA-SQUIRT'S TADPOLE 289

The free-swimming tadpole of the sea-squirt or Ascidian,
with its long, fish-like extension of the muscular body,
supported by its elastic backbone, with its brain and
spinal cord and its eye, after a short period of active life
in the sea runs its head against a piece of rock or other
solid support, and by means of an adhesive growth on
the skin in front of the mouth fixes itself securely (Fig. 37).
To this spot it remains attached for the rest of its life.
It is still very minute — a little more than a quarter of

TAJL

FIG. 38. — A later stage; the young Ascidian has now assumed the
sac-like shape of the adult. The peri-branchiaj chamber or cloaca
is formed and has its opening to the exterior. There are still only
two gill slits : these will multiply indefinitely as the creature grows
in size. The arrow shows the direction of the stream of sea-water
which enters the mouth and passes through the gill slits into the
cloacal or peri-branchial chamber and so to the exterior. The
actual size of the young Ascidian at this stage is about that of a
large hemp-seed.

an inch long — but it takes in floating particles of
nourishment by drawing in water to its mouth which
passes out by the gill-slits of its gullet, leaving the food-
particles behind. It grows rapidly, but not equally, The
tadpole's tail does not grow at all ! It simply atrophies

19

2QO

TADPOLES OF THE SEA

and disappears, leaving no trace behind it, and with
it disappear the elastic backbone and the spinal nerve-
cord. The brain remains, but loses its eye, and does
not grow so much in proportion as do other parts
(Fig. 38). It is the gullet which increases most ; it
becomes relatively enormous, and the few perforations
or gill-slits in its wall become multiplied so as to form
a regular net-like trellis-work. The skin deposits a
thick and translucent coat or " tunic " all over the surface
of the body, leaving a hole for the mouth and another for
the pore or opening of the peri-branchial chamber. Thus
protected and fixed in a safe place — the tadpole trans-
formed into a sea-squirt grows as a featureless oval sac to
a length of two or three inches. It eventually produces
eggs, which grow into little tadpoles and swim away
into the sea, and so the round of its life is completed.

The Ascidian or sea-squirt is specialised for feeding
and breathing by means of the current of water passing
into its mouth and out by its gill-slits. It has no need
of movement nor of eyes nor ears ; it leads a passive,
unaggressive life, and is distinctly inferior, in its general
capability for dealing with the surrounding world, to the
little tadpole by the change of which it is formed.

Now let us compare with this the history of the other
tadpole — that of the frog (Fig. 39). It takes in food by its
mouth, and soon develops movable horny lips and a jaw,
which enable it to nibble and feed on soft solid food. It
grows to an inch or more in length, keeping its large, mus-
cular tail and fish-like appearance. Then four legs appear,
first the hind pair and then a front pair. The tail ceases
to grow, and withers, whilst the legs and the rest of the
body increase. At last the tail is a mere projecting stump,
and the tadpole crawls out of the water and becomes a
little frog. The legs are strong, muscular limbs used for
crawling and jumping, and for swimming when the young

THE FROG'S TADPOLE

291

frog finds it desirable to plunge into the water. He has
now grown a pair of air-holding sacs for breathing (the
lungs), opening from the gullet, whilst his gill-slits have
entirely closed up and disappeared. He moves quickly,

FIG. 39. — The development of the frog's tadpole into a young frog.
I, Very young tadpoles (twice the natural size) adhering by their
head suckers (comparable to those of the Ascidian, see Fig. 36) to
the leaves of a water plant ; 2 and 2a, the same enlarged to show
the external plume-like gills ; 3 and 4, later stages ; 5, the hind legs
commencing to appear ; 6, with both fore and hind legs ; 7, th«
tail is withering and disappearing; 8, the young frog.

and with purpose ; he catches small insects, little worms,
and such like food, and is a creature of altogether superior

2Q2 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

endowments compared with what he was. His eyes are
large and keen in sight ; his hearing organs are large and
good ; so are his organs of smell ; and he has a very fine
tongue, which he can shoot out, so as to pick up quickly
a fly or spider and draw it into his mouth.

Starting from a stage of their tadpole life, when they
are practically equal in powers and endowments, the frog
has progressed, whilst the Ascidian has retrogressed. The
frog has become more complex than he was as a tadpole,
more varied in his powers ; the Ascidian has become less
complex ; in fact, simplified, and with a less variety of
powers than when it was a tadpole. Both the Ascidian
and the frog exhibit, as all animals do in their growth
from the egg, a more or less blurred recapitulation of the
long line of ancestors through which they have developed
from a unicellular animalcule. The tadpole is a recapitula-
tive presentation of the fish-like ancestor common to both
the common Ascidian and the common frog. It is em-
phasised and of some duration in their growth from the
egg> but in other closely allied Ascidians and frogs, and
in most other vertebrates, the tadpole stage is blurred
and lost. The inert sac-like Ascidian into which the
Ascidian tadpole is converted, though it has a very
wonderful trellis-like gullet and a stout, tough coat to
protect it, is yet a " poor creature," as compared with
the frog — a helpless, passive lump, living on the abundant
microscopic particles of food obtained from endless pints
of sea-water, to the mechanical straining off of which from
the ceaseless stream passed into its mouth and out of its
branchial pore it is comfortably and irretrievably aban-
doned. This is its speciality. Its apparatus for this one
process is highly perfected, but in every other respect the
Ascidian is simplified and negative as compared with its
tadpole.

The descriptive term " degeneration " has been applied

SIMPLIFICATION WITH SPECIALISATION 293

to the change which comes over the Ascidian as it grows
from the active tadpole stage and becomes converted into
this inert, one-purposed sac, but owing to other uses of
the word " degeneration " it is better to speak of the
condition of the Ascidian as " extreme specialism with
simplification." Other very obvious cases of this simplifica-
tion connected with specialism are familiar to naturalists
among parasitic animals. Most of such animals get abun-
dant food by taking advantage of the nutritive juices of
the other animals (or the plants) on which they are para-
sitic, and whilst developing special apparatus for this
purpose, often become reduced and simplified in all other
parts of their structure. There are, for instance, a great
many kinds of shrimp-like animals which show this
condition. When young they are active little shrimps
with many legs, claws, jointed body, and muscular tail.
But before they have grown to any size the females affix
themselves to a fish or other marine animal, and, burying
the head and mouth in its juicy flesh, suck in nutriment.
They lose their legs and the ring-like jointing of the body
and swell out into a sac-like shape. The sac is chiefly
occupied by the enormously abundant eggs. When you
examine one of these parasites in the adult condition it
would not occur to you that a few weeks earlier it was a
neat, well-balanced, many-legged little shrimp, darting
through the water. Yet such is shown to be its history
when we hatch its eggs and watch the early stages of its
life. Such is the history, too, of the ship's barnacle
(Fig. 40) which begins life as a free-swimming, shrimp-like
creature, and then permanently fixes itself by its head
(as does the sea-squirt) but retains its legs for the
purpose of kicking food into its mouth (Fig. 41). The
barnacle is not parasitic, but merely obtains shelter and
free carriage by fixing itself to floating wood.

This tendency to simplification when a special means of

294 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

obtaining abundant nutriment and safety from enemies
has been, so to speak, " discovered " by a race of hitherto
active creatures is seen in many kinds of animals, and in
a more or less marked degree. The spiders, for instance,
are the descendants of scorpion-like ancestors, and as
compared with the many-jointed and variously endowed
scorpions are simplified. The spiders have a globular
unjointed body, very long, quickly-moving legs, and
deadly poisonous claws. They are " specialised " for
great strength and rapidity so as to catch insects and

FIG. 40. — Two individuals of the ship's barnacle (Lepas anatiferd)
attached to a piece of wood. Usually they are seen hanging down-
wards from the substance to which they have fixed themselves.
Note the shell-like covering in the left-hand specimen, the pro-
truded legs (capable of being extended and suddenly withdrawn
into the shell), and the solid, leathery stalk which, as Fig. 41 shows,
was the creature's head.

suck their blood. In them " simplification " is accom-
panied by great activity and by wonderful perfection of
the sense-organs and nervous system, resulting in their
marvellous powers of spinning threads and constructing
snares and nests. The spiders cannot be regarded as
inferior in special powers and endowments to the
scorpions ; indeed, they are far ahead of them. They are

MITES AS DECADENT SPIDERS

295

specialised, yet are more, not less, capable in consequence.
But they are at a perilous point of perfection. In the
animal series, as in the history of art, decadence often
follows suddenly upon periods of the highest attainment,
and in virtue of the same law of development. From the
spiders have arisen small spider-like creatures — the mites
and tics — which no longer " trap " or hunt their prey, but
have learnt to attach themselves to the bodies of larger

FIG. 41. — Development of the barnacle from a free-swimming stage
with six active legs. The larva of Balanus and of Chthamalus,
closely allied to the true Lepas barnacle, are drawn since they do
not differ from that of Lepas. In the drawing labelled " pupa " the
head with its two feelers outspread is seen fixing the young animal
by a cement, which it secretes, to a piece of wood.

animals and plants and to feed on their abundant juices.
Some have gone further and feed on hair, skin, and
feathers, or even on the powdery masses of dead vege-
tables, and whilst retaining the general shape of spiders
have lost the extraordinary agility, the keen sight and

296 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

touch-sense of those creatures and their phenomenal skill
in spinning and construction, and have also become (no
doubt as an e1enent of safety) extremely small. The
mites (cheese m'tes, bird and horse mites, itch insects,
and plant mites) are specialised and simplified spiders.
The vigorous and active organs of the spiders have in
them dwindled and to a great extent atrophied. They
are instances of simplification connected with the specialism
which secures them abundant food and safety in virtue of
their small size and capacity for sucking nutriment from
all sorts of obscure sources where they find no competition.
A few words must now be said about the exquisitely
beautiful creatures to which the Ascidian race has given
rise — creatures which are amongst the most curious, and
at the same time the most gem-like in colour and trans-
parency, of all the myriads of lovely things which the
everlasting ocean offers to our eyes. The common large
Ascidian, two inches or more in length, is a rough-
looking, oblong sac, securely fixed by an adhesive base to
a rock. Suppose this base to grow and spread over the
rock and to give rise to buds like the stem of a plant, so
that several Ascidian sacs are produced resting on an
enlarged base ! That seems an incredible thing for an
animal to do and more like the growth of a plant — but it
is the regular mode of growth in some Ascidians. Then
suppose that the sacs are not large and coarse, but only
as big as a large dewdrop, each like a goblet in shape and
perfectly transparent and colourless, as though carved in
rock crystal. This being accomplished, you have the little
compound or budded Ascidian called "Clavelina"! It
is a marvellously beautiful thing, and groups of them
may often be found on rocky shores at very low
tide, attached to the under-surface of ledges or slabs
of rock. Its crystal-like transparency not only makes
it a wonderful sight to the unaided eye, but enables

COMPOSITE SEA-SQUIRTS 297

one with a microscope to see right into the living
creature and to watch the beating of its heart, the
movement of its colourless, clear blood, and the lashing
of the minute hair-like whips set on the trellis-work of its
gullet by which the sea-water is drawn in at the mouth
and passed out through the perforations of the gullet wall
— bringing food and rich streams of oxygenated liquid to
the little animal.

That is one kind of Ascidian not far removed from the
common rough sea-squirt. Now we will go a step further.
Suppose that instead of merely budding new individuals
from its stem-like base, the Ascidian is liable to a budding
process which affects its whole body. This is what
happens in some kinds of Ascidians : each original indivi-
dual, as it grows, becomes divided or " budded " into some
six or a dozen closely adherent individuals, each with its
own mouth, and otherwise complete. But all are united
to one central peri-branchial out-flow chamber by the orifice
of which the water, taken in by all, is passed to the
exterior, and all are enclosed in a continuous sac, coat or
tunic. Such composite Ascidians exist in great variety.
Some are upright, and an inch or more in length, and
often beautifully coloured — tinted pink or violet — others
are flattened, and the united individuals are spread star-like
around their central branchial orifice, on the rock to which
their common tunic adheres. Not only that, but a whole
series of such star-like composite groups is formed, scat-
tered at intervals (by separation after budding) in a sheet
of encrusting tough, gelatinous tunic. The gelatinous
encrusting " sheet " is the same thing as the tough sac of
the common simple Ascidian. This is the nature of the
beautiful encrusting growths known as " Botryllus," which
are found either on rocks or stones, or on large
seaweeds (Fig. 33). The flat, star-like composite
individuals are one third of an inch across, and are

2g8 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

of colours contrasting with that of the sheet-like
tunic in which they are embedded, so that the sheet-
like growth looks like a piece of woven fabric with
a radiated star pattern repeated all over its surface.
Purple and green, yellow and orange in various shades
are the colours contrasted in the stars and groundwork.
This extraordinary arrangement of little animals as
flattened sacs grouped like the rays of a star in a gela-
tinous bed or matrix is as unlike a vertebrate fish or tad-
pole as anything can be ; yet the animals composing this
star-spangled jewel actually lay eggs, from each of which
a tadpole hatches ! The Botryllus, as this beautiful
encrustation is called, is one of those exceptional Ascidians
which have retained the tadpole phase, or young form (often
called a " larva," the name applied to the caterpillar of
moths and butterflies), in their growth from the egg. The
Botryllus tadpole, after some days of a free-swimming
life, fixes itself by its head to a solid stone or weed, and
changes into a star-shaped group, from which other con-
nected star-groups are budded off, whilst remaining
embedded in a common gelatinous sheet exuded by
them, and holding them together !

Though we can often prove that the brilliant colouring
and pattern-marks of an animal or a plant are of advan-
tage to their possessor, either as attracting other animals
to it or as concealing it from enemies or warning others
to leave it alone, yet there is a vast preponderance of
cases in which we cannot ascribe any special " use " to
the colour, as colour. It happens that certain chemical
bodies necessarily manufactured by the plant or animal in
the course of its living changes are of this or that colour,

just as water is blue and iron-rust is red, and so there

the brilliant colour is. And so far as the advantage of
the animal or plant is concerned, it might just as well not
be there at all ! This uselessness of beautiful colouring

PHOSPHORESCENT COLONIES 299

and pattern often strikes «)ne very forcibly in the case of
creatures which live in dark pools, on the under-side of
rocks, or at considerable depth in the sea, where no eye
can ever see them. It is also striking in those cases
where the beautiful colour and design exists in some com-
pletely hidden or internal part of the plant or animal. It
is certainly not possible with our present knowledge to
ascribe the colour and beauty of many marine animals to
any utility or advantage to their owner. But this, of
course, is quite consistent with the fact — now most
thoroughly demonstrated — that in a great many cases the
once useless colour has been selected and preserved in
certain spots and shapes, and on various parts, so as to
be of great advantage to the animal or plant so coloured
in its relations to surrounding animals, whose eyes are
affected, and whose actions are guided by the optical
impression so produced. The same is true as to the
phosphorescent light emitted in the dark by certain
animals and certain plants. In some instances we can show
its value to the light-maker ; but in many other instances
it appears to be a mere non-significant by-product.

Some of the composite growths formed by the budding
kinds ofAscidians are phosphorescent. We call a cluster
of budded animals which remain in continuity with one
another " a colony." It is not perhaps a good term, but
it is the one in use. Such " colonies " or aggregates
formed by Ascidians are in some kinds irregular and
indefinite in shape ; in others they are definite in shape
as are the radiated star-like colonies of Botryllus. A
very curious kind of "colony," of definite shape, is
formed by the budding Ascidian known as "the
sea-candle," or " Pyrosoma." It is a hollow, pinkish-
coloured translucent cylinder, three or four inches long as
commonly seen in the Mediterranean, but bigger species
(even four feet long) occur in tropical seas. At night,

300 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

when touched or otherwise excited, these " sea candles "
glow all over with a strong yellowish light. They are not
fixed, but float together in great shoals in the sea, and
when a boat runs into such a floating crowd of these
curious marine " candles " the waters " blaze " over a large
space with their brilliant phosphorescence. The cylinders
of Pyrosoma consist of clear, tough jelly — they are hollow
and open at each end — and the jelly is raised into glass-
like pointed projections all over the surface. This tough
crystal-like jelly is the common coat or tunic of an
immense number of little Ascidians which have produced
it as they budded and multiplied from an original single
little Ascidian. They are all set in the jelly, so that
each has its mouth opening on to the outer surface
of the cylinder, whilst the aperture of the peri-branchial
chamber is at the other end of the little animal and
opens into the long axial cavity of the cylinder. A well-
grown cylinder is built up by some hundreds of indi-
vidual Ascidians, and a slice across its length shows from
eight to a dozen of them set radially in the ring of
jelly, cut off like a slice of a hollow cucumber. The little
Ascidians are each about a third of an inch in length, cor-
responding to the thickness of the jelly-wall in which they
are set. They are all in connection with one another by
strands of living tissue. They continually bud, and also
form new jelly — thus adding to the size of the colony,
new individuals being budded so as to occupy positions
between the older ones. The whole colony increases in
bulk by " interstitial growth." They also produce, from
time to time, each a single egg, which is fertilised within
the parent, and grows into a little chain of four minute
Ascidians surrounding a larger central one, before it is
set free, and floats out of the central chamber of the
" colonial cylinder " to start a new floating colony.

Each of the transparent little Ascidians of a Pyrosoma

THE ORGANS OF PHOSPHORESCENCE 301

colony is fully organised, like the common large sea-
squirt, but it is oat-shaped, being elongated in such a way
that the mouth is at one end of the oat and the opening
of the branchial chamber (often called the " atrium ") at
the other. Near the nerve-mass or brain one can see with
the miscroscope in the living creature a pair of granular
little lumps. Darken the room in which you are observing
and you will see these little lumps glowing independently,
and giving out a strong light. They are the phosphores-
cent organs of the " sea-candle " or Pyrosoma. If you
gently pinch one end of a Pyrosoma floating in a tank of
sea-water in a darkened room, you will see a wave of
light pass along the colony from the pinched end to the
other. The excitation caused by the pinch is transmitted
from one of the little " colonists " to the next, and so on
through the whole length. The phosphorescent matter is
a fatty chemical compound. It can be extracted from the
" sea-candle " (as from other marine phosphorescent
animals), dried, and kept for some weeks, when it can be
again made to give out light by wetting it with sea-water
and a little ether. Its property of giving out light is
dependent on its contact with oxygen, and during life this
contact is controlled by the nervous system of the little
Ascidian. It appears also that the cells which produce
the phosphorescent granules are stimulated by nerves, just
as are the cells which produce the saliva and other secre-
tions in higher animals. The same history is true with
regard to the phosphorescence of many marine animals —
worms, shrimps, and jellyfish — as well as of glow-worms,
fire-flies, and deep-sea fishes. In some cases, but not in
all, we can imagine what may be the use to its owner of
the phosphorescent gift.

There is a whole world of transparent floating creatures
in the sea which live near the surface and never rest on
the bottom. They are all glass-like and often colourless,

302 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

or marked with only a rare patch of red or violet colour.
They are not often seen in the stormy, muddy seas of the
English coast, but occur far out at sea and in the Medi-
terranean. In the quiet sea-lochs of Scotland and in the
Norwegian fiords they can be captured with the towing-
net — a wide-mouthed bag of bolting cloth attached to a
rope and towed by the naturalist behind his boat. I made
my acquaintance with this peculiar world of life many
years ago in the Mediterranean. It includes glass-like
fishes (the young stage of eels), crystalline shrimps, worms,
jellyfish (medusae), swimming snails, and a vast number of
minute transparent larvae, or young forms of animals,
which in later life sink to the bottom. But the most
curious and characteristic members of this special glass-
like floating population are certain transparent Ascidians
called salps or Salpae, which are very abundant in the Bay
of Naples and in the warmer seas. A few years ago I
met one species of them in great numbers when I was
.swimming in the sea near Dinard, on the Brittany coast.
Big salps an inch to three inches long — transparent oblong
sacs, widely open at each end — are commonly found in
the Bay of Naples, slowly swimming by a very gentle
contraction and expansion of the walls of the sac. They
are Ascidians, like in general build to the constituent
individuals of the sea-candle colonies, but much bigger.
Big specimens of Salps are as much as three inches in
length. The salp is like a transparent, oblong packing-
case, with the small ends knocked out. The wide opening
at one end is the mouth, that at the other is the gaping
orifice of the peri-branchial chamber. The whole salp
seems little more at first sight than a huge gullet, which
opens at one end by the mouth, and by large slits in its
sides is continued into the equally large branchial
chamber, which gapes widely at the other end of it. You
can put a pencil through the animal — into one end and

SOLITARY SALPS AND CHAIN SALPS 303

out at the other — without lacerating it ! However, on
one side of the packing-case-with-the-ends-knocked-out
there is a little soft mass of gut and a heart and other
tissue, often coloured red or blue. Floating among the
large salps we often find chains of smaller salps, the
individuals — twenty or more in number — being joined side
by side by means of a distinct band like that of the
Siamese twins. These smaller salps may be as big as a
hazel-nut, and the chain or row of them is often two feet
long. These chains of living creatures look like unclasped
necklaces of crystal beads floating in the water. A very
interesting fact is that the " chain-salpae " are produced by
budding inside the large single salps. One may often
find the young chain coiled like a serpent within its
parent, and clearly visible through the latter's glass-like
body wall. It escapes when grown to a certain size, and
quietly floats away, feeding and growing. But the number
of individuals in the chain — from twelve to fifty or more
(according to the species) — does not increase after birth,
nor do they individually grow to be much more than a
quarter of the size of their parent when the chain breaks
up and they, too, float for a time as detached individuals.
The big solitary salps produce by internal budding
these chains of smaller salps — differing so much in details
of shape from themselves as to have received special
names as separate species ; but they do not produce eggs.
On the contrary, each of the small individuals constituting
a chain of salps produces within it one egg ; and this,
when fertilised, grows within its parent to a fair size, and
is extruded or " born." Then, without passing through
any " tadpole phase," it increases in size and becomes a
solitary big salp, which in due time produces another
chain. So that there is an alternation of generations, the
chain-salps producing solitary salps and the solitary salps
producing chain-salps. This fact was observed and

304 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

described a century ago by the poet Chamisso, who
wrote the story of Peter Schlemihl, the man who sold his
shadow to the devil ! The term " alternation of genera-
tions " was introduced to describe the extraordinary state
of affairs discovered by Chamisso in the Salpae. We now
know that what occurs in the Salpse is only one striking
example of a proceeding which is very frequent in a
variety of kinds of both animals and plants. The " alter-
nation " of generations, differently produced and of
different appearance, is known to occur in many parasitic
worms, in many insects, such as the gall-flies and plant-
lice, and in the coralline polyps, whilst it is universal in
mosses, ferns, and (in a hidden inconspicuous way) in all
the flowering plants. (See Chapters VII and VIII.)

It is practically certain that the whole group of
" Ascidians " or " Tunicata," which in extreme cases show
us mat-like and multiple budded forms like vegetables
rather than animals, are the much simplified, specialised
descendants of active, highly developed vertebrate fish-like
ancestors. Fifty years ago the view was very general
among naturalists that the simpler animals are necessarily
the more primitive. In earlier times the notion existed
that living things could be naturally arranged in a single
series, leading step by step from the simplest forms
through more complex forms to the highest and most
perfect. This single series was called the " scala naturae "
or " ladder of life." But the great French zoologist, Cuvier,
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, showed that
there are at least four such ladders — diverging from one
another and quite distinct from one another — the four
" branches " he called them. They were, according to
him, the radiated animals (star-fishes, corals, etc.), the
molluscous animals (snails, clams, cuttle-fish), the articu-
lated animals (crustaceans, insects, spiders and scorpions),

TELL-TALE YOUNG STAGES 305

and the vertebrated animals (fish, reptiles, birds and
mammals). Still, it was considered that in each great
branch the animals of simplest appearance and least
elaborate build were essentially more " primitive " or
" lower " — that is, lower in the scale of nature — than the
more highly elaborated. And when Darwin's doctrine of
the origin of the living kinds of animals and plants from
simpler ancestors by gradual development in long ages of
time was established, it was naturally held that the
simpler forms were survivals of the earlier ancestral forms
of the more complicated kinds, or at any rate showed
more or less clearly what the ancestral forms were like.

The recognition of so-called " degeneration," or, to use
an Irish "bull," "progress backwards" or simplification, as
a sequel, in the ancestral history of many animals, to
previous high development and complication of structure,
has rendered it necessary to take account of the fact that
any simple kind of animal which we now find living, may
(not " very probably," but still " possibly ") be the simpli-
fied descendant of much more highly developed and com-
plicated ancestors. Anton Dohrn, who founded the marine
laboratory at Naples, was the first to insist on this, and
I gave an evening lecture on the subject at the meeting
of the British Association in 1879, published subse-
quently under the title " Degeneration — a chapter in
Darwinism." A very important fact bearing on this
matter is that, although such simplified animals often have
young stages (such as the Ascidian's tadpole), which " give
away " the adults and tell the story of their former high
condition and their true blood relationship to rhore elab-
orated creatures, yet often such tell-tale young stages do
not occur. There are many Ascidians which have no
tadpole stage, but grow from the egg straight off into the
sac-like adult condition,without showing a trace of the tad-
pole structure ! Supposing (as might well have happened)

20

3o6 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

that all the existing Ascidians had lost (" suppressed " as
the phrase is) the tadpole stage as most of them have,
then we should know nothing, or very little, of their affinity
to vertebrates. It is, as it were, only by a lucky chance
that some Ascidians still begin their life by going through
a tadpole stage, and so betray their vertebrate nature.
Hence we have to remember that any small and simple
sort of animal may possibly be a simplified product of
more perfect and active ancestors, although it shows no
early stage of growth of a reminiscent character. And
we have to seek for evidences of " specialism " in its habits
and corresponding structure which would justify the sup-
position that it is not really " primitive" in its character, but
simplified by excessive development of one set of organs in
correspondence with special food supply or means of safety.
The notion that the course of evolution or ancestral
development, whether of the structure of animals and
plants or of the capacities, institutions, and activities of
human races, may often have pursued, not a continuous
progressive line of improvement, but a relatively back-
ward movement of simplification and reduction, is of
great philosopic importance. Many savage races are, no
doubt, more primitive than those now civilised, and pre-
serve some of the characters of primitive man. But some
savage races appear to be the descendants of ancestors
who had attained to a relatively high degree of civilisation,
which the existing stock has lost, and are examples of
the same process of simplification (often called " degenera-
tion "), as that which we see in the Ascidian.
•

A curious error is, it seems to me, made by those who
hold that the simplication or " degeneration " which we
see in the Ascidians and in a good many other animals is
due to a true retrogression in the structure of the
degenerating organism, the latest step in previous pro-

PLATE XII.

o
o

s s

_ O
G c/)

a .2:

THE PEACOCK'S TRAIN 307

gress being lost first, and then the step which preceded
that, and so on. So that the "degenerating" or " retro-
gressing " animal, or plant, or human race, must go
steadily back on the very path by which its race
previously advanced, passing in reverse order through
the stages of its former progress. I know of no evidence
for this. The simplifying process shown in specialised,
quiescent, well-fed animals, or in parasites, does not
proceed backwards by the same steps or along the same
path by which previous progress was made. The special
development of some dominating organ or character is
the central feature of the simplifying process, and affects
all the degenerative changes which take place. They
are not repetitions in the reversed order of the former steps
of progress, but new arrangements of the whole organism.
An instructive and typical case of simplification with
specialisation is seen in certain feathers of the peacock's
" train " (a tail which is not formed by the true tail
feathers, but consists of the enlarged tail " coverts " or
covering feathers, the true tail quills of a dull brown
colour forming a separate group hidden from view by the
gorgeous coverts). The ordinary feathers of the peacock's
body are small, symmetrical feathers, with simple colouring.
We find near the peacock's tail a series of feathers which
are intermediate steps, leading on gradually in colour, size,
and shape from the simple " coverts " of the body to the
great eye-bearing, metallic-looking feathers of the " train "
which the bird raises in display. The feathers which
constitute these intermediate steps have the two sides
right and left of the shaft equal, and show a series of

PLATE XII. — Photographs of a series of feathers from the back and covering
feathers of the peacock's " train " showing from above downwards the
gradual increase in size and the development of the " eye " and coloured
rings of the larger feathers. From a preparation placed by Sir William
Flower in the central hall of the Natural History Museum.

3o8 TADPOLES OF THE SEA

graduations (Plate XII), commencing with a small
patch of blueish colour, from which they lead on with
increase of size to others with a first appearance of an
incomplete eye and of some metallic green iridescence,
and then by larger and more strongly coloured examples
up to the great feathers with the sharply marked
eye-spot and ring of colour and shade and the large
green iridescent row of pieces like the leaflets of a
palm-leaf, equal in size and brilliance, on each side
of the shaft. But at the sides of the group of splendid
eyed feathers we find another series of gradations. These
are a " degenerating," or " simplified " series (Plate
XIII); whereas those just described are the "pro-
gressive series," leading from the ordinary body feathers
upwards to the wonderful eyed feathers. The simplified
lateral feathers are as long as the big eyed feathers ; but
as we pass from the middle towards the sides of the
radiant expanse of the displayed " train " or " tail " these
feathers show a gradually increasing one-sidedness. The
eye-spot itself of the laterally placed feathers becomes
one-sided, and when we pass along the series towards the
side we find that it disappears entirely ! The iridescent
green colour is maintained in all its glory, but the leaflets
of the plume (the " rami " or " barbs " as they are called)
dwindle in size on one side of the shaft, and become fewer,
but very large, and free from adhesion to one another, on
the other side. The final stage shown by the outermost
feathers of the group is that of a long shaft, with nothing
on it but a few large, separate, splendidly green " rami,"

PLATE XIII. — Photographs of a series of large "tail coverts" of the peacock's
" train," showing the increasing one-sidedness as one proceeds from
the central to the outer or side-feathers and the gradual loss of the
" eye " with the retention of the great length and metallic iridescence by
even the most one-sided and simplified feathers — those on the right
hand side of the lower row. From a preparation placed by Sir William
Flower in the central hall of the Natural History Museum.

PLATE XIII.

SIMPLIFICATION OF TRAIN-FEATHERS 309

or leaflets confined to one side only. A specially
arranged series of these feathers is shown in the Natural
History Museum, from which our Plates XII and XIII
have been produced by photography.

Assuredly in the process of gradual transition from
the central fully developed eyed feather of the peacock's
train to the one-sided metallic simplifications at the sides
of the group — degenerate residues of the gorgeousness of
the complete feather ! — there has been no " retrogression "
in the strict sense of the word, no yielding or disappear-
ance step by step of characters previously developed, in
the order given by the phrase, " latest attained first to
vanish." On the contrary, the one-sidedness is a new
character, and is gradually increased until it is complete.
The large size of the feather is a late character, and is
retained ! The freedom of the rami of the feather from
adhesion to one another is a very late character, and so is
the metallic iridescence. Neither of these disappears.
Late developed and highly peculiar features are retained,
whilst a new and dominating specialisation — that of one-
sidedness — leads to the total disappearance of the primitive
characters of a covert feather, and also to the disappear-
ance of the shaded eye-spot and ring, which is the common
possession of all the larger train-feathers, and is not a late
step in the upward gradation. In fact, the peacock's train
shows us that the simplification of organic structure(spoken
of usually as " degeneration "), which often arises in the
course of evolution, as in the Ascidians, the parasitic
crustaceans and worms and in many groups of plants,
as well as of animals, is most emphatically a totally
different thing from a retracing of the steps of progress.
It is not a '' retrogression " — a return along the steps of
previous progression — but a simplification, a loss of
certain parts, accompanied by new dispositions and inter-
relations of surviving parts.

CHAPTER XXIII
MUSEUMS

THE word " museum " is not one of those which
explain themselves and give an indication of what
the thing to which they are applied should be, when it
has ceased to be what it was intended to be. In ancient
Greece the word " mouseion " meant " the place of the
Muses" — a grove or a temple — and there was such a
place on a part of the Acropolis of Athens, the rocky
temple-crowned hill around which the city was built.
There were other " museums," or seats of the Muses, in
ancient Greece ; those on the slopes of Mount Helicon
and of Mount Olympus were the most famous. In
modern times a picture gallery and art collection, that of
the Louvre, in Paris, is called "the Musee," whilst "the
Museum " (the Latin form of the same word) is the name
distinctively applied in Paris to the collections of natural
history and the laboratories connected with them in the
Jardin des Plantes. In London " the British Museum,"
founded in 1753, originally comprised the national library
as well as collections of antiquities and of natural history.
In Heidelberg " the Museum " was the name, when I was
there, for a delightful club, with a garden. It belonged
to the professors, their families, and their friends in the
town, and concerts and dances were given in it. It
seems that the Heidelberg " Museum " comes nearest tg

THE MUSES 311

the original meaning of the word as " a seat of the Muses,"
for nearly all those mythical ladies were remarkable for
their special patronage of music, dancing, and song.

Who were these goddesses, the Muses, and what were
their names ? What was the speciality of each, and how do
they come to have to do with collections of works of art
and specimens of natural history ? Two learned " classi-
cal " friends whom I lately met in Paris could not help
me further than by giving me the names of the first three.
I was a little shocked, but the next evening discovered
that these goddesses are, in modern times, very generally
neglected and ignored. In an extremely amusing play,
called " Le Bois Sacre " — the Sacred Grove (of the Muses)
— a name applied jocosely to the Ministry of Fine Arts —
I found that the minister of that department was repre-
sented as a pompous and fatuous person who completely
fails to call to mind, in the course of an eloquent
speech, the name of more than one Muse. On ringing
for his secretaries and airily asking them to refresh his
memory, he did not succeed in extracting from them
more than two doubtful additions to his list !

I am able, nevertheless (after due investigation), to put
my reader in possession of the facts so unfamiliar to the
modern oracles of classical mythology ! Briefly, it appears
that in the best period of ancient Greece nine Muses were
recognised, namely, Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry ;
Euterpe, of lyric poetry ; Erato, of erotic poetry ;
Melpomene", of tragedy ; Thalia, of comedy ; Polyhymnia,
of sacred hymns ; Terpsichore", of choral song and dance ;
Clio, of history ; and Urania, of astronomy. The last two
seem to have very little in common with the addiction to
singing and dancing characteristic of the rest, and are the
only ones who can be imagined as feeling themselves at
home in a modern museum, excepting on those evenings
when the authorities use the museum (as is the custom in

312 MUSEUMS

London) for a " conversazione," enlivened by brass bands
and songs.

Apollo was said to be the leader and master of the
Muses, but was not related to them. They were in origin
the "nymphs" or " genii " of mountain streams worshipped
by an ancient bardic race (resembling our own sweet-singing
Welsh folk), the Thncians. At first the number of the
Muses was indefinite, and they had no names. Then three
were named — one of Meditation (Melete), one of Memory
(Mneme), and one of Song (Abide) — a much prettier embodi-
ment of the impression made on a poetical mind by rock-
pools and cascades and leafy gorges than the formal and
redundant nine of later times. One can associate the
primitive three with a museum of natural history ; but the
later official goddesses, each insisting on her own depart-
ment of poetry, are too clearly representative of the all-
appropriating pretensions of literature in modern seats of
learning. They remind me of the enumeration of studies
which a dear old head of an Oxford college innocently
regarded as complete and reasonable when he assured me
that all branches of knowledge were fairly and equally
represented on the college staff. " We have," he said,
" a lecturer on Greek literature, one on Latin literature,
one on Greek history, one on Roman history, one on
classical philology, one on modern history, one on mathe-
matics and one on the natural sciences." W7hat more, he
asked, could you v;ir,h for ?

It appears that, without any special reference to the
attributes of the Muses, the word " museum " has been
adopted in recent times for a building in which collections
of works of art and specimens of natural history are
housed, and even for the collections themselves — in con-
sequence of the foundation by the Ptolemaic Kings of
Egypt °f a splendid institution at Alexandria to which the
name museum (mouseion) was given. It included the

THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA 313

great library, apparatus for the study of astronomy,
anatomy, and other sciences, and collections of all kinds.
The most learned men were employed in its management
and were lodged there and provided with the means of
study and teaching. It was a combination of university,
learned academy, and temple, and was the pride of the
ancient world. It survived many changes of lordship, but
at last the library and collections were deliberately
destroyed by Moslem invaders in 640 A.D. The precious
manuscripts were served out as fuel for the public baths,
and were so numerous that it took some months to con-
sume them ! The destruction of the museum of Alexandria
marks the commencement of the " Dark Ages " ; the
ancient culture was dead. Eight centuries of submer-
gence with strange mysterious upfloatings were its fate
until the Renascence, when its fragments were recovered,
and soon did more harm than good to the fetish-worship-
ping peoples of Europe.

The first use of the word " museum " in this country for
a place in which collections of ancient works of art and
specimens of natural history were stored and arranged for
exhibition was in the early eighteenth century, when it
was applied to the building at Oxford, erected for Mr.
Ashmole's collections, presented to the University. This
was called "Ashmole's Museum," or the Ashmolean
Museum. Previously such a collection and its loca-
tion were spoken of as " a cabinet of rare and curious
objects." " Museum " was occasionally used for what
we now call a " study," and even to describe lecture-
rooms and library. I have not been able to discover
that the word was used in its modern sense at an earlier
date on the Continent than in England. The first
great typical example of a " museum " was the British
Museum, founded in 1753. Montagu House, in Bloom§-

3i4 MUSEUMS

bury, was purchased by the State to serve as a " repository"
(the word used in the Act of Parliament of that date) for
the vast collections of natural history made by Sir Hans
Sloane, with which were associated certain valuable
libraries and collections of manuscripts, of coins, and
antique marbles. A large part of the money required for
the undertaking was raised by a public lottery, over which
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and
the Speaker presided (according to the custom of those
days in regard to State lotteries), and it is thus that this
remarkable group of great officials became, and have
remained ever since, " the Three Principal Trustees of
the British Museum." Additional trustees were named
(since increased to a total of nearly fifty), and provision
was made for the appointment of a principal librarian and
other curators of the collections. The Act declared that
the collections placed in the " repository" (Montagu House)
were to remain there for the benefit and enjoyment of
posterity for ever — a provision which until seven years ago
was misinterpreted, so as to prevent the sending out of
unnamed and unstudied collections of small portable
objects like insects, dried plants, and shells, to be named
and compared with other specimens, by foreign naturalists.
Consequently, there was a great accumulation of speci-
mens unstudied and useless, and a great loss to knowledge.
But the late Lord Chancellor (Halsbury) decided that it
was not only legally within the power of the trustees
temporarily to remove specimens from "the repository"
for the purpose of having them named and studied, but
actually their duty to do so.

We now very generally recognise in Great Britain, as
in other parts of the civilised world, the value and im-
portance of public "museums "in the sense of "reposi-
tories of collections of objects of ancient and modern art
and of natural history." Museums, as at present existing,

PICTURE GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS 315

may be divided into four kinds, according to the nature
of the public or private bodies by which they have
been set up and carried on. There are, first of all,
national museums maintained and continually increased
by the expenditure of a great State, and placed in the
capital city ; secondly, provincial or local museums, sup-
ported by a municipality or by local munificence ; thirdly,
academic museums, which are those related to the
instruction and investigations carried on in a university
or a school, and forming part of its regular provision for
study ; and, fourthly, the museums of private individuals
(which as a rule, become eventually transferred by gift or
purchase to some existing public museum).

The word " museum " would, and often does, fitly
include picture galleries, but very usually in Great Britain
a museum is not considered as comprising a picture
gallery, and a picture gallery is treated and managed as
something distinct from " a museum." The distinction
is recognised in London, where we have as separate insti-
tutions the British Museum and the National Gallery.
Probably the distinct method of exhibiting and caring for
pictures, and the very large amount of special knowledge
connected with the reasonable employment of public funds
in the purchase of these very high-priced objects, as well
as the example of private collectors of pictures, are the
causes which have led in the past to the complete
separation of " picture galleries " from " museums." It
is, however, a curious fact that the British Museum
(which once possessed some oil paintings, now removed to
other public galleries) retains and expends money on its
splendid collections of water-colour pictures, drawings,
and engravings, whilst in the latter half of the last century
(in opposition to the custom of separating pictures from
other museum objects) there grew up in London, under
the State Department of Education, a vast collection of all

3i6 MUSEUMS

kinds of works of art (pottery, furniture, lace, metal-work,
etc.) of all countries and ages, including pictures, which
is now sumptuously housed in the Victoria and Albert
Museum.

Though I propose to write here with special reference
to " museums," in the more limited sense as repositories
of objects which are the bases of our knowledge of the
history of man and his arts, and as the storehouses of
specimens which in the same way are the material by the
study of which we arrive at a knowledge of the history of
the earth, and of the living things which have existed, and
of others which still exist on its surface — yet it is obvious
that the general purposes of all collections of interesting
objects (including even pictures) and their arrangement
for public use and benefit must be the same, although
there are special purposes in view in regard to some col-
lections which do not exist in regard to others. Not long
since Mr. Claude Phillips ably set forth some of the
principles which should guide the arrangement and ex-
hibition of objects in an art museum, and criticised the
plan at present adopted in the Victoria and Albert
Museum. As I hold views in regard to the arrangement
of natural history museums which are very similar to his,
I think it may be useful to explain here what they are.

I may point out that nearly every branch of knowledge
should have — in a civilised well-provided community — its
collection of material objects, either specimens, models, or
ancient examples and remains, which should be " records "
to be religiously preserved for future reference and com-
parison by expert students, whilst others should be there
to serve as demonstrations of " great " facts of nature or of
human art — direct and straightforward appeals — to the
ordinary intelligent (but not specially learned) man. You
might well have (what does not at present exist !) a
museum (in the modern sense) of astronomy, containing

THE PURPOSES OF MUSEUMS 317

models of the solar system and the relative distances and
sizes of the heavenly bodies — as well as modern and
ancient astronomical instruments, and the records obtained
by their use. Again, you might have (and to some extent
such museums exist), at the other end of the scale in
dignity and age, a museum illustrating the history and
present developments of the smelting of iron and other
metals, their purification, their alloying, and properties —
as also a museum of paper-making and one of the steam
engine and its modern rivals. In such cases the purpose
of the museum would be plain enough and comparatively
easy to carry out.

Most museums which have come into existence within
the last 200 years suffer from the fact that they are mere
enlargements of the ancient collector's " cabinet of rare
and curious things," brought together and arranged with-
out rhyme or reason. No one has ever attempted to say
what is precisely the aim and intention as a public enter-
prise of any of our great museums, and accordingly there
has been no consideration, discussion, or agreement, as to
the methods of collection, selection, arrangement, exhibi-
tion, and storage of the objects assembled within their
walls. Thousands, even millions of pounds, have been
expended on the building of museums, on the purchase of
specimens, on cases and cataloguing, and on the salaries
of directors, and keepers, and assistants, yet the museums
remain, so far as any declaration of purpose and principle
is concerned, mere " repositories," as in the words of the
old Act of Parliament constituting the British Museum —
for the use and enjoyment of the public, it is true, but
without any expression of a conception of how that use
and enjoyment is to be limited so as to make them some-
thing better than a dime-show, or how any serious purpose
is to be achieved by their costly housing and up-keep. No
doubt various directors and keepers have from time to

3i8 MUSEUMS

time shown intelligence and laboured to make museums
not only places of enjoyment and "edification," but also
the means of increasing knowledge and rendering service
to the State. But the scope of our public museums, and
the principles and methods by which it may be realised,
have never been agreed upon, and consequently are not
definitely recognised by the State nor by the curiously
ill-chosen committees of managers, or trustees, to whose
tender mercies the ultimate control of these institutions is
confided — apparently by haphazard or misapprehension.
The notion of a town corporation, or of the central
government at this or that date, has been that museums
are best controlled and public money expended in con-
nection with them by persons who know nothing about
the real importance of the collections, and receive no
guidance from any scheme or statutable declaration of
specific purpose drawn up by a competent authority. I
will endeavour to state what those purposes should be.

When one tries to estimate what is really the value to
the community of public " museums," one is led inevitably
to the conclusion that their most important purpose —
whether they are museums of natural history, of antiqui-
ties, or of art — is to serve as safe and permanent
" repositories " (the old word used in the British Museum
Act of 1753) for specimens which are costly and difficult
to obtain — not to be either " picked up " or readily
" housed " by everybody, and at the same time of real
importance as " records." The first and most command-
ing duty of those who set up and maintain a public
museum is to preserve actual things as records — records of
the existence in this or that locality of each kind of plant
and animal, records of the former existence of extinct plants
and animals, with irrefragable certainty as to the locality
and the exact strata in which they were found — records of
prehistoric man, his weapons and art, and of the animals

THE FIRST BUSINESS OF MUSEUMS 319

found with them, records of later men, from the earliest
dawn of history down to modern times. Everyone is
familiar with this duty of the State and of local public
bodies, when it is a matter of preserving written and
printed records. They are preserved in various public
offices and libraries, and are continually being studied
by experts (volunteers or official) and copied in print,
so as to furnish us with accurate knowledge of the past.

It is the first and leading business of museums to
collect and preserve, with great accuracy as to the locality
and circumstances in which each was found, the actual
concrete things which are the records of Nature, and of
the various stages of man's arts and industries in every
region of the world, just as a library or the Record Office
preserves manuscripts and printed documents and books.
Collections of such specimens are often made by private
individuals, and become too cumbersome for him or his
heirs to keep in order. They are then frequently given
to a public museum, and I regret to say in many pro-
vincial museums are neglected and become mere rubbish,
even if they were not so when first given. Often such
gifts are rubbish before they are received, and^ should
never have been accepted. But in a great many instances
the local museum of a country town is nothing but a
rubbish-heap, because the townspeople will not spend the
money necessary to obtain the services of a capable
curator and to provide cases, labels, catalogues, and
attendance. The town councillors usually know nothing
about the museum or the value of the objects gathered
there, and do not recognise the duty of making it an
orderly and carefully tended storehouse of the records of
Nature and antiquity of the neighbourhood. Too fre-
quently the town museum is made the means of gratify-
ing the vanity of some local collector, who hands over all
sorts of ill-chosen, badly preserved specimens to its

320 MUSEUMS

ignorant guardians, and is advertised by labels on the
cases and by votes of thanks, whilst valuable records
placed there in a previous generation are swept into a
corner or broken and cast into the cellar in order to make
space for the new rubbish !

Unless funds are found to place a specially educated
man at the head of a local museum, the museum had
better be shut, and such of its contents, as may be desired,
offered to one of the big city museums or to the National
Museum in London. It is no child's play, maintaining
and guarding efficiently a museum which contains
" records." It would be a good thing were a committee
of naturalists and antiquaries to visit the local museums
of the United Kingdom andjeport on the efficiency of
their guardianship and the state of the treasures which-
they contain. I know two provincial museums very well
in which extremely valuable records of prehistoric man
and of wonderful extinct animals — found in the neighbour-
hood and preserved by those who established the museums
fifty years ago — are utterly neglected and destroyed by
loss of the labels and mixing up of the specimens, in con-
sequence of the death of the persons originally interested
in the museum and of the refusal of the town councils to
find money to pay for the care of the collections. There
can be little doubt that in the present state of local
interest in such matters all really important record speci-
mens should find their way to the British Museum in
London, where, if accepted, their preservation, so far as it
is humanly possible, is assured. That is the distinctive
and most creditable feature of our great State-supported
museum. At the same time it seems obvious that the
records of a provincial area can be, and should be, kept in
the county town museum with a detail and completeness
impossible elsewhere, and that it should be the pride of
the county to be able to show to a stranger full records of

NATIONAL VALUE OF MUSEUMS 321

the distinctive features of its natural history and anti-
quities.

It is clear that whatever failures in this respect may be
inevitable in those hopelessly starved and mismanaged
" museums " at present surviving to bear witness to the
decay of public spirit and intelligent culture in our
country towns, the prime duty of the great London
museum is to preserve " records " with the greatest
nicety and readiness for reference, whilst the duty of
actively adding to these records from all parts of the
Empire, and, therefore, of the world, and that of
minutely studying and reporting upon the collections
so obtained and guarded, follow as a matter of course.
These collections are the absolutely necessary founda-
tion for the building-up of our knowledge of Nature
and of man. We can never say that this branch of
scientific knowledge is valuable and that another is a
mere fanciful pursuit. Every year it becomes more and
more clear that unexpectedly some apparently insignifi-
cant piece of detailed scientific knowledge may become
of value to the State and to humanity at large. Every-
one knows that geology has a great practical value in
mining, water supply, and various kinds of engineering,
also that botany, as represented by the great State
institution at Kew, is of immense value to those who
introduce useful plants from one part of the world for
cultivation in another. But of late we have seen that
entomology — " bug-hunting " as it is scornfully termed
— is a science upon which hang not only the revenue
of an Empire, but also the lives of millions of men.
Destructive insects must be known with the utmost
accuracy in order to stop their injury to crops in the
distant lands which they inhabit, and also in order to
check the diseases carried by them which sweep off
vast herds of costly cattle. The mosquitoes and the

21

322 MUSEUMS

tsetze-flies have been, only recently, proved to be the
causes, the carriers, of diseases — malaria, yellow fever,
and sleeping sickness — which annually have killed
hundreds of thousands of men, colonists as well as
natives. I was able to bring together at the Natural
History Museum collections of mosquitoes from every
part of the world, amounting to thousands of specimens
and to some hundreds of kinds. The study of these and
of the tsetze-flies by skilled entomologists employed in the
museum has been a necessary part of the steps now being
taken everywhere to preserve human population from the
attacks of certain deadly kinds among them, distinguished
from the others which are harmless.

Thus, then, it seems that the first and most important
purpose for which great " museums " exist is that of " the
making of new knowledge " — the increase of science — by
furnishing carefully gathered and preserved " specimens "
of all kinds, and by working out the history and signifi-
cance of those collections. But there is a second and
distinct purpose which is often ignorantly put in the first
place. It is of less importance and quite unlike the first
in the methods necessary for its attainment, and yet is
conveniently and satisfactorily carried out in conjunction
with the first. This second and distinct purpose is the
exhibition of such portions of the collections in a museum
as are suitable for exhibition (only a smaller portion are
so) in public galleries, so chosen, arranged, lighted and
labelled as to afford to the public at large the maximum
of enjoyment and edification. This is, as it were, a readily
accessible enjoyment given to the public in recognition of
the large sums of public money expended on the severer
and less easily appreciated enterprise of the museum. The
public galleries of a museum, whether of natural history,
antiquities or art, should not contain the bulk of the
collection, but only special things, carefully selected, and

UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS 323

equally carefully placed in case or on wall, with artistic
judgment as to space-bordering and colour of background,
and with scientific perfection of illumination, so as to
produce the " just " impression on the leisurely visitor.
The public " exhibit " should be arranged so as to draw
attention to a series of important facts of structure or
quality clearly shown by the specimens, whether they are
natural products or works of art, and these facts should be
described in printed labels fully, and the reason for attaching
importance to them explained at sufficient length. The
man who arranges the public galleries (as distinct from
the closed study-rooms) of a public museum, should have
a special gift of exposition in plain language, and be able
to separate (both in regard to his words and to the speci-
mens he selects) the essential from the non-essential, the
significant from the redundant.

It is important to make a complete distinction between
an exhibition intended for the general public and that
intended for advanced students in schools, colleges and
universities. The confusion of these two kinds of exhi-
bition is the cause of the failure of many museums and ot
the dislike with which most people regard a visit to them.
The public museum — metropolitan or local — should not
include in its purpose the " academic " instruction of
schoolboys and university students. That requires a
different kind of museum, which is (or should be) provided
by the school or university, though, of course, the students
should also visit the more popular museums. The funds and
staff and space required for the one are not sufficient for
both. If both are attempted, the unpopular academic, or
scholars', exhibition will get the upper hand and suppress
the other, since it is a far easier thing to carry out success-
fully (for the class aimed at) than is th carefully planned
exhibition intended for the " edification " of the greater
public. The university museum aims at imparting a much

324 MUSEUMS

greater amount of detailed and elaborate information than
does the great public museum, and requires from the
student who uses it a special previous study of the subject,
and an exceptional amount of attention and pains in
examining the objects exhibited.

Too many of the public museums of Europe aim at the
" instruction " of the special student rather than at the
" edification " of the general public, whilst most aim at
nothing at all except showing, without explanation or
comment, a vast mass of specimens or pictures, at the
sight of which the patient but bored public gapes with
wonder. The public galleries of the Natural History
Museum in London have been arranged more distinctly
with a view to the edification of the public than those of
any other museum which I know. But they still contain
too large a number of specimens, and still require an im-
mense amount of work in weeding, selection and labelling,
and in deliberately making the specimens exhibited tell a
tale which is worth remembering, and can be remembered.
Except in the case of the larger specimens, and especially
those of fossilised skeletons and shells of extinct animals,
it must be remembered that the bulk of the specimens
(and, indeed, all the valuable skins of animals and birds,
and the vast series of insects and such small things) in
that, as in every other large museum, are contained in
cabinets protected from the destructive action of light,
and arranged for the most part in rooms to which access
is obtained only by serious workers after special appli-
cation. The fishes and other animals preserved in alcohol
are kept in a special fire-proof " spirit-building."

A provincial public museum, even if it does not aim at
the guardianship of important local " records " of natural
history and antiquity, should aim at the edification of the
public — the grown-up public — and not at the instruction
of school children. The notion that museums are meant

NOT FOR CHILDREN BUT FOR ADULTS 325

for children, which exists, I am sorry to say, even in
regard to so splendid and expensive a display of wonderful
things as that to be seen at the Natural History Museum,
is due to the bad tradition justified by the condition of
other museums, where a child may enjoy being astonished,
but a grown-up person can take in nothing which appeals
to the intelligence. A new city museum is, it is reported,
to be established at Birmingham. We may hope that it
will not contain the usual unsatisfactory series of badly
stuffed exotic animals, birds, and reptiles, and trophies of
South Sea islanders' clubs and spears. It should contain
first-rate specimens of the living and extinct fauna of
Warwickshire, and specimens of foreign animals carefully
selected to compare with them and throw light on them ;
also local prehistoric and antiquarian specimens, illus-
trated by comparison with the work of savage and remote
races. The excellent suggestion has been made that it
should contain specimens of the insect-pests of Warwick-
shire crops. It should also exhibit the minerals from which
the manufactories of Birmingham draw their metals, and
should show the stages of their preparation. It should
appeal, not to the boys and girls of Birmingham in the
first place, but to the adults, and to do this it should be
placed under the care of a really first-rate and ingenious
man, who might possibly do for the Birmingham Museum
what skilful arrangement and sound knowledge have done
for its Art Gallery — an institution intended to appeal not
to school children, but to the reasonable adult population
of the city.

The principle of exhibiting permanently in public gal-
leries a portion of our great national collections and of
preserving another and larger portion in smaller rooms,
where they can be more closely but not less carefully
disposed and brought out into perfect light and position
when required, should be applied to collections of pottery,

326 MUSEUMS

metal-work, carving, embroidery and such objects, and
also to pictures as well as to collections relating to natural
history. The chief reason for this is the enormous space
required in order to place permanently " on exhibition "
all the objects contained in our national art collections,
which are continually growing. The vast size of the
galleries required, if the entire collections are to be ex-
hibited so that the public may walk in and see anything
and everything in it, permanently displayed on walls or
in cases — entails gigantic and ever-increasing expenditure
of public funds.

But this is not the only objection to these great gal-
leries. The multitude of objects — it may be of pictures —
exhibited creates a state of mind in the visitor which
prevents his enjoyment of the works of art so exhibited.
He is overwhelmed by the vastness of the series offered
for his examination and confused and distressed by the
close setting of things which require isolation and appro-
priate surroundings, each in its own special way, if they
are to be duly appreciated. Not only this, but pictures, as
well as other works of art, are, in consequence of the
necessity of placing them all in the great public galleries
used for the purpose, rarely placed in the most favour-
able conditions of lighting, and are very often so ill-
lighted as to lose all their beauty even if they are not
nearly invisible. More public money would be available
for the proper care and study of works of art were less
spent on the land, building and up-keep necessary for
huge galleries.

The desirability of separating a large unexhibited
portion from the well-chosen and well-shown exhibited
portion of works of art, exclusive of pictures, is, I
believe, generally admitted. In the case of pictures
the opinion has been expressed that there would
be great difficulty in managing a reserved unexhibited

SCREENS AND ELECTRIC LIFTS 327

portion of our national collections so that the pictures
could be properly cared for and yet readily brought
into view when required. One can well believe that
a similar difficulty was anticipated when it was first
proposed to keep books on shelves instead of on tables.
Those who take this objection have overlooked the
resources of modern engineering. Reserved pictures
could be affixed in perfect security in appropriate groups
on large screens, and these disposed, like the scenery
above a stage, upright and in series, each screen 4 ft.
distant from its neighbours. There could be three or
four floors of such closely packed screens arranged in two
rows, twenty in a row. On a lower floor there would be
provided a room with the most perfect light possible for
seeing, enjoying and studying a single one of these screens.
They would all be numbered and the pictures on each
catalogued. A person duly authorised and approved
desires to see such and such a picture. He is given a
seat in the special exhibition room. The attendant or
assistant in'charge touches the appropriate button, and by
simple electric-lift machinery the screen upstairs carrying
the desired picture travels automatically into position and
then gently descends into the special exhibition room.
There the other pictures on the screen may be, if it be so
desired, covered by drapery, the light may be varied in
intensity or direction, and, in fact, the most perfect
examination of the picture in question may be made.
When another button is touched, the picture-screen
returns automatically to its place upstairs.

It seems to me that in the case of the growing collec-
tion of pictures known as " The National Portrait
Gallery," this treatment would not only avoid the
necessity of constantly providing new galleries for new
acquisitions — but would enable the Trustees to separate
those portraits, which are of more general interest and

328 MUSEUMS

suitable for permanent exhibition in a good position, from
less important portraits, which nevertheless must be
acquired and preserved as public records. From time to
time special groups of the reserved or unexhibited por-
traits might be put for six months in one of the public
rooms — thus providing a change and variety of interest
for the general public.

The same plan might be adopted with regard to the
pictures in the National Gallery — though no doubt a large
number of splendid pictures would be permanently placed
in the exhibition rooms. Three things should be remem-
bered in regard to the disposal of these pictures: Firstly,
that not one in a hundred among them was intended by
the painter to be hung in a gallery closely side by side
with other pictures ; secondly, that no picture should be
exhibited in a public gallery unless it is worthy of the best
lighting and surroundings ; thirdly, that it is reasonable
that the expert and the student should be asked to take
some special trouble in order to see special pictures not
on public exhibition, and that " the man in the street "
who says that he likes to walk in and see all his pictures
at any time and without any trouble, will value his collec-
tion more when he can only see some of it on special
occasions.

The heavy and sometimes fragile character of the
" frames " affixed to large pictures has been made an
objection to the proposal that they should be fixed to
screens moved by electric gear. I cannot venture to dis-
cuss the subject of picture-frames here. I am aware that
it is a very serious and important subject, and that a great
deal of the effect of a picture depends on its being
bordered by a frame of sufficient size and dignity and one
which is really and artistically fitted to allow the finer
qualities of the picture to become apparent. How often
is such a frame seen ? Who is there who has an adequate

FRAMES AND SETTING OF PICTURES 329

understanding of picture-frames as adjuncts to, or neces-
sary accompaniments of, great pictures ? The splendid
carved and gilded wooden frames of some great pictures
have a value of their own as examples of design. But
how many of them are really suited to the picture which
they surround ? How much attention has been given by
art experts to the question of the best possible " exhi-
bitional " surroundings — nearer and more distant — for
this, that and the other, among the great pictures of
Europe ?

CHAPTER XXIV
THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE

THIS generation, which is so thankless to the great
discoverers of the causes of disease, so forgetful of
the epoch-making labours of the English sanitary re-
formers of last century, has not seen nor even heard of the
awful thing once known as " gaol-fever." A hundred
years ago it was as dangerous to the life of an unhappy
prisoner to await his trial in Newgate as to stand between
the opposing forces on a battlefield. Gaol-fever attacked
not only the prisoners, but the judge and the jury and the
strangers in the court. The aromatic herbs with which
the hall of justice was strewn were supposed to arrest the
spread of the terrible infection, and it is still customary
to provide with a bouquet of such plants the judge who
presides at a " gaol delivery." The inexorable ministers
of justice, who, seated high above the common herd, and
clad in their ancient robes of office, were about to deal
shameful death to the guilty wretches brought from the
prison cells, were often themselves struck down by the
Angel of Death moving invisibly through the court. The
" black assizes " were not isolated, but repeated occur-
rences in our great cities. Typhus fever was the name
given by the learned to this awful pestilence. There was
a mystery and horror surrounding it which paralysed those
who came into contact with it, and produced something
like consternation. Men fled in terror from the infected

THE ANGEL OF DEATH 331

buildings, business was arrested, the universities deserted,
palaces left empty, and the dying abandoned to their
misery when it appeared. There was a feeling that some
deadly unseen power was present, irresistible and malig-
nant.

It is only to-day — in fact, within the last two years —
that we have learnt what that unseen power was. The
Angel of Death which moved through the Old Bailey
Sessions House in bygone days was, indeed, a living thing.
It passed silently and unseen from the prisoner to the
warder, from him to the usher, thence to the bar — the
jury and the exalted judge. It had no wings, yet it moved
slowly and surely carrying black death with it. This
terrible and mysterious assassin has at last been unveiled.
The shroud of concealment has been torn away and there
the dire monster stands — naked, remorseless and hideous.
It is of small size, though it makes us all shrink with
horror and disgust. It has six claw-like legs and no
wings. It is, in fact, neither more nor less than the
clothes louse, the Pediculus vestimenti. The filthy,
crowded condition in which the prisoners were kept, and
(let us well remember and reflect thereon) the personal
want of cleanliness of judge, jury, barristers and ushers,
rendered the existence of the little parasite and its effec-
tive transference from man to man possible. Those pom-
pous emblems of authority, the horsehair wigs — those
musty robes of unctuous dignity — were full of dirt, and
harboured the wandering bearer of typhus infection.
Gaol-fever was due to dirt ; its infecting germs were dis-
tributed by loathsome insects.

It is an interesting and really instructive thing to pass
in review the gradual process by which the cleanliness of
the population of Western Europe has advanced, and to
observe that, consciously or unconsciously, the end pur-
sued has been, step by step, the removal from man's body

332 THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE

(outside and inside), from his clothing, from the water he
drinks, from the food he eats, from the air he breathes,
and from the surfaces with which he necessarily comes
into contact, of injurious parasites and hurtful living things
which lurk in dirt and rubbish. At first the larger and
more obvious hurtful creatures — snakes, rats, mice, scor-
pions, blowflies — were eliminated by some elementary
attempts at removal of rubbish and kitchen middens.
Then ticks (which African savages still do not trouble
to remove from their bodies) and later fleas and bugs
became unpopular ; lice were long regarded as inevitable,
and even beneficial, and by some populations and by parts
of the most civilised at the present day, are still, not
merely tolerated, but favoured. In a country school in
France a child who was found to be afflicted in this way
was the daughter of the local medical practitioner. She
remarked, " Oh ! Ce n'est rien ; papadit que c'est la sant6
des enfants" ! Parasitic worms of various kinds, though
they often cause disease and death, are accepted and
tolerated even by the most refined and luxurious, who risk
infection rather than submit to the precaution of abstention
from raw vegetables and fruits, or to the expenditure of
trouble in cleansing those nests of infective germs. It is
only within the last thirty or forty years that such cleanli-
ness of body and of clothing and of house-fittings as will
banish parasitic insects has become at all general. The
common house-fly is still tolerated, although it is a
notorious carrier of dirt and disease, and is bred by dirt
and dirt only, its eggs being hatched in old stable manure.
The diminution of late years of house-flies in London
houses is simply and solely due to legislation compelling
the removal of horse manure from the " mews " so frequent
at the back of London streets. Egyptian natives still
allow flies to gather on their eyelids without protest.
Of the bacteria and similar microscopic germs of

THE TYRANNY OF PARASITES 333

disease — to which all our infective fevers are due — we
have only become aware quite recently, within the half-
century. Before they were known, cleanliness and the
destruction of putrescible matter in man's surroundings
had, it is true, been urged by sanitary reformers. Dis-
infectants and antiseptics were deliberately made use
of for this purpose in the mid-Victorian period, when
carbolic acid and chlorinated lime were established in the
place of those feebler destroyers of the germs of putre-
faction and disease — namely, the extracts of aromatic
herbs or the essential oils themselves. These, as perfumes
and unguents, really served, not merely to gratify the
olfactory sense, but to destroy by their chemical action
the germs of disease. Men tolerated gnats and their
bites (mosquitoes as we prefer to call them in order to
delude ourselves into the belief that they are not British)
until it was discovered that they, and they only, carry the
parasitic germs of two deadly diseases — malaria, or ague,
and yellow fever. Now we shall destroy the pools in
which they breed, just as we are destroying the manure
heaps in which the house-fly breeds. When we look over
the list it is really astonishing how much remains to be
done, even in England, in establishing increased clean-
liness and freeing ourselves from the murderous tyranny of
parasites. It is a simple but horrible fact that the poorest
class in our big cities still swarms with vermin. And not
only are the poor in great cities thus afflicted. The recent
compulsory medical inspection of school children has
shown that in some of the smiling rural districts of
England 80 per cent, of the children have lice in their
heads. Everyone should help to gain further cleanliness
and freedom from this form of oppression.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, England alone,
and with absolute conviction and determination, demon-
strated to the civilised world the beneficial results in

334 THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE

diminishing the death-rate of large towns, to be obtained
by cleanliness, the destruction or removal from man's body
and surroundings of organic " dirt," viz. his excreta, the
exudations and exuviations of his body, the waste and
fragments of his food. The names of Rawlinson, Chadwick
and Simon remain as those of the prime movers in that
legislation which has given us improved water supply,
sewerage, removal of dust heaps, clearance of cesspits,
cleansing of houses, and prevention of overcrowding. Yet
there are writers who, in ignorance and infected with the
modern madness which makes half-educated Englishmen
presume to teach where they have yet to learn, and to
pose as prophets by belittling and running down, without
regard to truth, their own country and its finest efforts in
the cause of civilisation, actually declare that Germany
has led the way in this matter. This is the very reverse of
the truth. Foreign countries are, in this matter, following
long in the wake of England. There are no cities in the
world so healthy as British cities. Practical measures of
cleansing, faithful activity in destroying dirt and prevent-
ing over-crowding, enforced by legislation, have reduced
the death-rate of our great centres of population in fifty
years by more than one third — that is to say, from some-
thing like 29 per 1000 to something like 18 per 1000.
No other country can show such a result.

Gaol-fever, spotted or putrid fever, or typhus fever has
practically ceased to be a regularly occurring disease in
the West of Europe. The last cases in London were, I
well remember, in a poor district near the Marylebone
Road about thirty years ago. A very few cases have
appeared since in the overcrowded and poorest districts of
our largest cities. Beleaguering armies and beleaguered
cities suffered from it as late as in the Crimean War, but
we may now fairly say that it has disappeared from our
midst. It, however, still abounds in Russia and her

TYPHUS AND MONKEYS 335

eastern provinces, and in Algeria, Tunis, and Morocco.
It is a disease of cold and temperate climates rather than
of the tropics.

In the last century typhus was distinguished definitely
and clearly from " typhoid " or "enteric" fever, and from
" relapsing " or " famine " fever, with which it had pre-
viously been confounded. The bacterial germs causing
enteric and relapsing fevers are now known, and have been
isolated and cultivated, and the mode in which they are
conveyed into the body of a previously healthy patient is
ascertained. But until the past year we knew neither
the parasitic germ which causes typhus fever nor the
mode by which it passes from one individual to another.
A vague idea that it was spread through the air prevailed.
Typhus is remarkable for the frequency with which the
nurses and doctors attending a case become infected.
About 20 per cent, of those attacked by it die, but in
persons above forty-five years of age the mortality is much
greater — about half succumb.

Dr. Nicole and his colleagues of the Institut Pasteur in
Tunis have recently had the opportunity of studying
typhus there. They found that the ordinary local monkey
could not be made to take the disease. But a drop of
blood of a typhus patient injected into a chimpanzee
(which is far nearer akin to man) produced the disease
after an incubation period of three weeks. This fact was
definitely established. From what is now known as to
relapsing fever, malaria, yellow fever, plague, and sleeping-
sickness, it seemed probable that some migratory insect
must be the carrier of the typhus infection from man to
man. The typhus patients brought into the hospital at
Tunis were carefully washed before admission, and no
infection of other patients or nurses took place in the
wards, although the cases were not isolated, and bugs
were abundant. The only cases of infection which

336 THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE

occurred were in persons who had the duty of collecting
and disinfecting the clothing of the patients when ad-
mitted. This seems to exclude the bug as a carrier. The
flea is excluded by the fact that in the phosphate mines of
Tunis the flea is abundant, and bites both natives and
Europeans. Yet when typhus fever broke out among the
miners — although all were equally bitten by the fleas no
European was infected. The indication, therefore, was
that if any insect is the carrier, it is neither the flea nor the
bug, but probably the clothes-louse. Although the smaller
monkeys cannot be directly infected with typhus fever
from man, it was found that (as with some other infections)
the bonnet monkey was susceptible to the infection after
it had passed through the chimpanzee. Experiments
were, therefore, made with clothes lice taken from a
healthy man, and kept for eight hours without food. They
were placed on a bonnet monkey which was in full typhus
eruption. A day afterwards they were removed to healthy
bonnet monkeys with the result that the healthy bonnet
monkeys developed typhus fever. There is thus no doubt
whatever that typhus fever can be carried in this way from
bonnet monkey to bonnet monkey. The whole history
of typhus fever fits in with the carnage of the infection in
the same way from man to man, and not with the notion
of an aerial dispersion of the infection.

The fact that typhus only exists in very dirty and
crowded populations, and that it has disappeared where
even a moderate amount of cleanliness as to person and
clothing has become general, coincides with the possibility
of the body louse as carrier. This little parasite is known
to be a wanderer, and is gifted with a very acute sense of
smell. An individual placed in the centre of a glass table
invariably walked, guided by the scent, towards the
observer, at whatever position he placed himself. Sul-
phurous acid is a violent repellant of these creatures. Not

TYPHUS FEVER IN RUSSIA

337

only will it kill them if they are exposed to its fumes, but
traces of it drive them away. Hence doctors and nurses
who have to handle typhus patients or their clothes have
only to wear a small muslin bag of sulphur under their
garments, or to rub themselves with a little sulphur oint-
ment in order to be perfectly guarded against infection ;
the louse will not approach them, nor remain upon them
should it accidentally effect a lodgment.

It is not always obvious at once in what way a know-
ledge of the mode of carriage of a deadly disease can be of
service to humanity. But in this case it is strikingly and
triumphantly clear. In the vast poverty-stricken popu-
lation of Russia typhus is still common. Public medical
officials attend these cases, and the Russian Govern-
ment keeps a record of the annual deaths of its medical
staff, and of the causes of their deaths. In the first
six months of last year 530 Russian medical officers died,
and twenty-four of these deaths were caused by typhus
fever acquired by these devoted public servants in attend-
ance upon cases of that fever. Henceforth they will
make use of sulphur or sulphurous ointment to keep the
little infection-carriers at a distance, and not one medical
man or nurse will catch the disease, still less be killed
by it.

A remarkable fact in this history is that the actual
parasitic germ which causes typhus, whether a bacterium
(Schizophyte) or a protozoon, has not been detected,
although the louse has been shown to be its " carrier."
The same is true of yellow-fever : we have not seen with
the microscope the microbe which produces it. But we
know with certainty that the gnat, Stegomya fasciata, and
no other, is the carrier of the unseen germ, and that we
can obliterate that fever by obliterating the gnat. So,
too, although we know how the infection of rabies acts,
and how it is carried, yet no one has yet isolated and

22

338 THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE

recognised the terrible infective particle itself. There is a
very high probability that in these cases, and also in cancer
(where as yet no specific infective germ or parasitic
microbe has been detected), such an infective microbe is
nevertheless present, and has hitherto escaped observation
with the microscope on account of its excessive minute-
ness and transparency.

CHAPTER XXV
CARRIERS OF DISEASE

IT has now been discovered that a great number of
human diseases are caused by microscopic parasites,
which are spoken of in a general way by the name invented
by the great Pasteur, viz. " microbes." Wool-sorter's
disease, Eastern relapsing fever, lockjaw, glanders, leprosy
phthisis, diphtheria, cholera, Oriental plague, typhoid
fever, Malta fever, septic poisoning and gangrene have been
shown to be caused each by a peculiar species of the
excessively minute parasitic vegetables known as bacteria
(or Schizophyta). Others, for example, malaria and
sleeping-sickness, have been shown to be caused by almost
equally minute microbes, which are of an animal nature, and
similar to the free-living animalcules which we call Protozoa,
or "simplest animals," whilst a third lot of diseases —
rabies, smallpox, yellow fever, scarlet fever, and typhus
— are held to be caused by similar minute parasites,
although these have not yet actually been seen and
cultivated, but are surely inferred (from the nature and
spread of these diseases) to exist.

The difference of the microbes called bacteria from the
disease-causing microbes classed as " Protozoa " consists
in their simpler structure and mode of growth. They are
essentially filaments which continually multiply by fission
— a process often carried so far that the little organisms
present themselves as short rods, or as curved (comma-

346 CARRIERS OF DISEASE

shaped), or even spherical particles (micrococci) — and
only in favourable conditions arrest their self-division so
as to grow for a time into the thread-like or filament
shape. Often these filaments are not straight, but spirally
twisted, and are called " spirilla." Some of them are
blood parasites, but the larger number attack the tissues,
and others occur in the digestive canal.

The parasitic disease-producing protozoa, on the other
hand, are of softer substance, often have the habit of
twisting themselves in a corkscrew-like manner, and
usually are provided with an undulating membrane or frill,
as well as with one or with two whip-like swimming
processes (the latter are present also and are often nume-
rous in the actively swimming phases of bacteria), and have
a more complicated life-history. They divide, as a rule,
longitudinally and not transversely, and pass from one
" host " to a second, where they assume distinct forms —
males and females, which conjugate and break up (each
conjugated or fused pair) into a mass of very numerous,
excessively minute, young. The disease-producing pro-
tozoa of this kind are frequently parasitic in the blood of
man and animals, and were only recently recognised,
after the disease-producing bacteria of many kinds had
been thoroughly studied. These animal microbes are
often spoken of as " blood-flagellates " or haemo-flagellata,
and the larger kinds are called " Trypanosomes," or
" screw-form parasites," whilst a series of more minute
ones are called " Piroplasma," or " pear-shaped parasites."
Many, but not all, are found during a certain period of
their life, actually inside the corpuscles of the blood.
The fact that many of these blood-flagellates (if not all)
have, besides their life in the blood of one species of
animal, a second period of existence in the juices or the
gut of another animal, has made it very difficult to trace
their migrations, since in the second phase of their history

THE ENTRANCE OF PARASITES 341

their appearance differs considerably from that which
they presented in the first. And often they exist in one
kind of animal without doing any harm, and are only
poisonous when introduced by insects into the blood of
other kinds of animals !

There is, further, another set of disease-causing proto-
zoan parasites which are similar to the amceba or proteus-
animalcule, and a third, which belong to the group
of " ciliated infusoria." They are not so minute as the
preceding set, and are not usually referred to as "microbes."
They inhabit the intestine of man and animals, and cause,
in some instances, dysentery. These two later kinds of
protozoan parasites I will at the moment leave out of
consideration, as well as the " coccidia," which multiply in
the tissue-cells of animals — for instance, rabbits and mice
— and cause an unhealthy growth and excessive multiplica-
tion of the cells of the tissues, which in some respects
resembles that seen in the terrible disease known as cancer.
Indeed, it is held by many investigators that some such
parasite — though not yet discovered — is the cause of
cancer.

A very important question is : How do these poison-
producing parasites (for it is by the poison which they
manufacture that they upset the healthy life of their
hosts) make their way into the human body? The
surface of the body of animals, like man, is pro-
tected by a delicate, horny covering — the epidermis —
through which none of these parasites can make their
way. They can only get through it, and so into the soft,
juicy tissues and the fine blood-vessels which it covers,
when it is cracked, broken, pierced, or cut. But they
also have a way open to them through the softer moist
surfaces of the inner passages, such as the digestive canal
and the lungs. They enter (some kinds only and not a
few) with food and drink into the digestive canal, and

342 CARRIERS OF DISEASE

with the air into the air-passages and the lungs ; and
once in these chambers, which have only soft lining-
surfaces, they are able to penetrate into the substance of
the body. Many of those which enter the digestive canal
do not require to penetrate further, but multiply exces-
sively in the contents of the bowel, and there produce
poisons, which are absorbed and produce deadly results
— such are the bacteria which produce Indian cholera and
ordinary diarrhoea — whilst the kind causing typhoid fever
not only multiplies in the gut, but penetrates its surface.

The protective surface of man's body is broken, and
the way laid open for the entrance of microbes in various
ways. A slight scratch, abrasion, or even " chapping " is
enough. Thus, a mere breaking of the skin of the
knuckles by a fall on to dirty ground lets in the deadly
bacterium of lockjaw (tetanus), which is lurking in the
soil. Leprosy is communicated from a leper in the same
way. The almost ubiquitous bacteria of blood-poisoning
(septicaemia) may enter by the smallest fissure of the
skin, still more readily by large cuts or wounds. The
bites and stabs of small and large animals — wolves, dogs,
flies, gnats, fleas and bugs, also open the way, and often
the deadly microbe has associated itself with the biting
animal and is carried by it, ready to effect an entrance.
Thus rabies (hydrophobia) is introduced by the bites of
wolves and dogs, and a whole series of diseases such as
plague, malaria, sleeping-sickness, gaol-fever (typhus),
yellow fever, relapsing fever, and others, are introduced
into the human body by blood-sucking insects. Hence
the immense importance of treating every slightest wound
and scratch with chemicals (called " antiseptics "), which
at once destroy the invading microbe — and of keeping a
wounded surface covered and protected from their ap-
proach. In ways at one time unsuspected, such openings
may be made by which poisonous microbes enter the body.

MAN AS A CARRIER OF DISEASE 343

Thus the little hard-skinned parasitic thread-worms which
are often brought in by uncooked food into man's intestine,
though by themselves comparatively harmless, scratch the
soft lining of the bowel and enable poison-making microbes
to enter the deeper tissues, and cause dangerous abscesses
and appendicitis.

The carriers of disease germs thus become a very im-
portant subject of study. There are carriers which make
no selection, but are, so to speak, " casual " in their
proceedings, and there are others which have the most
special and elaborate relations to some one kind of disease-
causing microbe for which alone they are responsible, and
to the life of which they are necessary. Let us look first
at the more casual group. Man himself is a great carrier
and distributor of his own diseases. Unless and until he
has learned to be careful and guard against thoughtless
proceedings, he is always spreading the microbes of his
diseases and passing them on to his fellow men. He pol-
lutes the waters, rivers, lakes and pools from which others
drink. He manures his crops, and then eats some of
them uncooked. His hands are polluted by disease-
causing microbes, and he handles (to an alarming and
unnecessary extent) the food, such as bread and fruit,
which is swallowed by his fellows, without cleansing it by
heat. It has lately been shown that apparently healthy
men and women often harbour within them the microbes
of typhoid fever or of cholera (and probably other diseases),
without themselves suffering in health, and that unsus-
pected they thus become distributing centres of these
diseases. The names " typhoid carrier " and " cholera
carrier" have actually been introduced to describe the condi-
tion of such persons. Then, again, by his breath, arid by
coughing and spitting, a man acts as a carrier to others
of disease-microbes already lodged in him, as well as by
a.ctua.1 contact in the case of those infections which are

344 CARRIERS OF DISEASE

called " contagious." The numerous animals which sur-
round and are associated with man act very largely as
casual carriers and distributors of disease microbes. Thus
dogs and even the cleanly cat are frequently carriers of
disease. But more especially those creatures which visit
man's food stores and food ready for consumption (such
as bread, fruits, cold meat, etc.) are active carriers. Rats
and mice run over such stores and pollute them. But
the most widely active in this way is the common
house-fly.

Whilst white men have developed an almost automatic
resistance and objection to the visits of flies to their lips,
eyelids, and any wound or scratch of the skin — a resistance
which is not shown by many savage races — they yet allow
house-flies to swarm in their dwellings, to run about and
sample their food, with an indifference which is, when the
truth is known, truly horrible in its fatuity and foolhardi-
ness. For the fact is that the feet and proboscis of the
common house-fly are covered with microbes of all sorts,
picked up by his explorations upon every kind of filth.
At every step which he takes he plants a few dozen
microbes, which include those of infantile diarrhoea, typhoid,
and other prevalent diseases. This is easily shown by
allowing him to walk over a smooth plate of sterilised
nutritive gelatine and preserving it afterwards free from
the access of microbes from the air. In twenty-four hours
every footstep of the fly on the gelatine is marked by an
abundant and varied crop of microbes, which have multi-
plied from the individuals let drop by the little pedestrian.
There is no doubt whatever that the house-fly is a main
source of the dissemination of the microbe of infantile
diarrhoea, and the cause annually of hundreds of thousands
of deaths of children in the great cities of Europe and
America, Also in camps and infected districts he is
largely responsible for the introduction of the microbe of

HOUSE FLIES AND DISEASE 345

typhoid fever into the human food to which he has free
access after his previous visits to open latrines. The
house-fly is himself a product of dirt and neglect. The
eggs are laid in old manure heaps and kitchen middens,
and the maggots, which eventually are transformed into
flies, nourish themselves in those accumulations. When
this refuse is rapidly and regularly removed by the care
of the sanitary officials of a town, the flies diminish in
number, as they have diminished in London within the
last thirty years. We no longer are overrun by flies in
London in the summer months. The man selling sheets
of sticky paper is no longer heard in our streets calling
" Catch 'em alive, oh ! " But in country places, where a
neglected stable-yard is near the dining-room of the inn,
house-flies are as great a nuisance and danger as ever.
There is no difficulty, if the simplest rules of cleanliness
are observed, in abolishing them altogether from human
association, but combined and simultaneous action against
them is an essential condition of success.

CHAPTER XXVI
IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS

DURING the last twenty years the whole attitude of
the study and investigation of disease-causing
microbes has advanced from the preliminary step of
merely identifying certain microbes as the causes of
certain diseases to a further step, viz. that of attempting
to defend the animal and the human body against their
attacks in the manner already so finely started by
Pasteur. For many years disease after disease was
examined and found to be caused by special bacteria or
other microbes. Even non-infectious diseases or diseases
only communicable under very special conditions were
found to be due to microbes, so that it is probable that all
disease that is not due to congenital malformation or to
mechanical injury, or to poison fabricated in the weapons
of larger animals and plants, or by man himself, is due to
microbes. " Life," says Lord Justice Moulton, " is one
ceaseless war against these enemies, and the periods of
our too-transient successes are known as health." One of
the last diseases traced to microbes is that sad condition
known as " infantile paralysis," by which so many of the
brightest and best members of the community have been
crippled, from childhood onwards, through life.

Of late we have been making rapid strides in arriving
at a knowledge as to how Nature herself protects higher
creatures from the excesses and exuberance of destructive

INOCULATION OF SMALLPOX 347

microbes, and we are now able to see that it is in adopting
her methods that our best hope of increasing that protec-
tion lies. Nature is satisfied if the efficacy of her defence
is sufficient to save enough individuals to carry on the
race. Man desires in the case of his own fellows to out-do
Nature, and to save all.

A century and a half ago, before the true character of
infective disease was understood, it was observed that an
individual who was attacked by the smallpox and recovered
became incapable of receiving the infection again. He was
" protected " or "immune." The practice of " inoculation "
was introduced from the East by Lady Montague. The
infectious matter was introduced from a smallpox patient
into the person to be protected by rubbing it into a scarified
part of the skin. A much less severe attack of smallpox
was thus produced than that which usually followed the
natural infection, which (though we do not know precisely
its mode of entrance) is more widely spread through the
blood. At the same time the condition of " immunity "
after the attack was brought about with equal efficacy.
When Jenner introduced inoculation with " cowpox " for
the purpose of establishing " immunity " in the vaccinated
person, inoculation with smallpox itself was a very usual
practice. It was open to the objection that sometimes an
unexpectedly violent attack of the disease was produced,
resulting in death, and that the active infection was kept
alive and ever present in the community. The notion
with regard to the mode in which " immunity " was pro-
duced by either the Montacutian or Jennerian inoculation
was, even after the general knowledge of microbes as the
living contagion of disease had been arrived at, that the
mild attack due to inoculation " used up " something in
the blood — in fact, exhausted the soil, so that the infective
matter or microbe could no longer flourish in the blood.
And this view was accepted as the explanation of the

348 IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS

" immunity " to the anthrax disease conferred on cattle
and sheep by Pasteur's inoculations of weakened, but still
actively growing, cultures of the anthrax bacillus.
Another theory was that they produced something in
the blood by their own life-processes which checked their
further growth, just as yeast will not grow in wort in
which it has produced 8 per cent, of alcohol, and as a fire
may be choked by its own smoke or ashes.

We now know that both these explanations of " im-
munity" are incorrect. Nature provides at least three
varieties of defence within the blood of higher animals
against disease-producing microbes which have broken
through the outer line of fortification, the skin. These
three methods are effective in different cases (one in this
disease, the other in that), and, on the whole, are sufficient
to preserve the races of animals (including man) from
complete destruction. These are (i) the production in
the blood of an antidote to the toxin or poison elaborated
by the invading microbe — an antitoxin, which chemically
neutralises the toxin ; (2) the production in the blood of
the attacked animal of a " germicidal " poison which
repels and kills the attacking microbes themselves (not
merely neutralising their poisonous products) ; (3) the ex-
termination of the intrusive, disease-producing microbes
by a kind of police, which scour the blood channels and
tissues and " eat up " — actually engulf and digest — the
hostile intruders. These latter agents, actual particles of
the livingv animal in which they exist, are the " eater-
cells," or " phagocytes " — minute, viscid, actively moving
cells, resembling the animalcules called " amoeba." They
are only the one two-thousandth of an inch in diameter,
and are known as the white or colourless corpuscles
of the blood. They are far less numerous than the
red blood-corpuscles, which are the agents for carrying
oxygen, but there are eight thousand million of them in

ANTITOXINS 349

a large spoonful of blood. They are the really important
agents in protecting us from microbes, since they not only
engulf and digest and so destroy those intruders, but it is
probable (not certain) that they also are the manufacturers
of the antitoxins and of the germicidal poisons.

If these three defensive processes given us by Nature
are in working order, that is to say, if we are "healthy,"
they should secure to us a sufficient " immunity " — at
any rate, " recovery " — from any attack of disease-pro-
ducing microbes. But they are not in " unselected," widely
ranging mankind always equal (in their unaided natural
state) to their task.

The attempts to produce immunity by vaccination with
weakened or localised disease germs is really an attempt
to train and develop to a high point the activities of the
phagocytes or eater-cells of the blood.

The introduction of antitoxins by injection of them into
the blood (as in the treatment of diphtheria, lock-jaw and
snake-bite) is an attempt to bring to the rescue of a patient
who would sooner or later produce his own antitoxins (but
perhaps too late or in insufficient quantity) the similar anti-
toxin obtained from the blood of another animal which has
been artificially made to produce in its blood an excessive
quantity of that substance.

Mithridates, King of Pontus, was, according to ancient
legend, in consequence of his studies and experiments,
soaked with all kinds of poisons to which he had become
habituated by gradually increasing doses, and he had at
last reached a condition in which no poison could harm
him, so that when he was captured by the Romans and
wished to kill himself (which was the correct thing in
those days for a fallen king to do), he wept because he
was unable to get any poison which could act upon him.
He was " immune " to all poisons. This real or supposed

350 IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS

immunity resulting from the introduction into the living
body at intervals of a series of doses of a poison gradu-
ally increasing strength has been called " Mithridatism,"
and animals and men so treated have been said to be
" mithradatised." The toleration of poisonous drugs —
such as tobacco and alcohol, and even of mineral poisons,
such as arsenic — was, until lately, regarded as merely a
special exhibition of that habituation or " adaptation by
use" which living things often show in regard to some of the
conditions of their life. Unusual cold, unusual heat, un-
usual moisture, salinity or the reverse, unusual deprivation of
food, unusual muscular effort may be tolerated by animals
without injury provided that they have been "gradually
accustomed " to the unusual thing, or, in other words, that
the unusual has been gradually made the usual ; so that
there is a saying that eels after a time even get used to
being skinned. There was no attempt to explain the
details of this process of habituation ; it was assumed to
be a part of the general " educability " of living matter.

The study of the education of living matter, in regard
to various conditions which can act upon it, has yet to be
further carried out, but the way in which the poisons made
by disease germs and the like, and the disease germs
themselves, are dealt with in the blood and tissues has, on
account of its urgent importance, from a medical point of
view, been already profoundly studied by experimental
and microscopic methods of late years. The old notion
as to " mithridatism " was that an animal or a man would
have to be separately prepared and " immunised " by
habituation for every distinct kind of poison. We now
know that this is not the usual way in which Nature
confers immunity to poisons. Most astonishing, and at
first sight magical or mysterious, powers exist in the
living protoplasmic cells in and around the blood of
man and higher animals, which enable their possessors to

THE WONDERFUL PROPERTIES OF BLOOD 351

resist and combat the poison-producing microbes, and also
the poison itself, of all kinds, by which the race is liable
to be attacked.

Few of us realise what a wonderful and exceptional
fluid the blood of a higher animal is. The Australian
natives attach so little importance to it that they actually
cut themselves and use their blood as a sort of paste for
sticking decorative feathers on to a pole ! The Papuans
are more advanced, since they regard the flow of blood
from a cut or graze as an evil portent. And some
respect to the greatness and wonder of blood is shown by
those persons among civilised peoples (more frequently
men than women) who faint when they see blood, or even
at the mention of its name ! This stream of red fluid
within us (of which an average man has about fifteen
pints in his vessels) courses at a tremendous rate from
the heart through all the endless branches and networks of
arteries, capillaries and veins, and back to the heart. It
feeds, cleanses, warms and takes "vital air" (the old name
for oxygen gas) dissolved in it to every particle of our
bodies, fresh and fresh at every pulse-beat as it rushes on.
It not only absorbs crude digested food through the walls
of the gut, but conveys it to where it is worked up and
distributes the worked-up product. It removes the quickly
used-up substances from every part, and the choke-damp
or carbonic acid which would stop the whole machine,
and kill us, were it not got rid of through the lungs as
the blood hurries through the walls of these air-sacs, whilst
other used-up materials are carried by it to the kidneys
and passed out of the body through them. Every
part of the body is brought into common life with every
other part by this impetuous blood-stream — which is here,
there, and everywhere, right round, and back again, in
twenty-five seconds ! It is obviously a very serious thing
if a poison-producing microbe gets into this blood-stream

352 IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS

and multiplies within it, or if poison-producing microbes
lodge somewhere beneath the skin in a wound, and keep
on discharging virulent poison into the blood ! The
mischief is spread all over the body at once.

It is not surprising, then, that the long course of
natural selection and survival of the fittest has resulted
in the fixing in the blood and the living cells immediately
connected with it of extraordinary protective powers. The
floating scavenger cells (eater-cells or phagocytes, first
recognised as such and so named by Metchnikoff) are
already found in the blood of quite simple animals — in
worms, shell-fish and insects. I have watched them with
the microscope at work in transparent minute living
water-fleas eating up and digesting microbes which had
got into the water-flea's blood. In higher animals what we
call " inflammation " is a condition — the result of a new
and advantageous mechanism — which consists in a local
retarding of the blood-current, effected by the action of the
nerves on the muscular walls of the blood-vessels, and the
consequent escape of the eater-cells into the injured or
infected tissue, there to eat up and destroy the injurious
microbes or other particles. Special and remarkable pro-
perties— chemical activities of an extraordinary character
— have been gradually developed in the floating phago-
cytes, and in similar non-floating fixed cells over which
the blood flows.

These special chemical activities are of several distinct
kinds. The first is the power to convert the poison of a
microbe into a destroyer of that poison — toxin into anti-
toxin. The atoms of these poisons are elaborately
composed combinations of the organic elements. By a
" shake " or a " twist " (so to speak) administered by the
living cells of the blood the combination is altered, and
the toxin becomes an antitoxin, destroying by chemically
combining with it the very toxin from which it was

GERM-KILLING POISONS IN THE BLOOD 353

formed. This is a far more efficacious method than the
supposed mithridatic " habituation " or " toleration " of a
poison, with small doses of which you have to be gradually
prepared. The healthy blood converts any bne of a large
series of microbe poisons into antitoxins. It is true that
apparent " opposites " are often closely allied in Nature.
Evil smells and tastes are closely allied to sweet perfumes
and flavours, and what is healthy and agreeable to some
men acts as virulent poison to others (e.g. shell-fish, egg,
quinine, opium). The smallest change in the substance
administered or the smallest difference in the living sub-
stance of an individual (what is called " idiosyncrasy ")
makes all the difference between " poison " and " meat."

If the phagocytes and similar cells in the blood of a man
or animal exposed to the poison produced by localised
microbes (such as those of tetanus, diphtheria and septic
growths) cannot produce enough antitoxin so as to quickly
destroy the poison, we can, and do, nowadays, save his life,
by injecting into his blood the required antitoxin, obtained
from another animal which we have caused (by injection
of the toxin) to produce the antitoxin in excess. That
is one sort of " immunity " or " resistance " which we can
confer, and is largely in use at the present day — the " anti-
toxin " treatment.

The second poison-repelling chemical activity of the
blood, produced by the living cells in and about it,
consists in the blood becoming directly poisonous to
injurious microbes. It becomes "bactericidal," produces
a bactericidal poison (called an alexin) which is usually
present in normal blood, but is greatly increased when
large numbers of certain poisonous microbes (e.g. those
of typhoid fever) get into the blood. Again, by other
chemical substances produced in it, the blood may,
without actually killing the invading bacteria, only para-
lyse them, and cause them to " agglutinate " (that is, to

354 IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS

adhere to one another as an inactive " clot " or " lump ").
As the " agglutinating " poison is peculiar (or nearly
so) for each kind of microbe, we can tell whether a
patient has typhoid by drawing a drop of his blood into a
tube, and adding some fresh living typhoid bacilli to it.
If the patient has typhoid he will have begun to form the
" typhoid-agglutinating " or " typhoid-paralysing " poison
in his blood, and the experiment will result in the " aggluti-
nation " (sticking together in a lump) of the typhoid
bacilli. And so we prove, in a doubtful case, that the
patient has typhoid.

The third chemical activity of the blood in dealing with
poisonous microbes is also one which is conferred upon it
by its living cells when excited by the presence of those
microbes. It is the production of a " relish " (for so it
must be called) which attaches itself to the microbes and
renders them attractive to the eater-cells (the phagocytes),
so that those swarming amceba-like floating particles at
once proceed to engulf the microbes with avidity. In the
absence of the relish (the Greek word for it used by Sir
Almroth Wright, its discoverer, is " opsonin "), the eater-
cells are sluggish — too sluggish — in their work. They
resemble a child who will not eat dry toast, or, at best,
only slowly, but will devour rapidly many pieces when the
toast is buttered. It is of the utmost importance to us
that our white corpuscles, or eater-cells, should not be
sluggish but greedy.

There are some microbes which will produce deadly
poison if grown in the clear fluid (serum) of the blood of an
animal (as, for instance, the cholera-microbe when grown in
the serum of the frog's blood), yet when inoculated living
into the blood of that animal never cause the slightest
illness ? Why ? Because they are at once eaten by the
vigilant phagocytes of the blood before they can produce
any appreciable amount of poison. That is easily demon-

OPSONINS OR SAUCE FOR GERMS 355

strated by experiment. Our main means of defence against
microbial disease, says Metchnikoff — though cleanliness
and precaution against access of microbes are all very well
in their way — is the activity of our phagocytes. Now it
appears that just as in the other cases I have been con-
sidering, so in the production of " relish," the power to
produce it resides in the blood (and perhaps the cells of
its vessels), but is not set at work until the enemy is in
the blood. Suppose there is an infection, an invasion of
the blood and tissues by one or other disease-causing
microbe. Gradually if the body is healthy the " relish " is
produced and becomes attached to the invading microbes.
The phagocytes swallow them greedily and make an end
of the invasion.

It is proved that this aroused avidity of the phago-
cytes is due to no change in the phagocytes themselves ;
since if they are transferred to the serum of a normal
man they show no such predilection for the special
invading microbe. The " opsonin," or " relish," is some-
thing exuded into or produced in the blood fluid when
the attacking microbe arrives. It attaches itself to
them : that is the essential fact. In many of us the
phagocytes are not at a given moment so " avid " of this
or that disease-microbe as they should be in order to pro-
tect us from its multiplication and poison production. But
it is found that by injecting boiled and cooled (therefore
dead) microbes of a particular kind into the blood of a
man, you can start the production of the " relish " appro-
priate to that kind. The dead microbes answer this
purpose ; they excite the production of the opsonin appro-
priate to them and yet are not themselves dangerous, since
they are dead. When subsequently (or possibly concur-
rently in small quantity) living microbes of the same disease
enter the blood, the opsonin is ready for them. They are,
to put it picturesquely, like oysters at the oyster-bar,

356 IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS

peppered and vinegared " in no time," and then swallowed
by the phagocytes by the dozen. This seems almost too
comic a view of the deadly struggle of man and higher
animals for health and freedom from the swarming pests
which everywhere invade him. Yet it is correct, and in-
volves a simple and fundamental truth. Our properties
and appetites are but the sum of those of the proto-
plasmic organisms — the cells — of which we are built up.
Our need for a relish with oysters is the same thing as the
need of the phagocyte for a relish with its microbes, not
something " poetically " compared to it. The story oi
" the oysters and the carpenter " might be replaced by
that of " the microbes and the phagocyte." The saying,
" Fine words butter no parsnips," finds a parallel in the
remark that " The drinking of drugs does not opsonise
microbes."

Half-way between us and the amceba-like unicellular
organisms we find the earth-worm preparing his piece of
lettuce (as Darwin showed) with a juice exuded from his
mouth, a " relish " reminding one of the Kava drink of the
South Sea Islanders. To " opsonize " or render attractive
by the application of chemical " relish " is a proceeding
which we find in operation in the feeding of the minute
colourless corpuscles which engorge the still more minute
bacteria — and also in the preparation of their food by
various lower animals, and finally in the elaborate flavour-
ing and cooking of his food by civilised man !

CHAPTER XXVII

THE STRANGE STORY OF ANIMAL LIFE IN
NEW ZEALAND

NEW ZEALAND consists of two islands, together
more than a 1000 miles long and of about
200,000 square miles area. It is 1000 miles distant
from New Caledonia, the nearest island of any consider-
able size, and is 1500 miles from the great Continental
island of Australia. There is no other island in the
world so large and at the same time so remote from other
considerable tracts of land. Australia is closely connected
by island groups at a distance of only 100 miles to
Asia. The isolation of New Zealand is unique. The
seas around it are of vast depth and of proportionately
great age. During the chalk period — before the great
deposits and changes of the earth's face which we assign
to the Tertiary period — New Zealand consisted of a
number of small scattered islands, which gradually, as
the floor of the sea rose in that part of the world, became
a continent stretching northward and joining New Guinea.
In that very ancient time the land was covered with
ferns and large trees. Birds (as we now know them) had
only lately come into existence in the northern hemisphere,
and when New Zealand for a time joined that area the
birds, as well as a few lizards and one kind of frog,
migrated south and colonised the new land. It is
probable that the very peculiar lizard-like reptile of New

358 ANIMAL LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND

%

Zealand — the " tuatara " or Sphenodon — entered its area
at a still earlier stage of surface change. That creature
(only 20 in. long) is the only living representative of very
remarkable extinct reptiles which lived in the area which
now is England, and, in fact, in all parts of the world,
during the Triassic period, further behind the chalk in
date than the chalk is behind our own day. For ages,
this " type," with its peculiar beak-like jaws, has survived
only in New Zealand. Living specimens have been
brought to this country, and are to be seen at the Zoo-
logical Gardens in Regent's Park. Having received, as it
were, a small cargo of birds and reptiles, but no hairy,
warm-blooded quadruped, no mammal, New Zealand
became at the end of the chalk-period detached from the
northern continent, and isolated, and has remained so ever
since. Migratory birds from the north visited it, and at a
late date two kinds of bat reached it and establish'ed
themselves.

Thus we are prepared for the very curious state ol
things in this large tract of land. Looking at New
Zealand as it was a thousand years ago, we find there
were no mammals living on it excepting a couple of bats
and the seals (so-called sea lions, sea elephants, and
others) which frequent its coasts. There were 180 species
of birds, and many of these quite peculiar to the island.
Many of the birds showed in the absence of any predatory
enemies — there being no carnivorous quadrupeds to hunt
them or their young — a tendency to lose the power
of flight, and some had done so altogether. The gigantic,
wingless Moas — allied to the ostrich and the cassowary —
had grown up there, and were the masters of the situation.
There were many species of these — one of great height
— one fourth taller than the biggest known ostrich ;
others with short legs of monstrous thickness and strength.
Allied to these are the four species of Kiwi or apteiyx,

STRANGE BIRDS 359

still existing there. They are very strange wingless birds,
about the size of a large Dorking fowl. The Kiwis are
still in existence, but the Moas and some of the other
flightless birds have died out since the arrival of the Maori
man, who killed and ate them.

A bird which was believed sixty years ago both by the
natives and white men to have become extinct, the Takahe,
or Notornis, was known by its bones and from the traditions
of the natives. Much to the delight of naturalists, four live
specimens of it were obtained at intervals in the last century,
the last as late as 1898. The beautiful dark plumage and
thick and short beak, which is bright red, as are the legs, are
well known from the two specimens preserved in the Natural
History Museum. The Notornis is a heavy, flightless
" rail." Rails are remarkable for their size and variety in
New Zealand, where there are twenty species, some of them
very sluggish in flight, or like Notornis, flightless (the
wood hens). Amongst the flightless birds of New Zea-
land is a duck, as helpless as the heaviest farmyard
product, and yet a wild bird, and then there are the
penguins, which swim with their wings, but never fly, and
belong entirely to the southern hemisphere. Many species
are found on the shores of New Zealand. Other note-
worthy birds of New Zealand are the twelve kinds of
cormorants, the wry-bill plover, the only bird in the world
with its beak turned to one side, the practically flightless
Kakapo, or ground parrot (Stringops), the Huia, a bird
like a crow in appearance, whose male has a short straight
beak, whilst the female has a long one, greatly curved ;
the detested Kea, the parrot which kills the sheep, intro-
duced by the colonists, by digging out with its beak from
their backs the fat round the kidneys; also very peculiar
owls and wrens, and the fine singing bell-birds.

The peculiarity of the indigenous animals of New
Zealand is seen not only in the absence of mammals and

360 ANIMAL LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND

the abundance of remarkable birds, many of them flight-
less, but also in the fact that there are no snakes in this
vast area — no crocodiles, no tortoises — only fourteen
small kinds of lizard (seven Geckoes and seven Skinks),
and only one species of frog (and that only ever seen by
a very few persons) ! There were fish in the rivers when
settlers arrived there, but none very remarkable. Insects
and flies of every kind, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, land-
snails and earthworms were all flourishing in the forests of
New Zealand a thousand years ago, serving in large
measure as the food of birds, fish and lizards. The great
island continent of Australia, 1500 miles away, is peculiar
enough in its living products, quite unlike the rest of the
world in its egg-laying duck-mole and spiny ant-eater, and
in its abundant and varied population of pouched mammals
or marsupials, emphasised by the absence (except for two
or three peculiar little mice and the late-arrived black-
fellow and bush-dog) of the regular type called " placental "
mammals which inhabit the rest of the world. The rest of
the world except New Zealand ! Strange as Australia is,
New Zealand is yet stranger. Long as the isolation of
Australia has endured, and archaic and primitive in essen-
tial characters as is its living freight of animals and plants
navigated (as it were) in safety and isolation to our present
days, yet New Zealand has a still more primitive, a more
ancient cargo. When we divide the land surfaces of the
earth according to their history as indicated by the nature
of their living fauna and flora and their geological struc-
ture, and the fossilised remains of their past inhabitants, it
becomes necessary to separate the whole land surface into
two primary sections : (a) New Zealand, and (£) the rest
of the world, " Theriogcea," or the land of beasts
(mammals). Then we divide Theriogcea into (i) the land
of Marsupials (Australia), and (2) the land of Placentals
(the rest of the world). This last great area is divisible

DESTROYED BY EUROPEANS 361

•
according to the same principles into the great northern

belt of land, the Holarctic region and the (three not equally
distinct) great southward-reaching land surfaces — the
Neotropical (South America), the Ethiopian (Africa, south
of the Sahara), and the Oriental (India and Malay).

The bird-ruled quietude of New Zealand was disturbed
500 years ago by the arrival of the Polynesian Islanders,
the Maoris, in their canoes. They brought with them
three kinds of vegetables which they cultivated, a dog and
a kind of rat. The dogs soon died out, but the rat has
remained, and is considered to have done little or no
harm. It was not one of the destructive proliferous rats
of the northern hemisphere. The Maoris hunted the big
birds — the Moas and others — for their flesh, and ate their
eggs, and it is probable that they caused or accelerated
the extinction of the Moa and two or three other birds.
In the north island they nearly exterminated the white
heron, the plumes being valued by them. On the whole,
very little damage was done to the natural products of the
islands by the Maoris. "It was with the advent of the
Europeans," says Mr. John Drummond, F.L.S., in his
interesting and well-illustrated book on ' The Animals of
New Zealand/ "that destruction began in earnest. It
seemed as if they had been commanded to destroy the
ancient inhabitants." They killed right and left, and, in
addition, burnt up the primaeval forests and bushes till a
great part of the flora was consumed. It was never a very
varied or strong one, consisting only of some 1 400 species,
which are now in large proportion vanishing, whilst 600
species of plants, most of them introduced accidentally
rather than intentionally by the European settlers, have
taken their place.

Here I may state the great principle which, in regard
to plants as well as animals, determines the survival of
intruders from one region to another. It appears that

362 ANIMAL LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND

setting aside any very special and peculiar adaptations to
quite exceptional conditions in a given area, the living
things, whether plants or animals, which are brought to or
naturally arrive at such an area, survive and supplant the
indigenous plants and animals of that area, if they them-
selves are kinds (species) produced or formed in a larger or
more variegated area ; that is to say, formed under severer
conditions of competition and of struggle with a larger
variety of competitors, enemies and adverse circumstances
in general. Thus, the plants of remote oceanic islands are
destroyed, and their place and their food are taken by the
more hardy " capable " plants of Continental origin. And,
in accordance with the same principle, as Darwin especially
maintained, the plants of the northern hemisphere, pro-
duced as they are in a wide stretching belt of land-
Europe, temperate Asia, and North America — always push
their way down the great southern stretches of land (by
cool mountain roadways), and when they have arrived in
the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere, they
have at various geological epochs starved out, taken the
place of, or literally " supplanted " the native southern flora,
which in every case has been formed on a narrow, restricted
and peninsula-like area. The same greater " potency " of
the animals of the Holartic region has in the past established
them as intruders into South America, Ethiopia and India,
and has led to the inevitable survival of the animal of the
large area when brought into contact with the animal of
the small and restricted area. Applying these principles
to New Zealand, we see that no country, no area of land,
could have a worse chance for the survival of its animal
and vegetable children than that mysterious land, isolated
for many millions of years in the ocean, the home of the
Tuatara, solitary survivor of an immensely remote geologic
age, the undisturbed kingdom of huge birds, so easy-going
that they have ceased to fly, and have even lost their wings !

INTRODUCED ANIMALS 363

The first European animals to settle there were the
pigs benevolently introduced into New Zealand by Cap-
tain Cook. They multiplied apace, served for food and
sport both to the natives and the early settlers, and de-
stroyed the ancient Triassic reptile, the Tuatara, which only
survives now on rocky islands near the coast. In less than
a hundred years the settlers had introduced sheep and
cattle, and looked upon the abounding pigs as a scourge.
In 1862, pig-hunters were employed to destroy them —
three hunters would kill 20,000 pigs in a year. Dogs,
cats and the European rats came in early with the settlers,
and destroyed the flightless birds, driving them for shelter
to the mountains. As the settlers increased they shot
down millions of birds of all kinds, and burnt up grass,
shrub, and bush. At last, a few years ago, the Govern-
ment established three islands as " sanctuaries," where
many of the more interesting birds survive, and are
increasing.

Besides cattle and sheep (which have flourished ex-
ceedingly) the colonists introduced rabbits, pheasants, and
the honey-bee, and later on quails, hares, deer, and trout.
Clover depends on bees for its fertilisation and seeding.
White clover, taken over there for pasture, did not seed
in New Zealand until the honey-bee was imported in
1842, and later, as they could not seed red-clover without
it, the colonists had to introduce the humble-bee, and
the red-clover now also seeds freely and the imported
farm-beasts have their accustomed food. Besides the
animals already named, the colonists have introduced
ferrets and weasels, to reduce the destructive excess of
the imported rabbits ; and they, whilst failing to subdue
the rabbits, have themselves become a serious nuisance.
Of small birds there were introduced the house-sparrow,
which is too prolific, and is hated by the farmers ; the
greenfinch, a pest ; the bullfinch, a failure. The intro-

364 ANIMAL LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND

duced sky-lark and the blackbird (alas ! poor colonists)
are not the joys of New Zealanders — the farmers hate
them. The European settlers had the audacity to intro-
duce also the most beautiful and beloved of all birds, our
own perfect " Robin Redbreast," and they add want of
manners to their violent and uncalled-for hospitality by
speaking ill of this sweetest and brightest of living things.
After this, I am rather glad to report that the esteemed
table-delicacies, pheasants and partridges, don't get on
well in New Zealand ; nor do turtle-doves. The thrush
is spreading and meets with the approval of the hyper-
critical New Zealander. The hedge-sparrow, the chaffinch
and the goldfinch have flourished abundantly, but the
linnet has failed. A very interesting and important pro-
blem for New Zealand naturalists to solve is that as to
why one bird succeeds in their remote land and another
does not. The British trout have grown to an enormous
size and are destroying all other fresh-water life. Im-
ported red-deer flourish, and are shot with great satisfac-
tion by the colonists. The American elk has been intro-
duced in the South Island, and the mountain goats — the
ibex and the thar — are to be acclimatised in the moun-
tains, so that unnatural " sport" may flourish in this ancient
land of quiet and of wondrous birds, turned topsy-turvy by
enlightened man.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE EFFAGEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN

VERY few people have any idea of the extent to
which man since his upgrowth in the late Tertiary
period of the geologists — perhaps a million years ago —
has actively modified the face of Nature, the vast herds
of animals he has destroyed, the forests he has burnt up,
the deserts he has produced, and the rivers he has
polluted. It is, no doubt, true that changes proceeded,
and are proceeding, in the form of the earth's face and in
its climate without man having anything to say in the
matter. Changes in climate and in the connections of
islands and continents across great seas and oceans have
gone on, and are going on, and in consequence endless
kinds of animals and plants have been, some extin-
guished, some forced to migrate to new areas, many
slowly modified in shape, size, and character, and abun-
dantly produced. But over and above these slow irresis-
tible changes there has been a vast destruction and
defacement of the living world by the uncalculating
reckless procedure of both savage and civilised man
which is little short of appalling, and is all the more
ghastly in that the results have been very rapidly brought
about, that no compensatory production of new life,
except that of man himself and his distorted " breeds " of
domesticated animals, has accompanied the destruction
of formerly flourishing creatures, and that, so far as we

366 THE EFFAGEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN

can see, if man continues to act in the reckless way
which has characterised his behaviour hitherto, he will
multiply to such an enormous extent that only a few
kinds of animals and plants which serve him for food and
fuel will be left on the face of the globe. It is not im-
probable that even these will eventually disappear, and
man will be indeed monarch of all he surveys. He will
have converted the gracious earth, once teeming with
innumerable, incomparably beautiful varieties of life, into
a desert — or, at best, a vast agricultural domain abandoned
to the production of food-stuffs for the hungry millions
which, like maggots consuming a carcase, or the irre-
pressible swarms of the locust, incessantly devour and
multiply.

Another glacial period or an overwhelming catastrophe
of cosmic origin may fortunately, at some distant epoch,
check the blind process of destruction of natural things
and the insane pullulation of humanity. But there are,
it seems probable, many centuries of what would seem to
the men of to-day deplorable ugliness and cramping
pressure in store for posterity unless an unforeseen
awakening of the human race to the inevitable results of
its present recklessness should occur. Whatever may be
the ultimate fate of the life of the earth under man's
operations, we should endeavour at this moment to delay,
as far as possible, the hateful consummation looming
ahead of us.

It is interesting to note a few instances of man's destruc-
tive action. Even in prehistoric times it is probable that
man, by hunting the mammoth — the great hairy elephant
— assisted in its extinction, if he did not actually bring it
about. At a remote prehistoric period the horses of
various kinds which abounded in North and South
America rapidly and suddenly became extinct. It has
been suggested, with some show of probability, that a

DISAPPEARANCE OF GREAT ANIMALS 367

previously unknown epidemic disease due to a parasitic
organism — such as those which we now see ravaging the
herds of South Africa — found its way to the American con-
tinent. And it is quite possible that this was brought from
the other hemisphere by the first men who crossed the
Pacific and populated North America. t

To come to matters of certainty and not of speculation,
we know that man by clearing the land, as well as by
actively hunting and killing it, made an end of the great
wild ox of Europe, the aurochs or urus of Caesar, the last
of which was killed near Warsaw in 1627. He similarly
destroyed the bison, first in Europe and then (in our own
days) in North America. A few hundred, carefully
guarded, are all that remain in the two continents. He
has very nearly made an end of the elk in Europe, and
will soon do so completely in America. The wolf and
the beaver were destroyed in these British Islands about
400 years ago. They are rapidly disappearing from
France, and will soon be exterminated in Scandinavia and
Russia and in Canada. At a remote prehistoric period
the bear was exterminated by man in Britain and the lion
driven from the whole of Europe, except Macedonia, where
it still flourished in the days of the ancient Greeks. It
was common in Asia Minor a few centuries ago. The
giraffe and the elephant have departed from South
Africa before the encroachments of civilised man. The
day is not distant when they will cease to exist in the
wild state in any part of Africa, and with them are
vanishing many splendid antelopes. Even our " nearest
and dearest " relatives in the animal world, the gorilla,
the chimpanzee and the ourang, are doomed. Now that
man has learnt to defy malaria and other fevers the
tropical forest will be occupied by the greedy civilised
horde of humanity, and there will be no room for the
most interesting and wonderful of all animals, the man-

368 THE EFFAGEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN

like apes, unless (as we may hope in their case, at any
rate) such living monuments of human history are made
sacred and treated with greater care than are our ancient
monuments in stone. Smaller creatures, birds like the dodo
and the great auk and a whole troop of others less
familiar, have disappeared and are disappearing under the
human blight. Even some beautiful insects — the great
copper butterfly and the swallow-tail butterfly — have been
exterminated in England by human " progress " in the
shape of the drainage of the Fen country.

But the most repulsive of the destructive results of
human expansion is the poisoning of rivers, and the con-
sequent extinction in them of fish and of well-nigh every
living thing, save mould and putrefactive bacteria. In the
Thames it will soon be a hundred years since man, by his
filthy proceedings, banished the glorious salmon, and
murdered the innocents of the eel-fare. Even at its foulest
time,- however, the Thames mud was blood-red (really
" blood-red," since the colour was due to the same blood-
crystals which colour our own blood) with the swarms of
a delicate little worm like the earth-worm, which has an
exceptional power of living in foul water, and nourishing
itself upon putrid mud. In old days I have stood on
Hungerford Suspension Bridge and seen the mud-banks
as a great red band of colour, stretching for a mile along
the picture when the tide was low. In smaller streams,
especially in the mining and manufacturing districts of
England, progressive money-making man has converted
the most beautiful things of nature — trout streams — into
absolutely dead corrosive chemical sewers. The sight of
one of these death-stricken black filth-gutters makes one
shudder as the picture rises, in one's mind, of a world in
which all the rivers and the waters of the sea-shore will
be thus dedicated to acrid sterility, and the meadows and
hill-sides will be drenched with nauseating chemical

MAN'S RECKLESS GREED 369

manures. Such a state of things is possibly in store for
future generations of men ! It is not " science " that will
be to blame for these horrors, but should they come
about they will be due to the reckless greed and the mere
insect-like increase of humanity.

In the destruction of trees and all kinds of plants man
has deliberately done more mischief than in the exter-
mination of animals. By inadvertence he has completely
abolished the strange and remarkable trees and shrubs of
islands — such as St. Helena — where the herbivorous
animals introduced by him have made short work of the
wonderful native plants isolated for ages, and have com-
pletely exterminated them, so that they are "extinct."
We have just had the opportunity of studying one of the
few oceanic islands — " Christmas Island " (forty square
miles in area) — untouched by man until thirty years ago.
It lies 200 miles south of Java. Its native inhabitants,
plants and animals were carefully examined, and speci-
mens secured twenty years ago. There were then no
human inhabitants, and the island was rarely visited. It
was, however, about twelve years ago handed over by its
proprietors to some thousand Chinamen to dig and ship
the 15,000,000 tons of valuable "phosphate " (at a profit
of a guinea a ton), which forms a large part of its surface.
And now from time to time we shall have reports of this
result of contact with man, and through him with all the
plagues and curses of the great world. Already a remark-
able shrew-mouse and two native species of rat, peculiar
to the island, have disappeared. Dr. Andrews (' Proceed-
ings of the Zoological Society,' February 2nd, 1909), who
has twice explored the island, gives evidence that this is
caused by a parasitic disease (due to a trypanosome like
those which cause sleeping-sickness and various horse and
cattle diseases) introduced by the common black rats from

24

370 THE EFFAGEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN

the ships which now frequent the island. The further
progress of destruction will be carefully and minutely
observed and recorded — but not arrested I

It is, however, in cutting down and burning forests of
large trees that man has done the most harm to himself
and the other living occupants of many regions of the
earth's surface. We can trace these evil results from more
recent examples back into the remote past. The water
supply of the town of Plymouth was assured by Drake,
who brought water in a channel from Dartmoor. But the
cutting down of the trees has now rendered the great wet
sponge of the Dartmoor region, from which the water was
drawn all the year, no longer a sponge. It no longer
" holds " the water of the rainfall, but in consequence of
the removal of the forest and the digging of ditches the
water quickly runs off the moor, and subsequently the
whole country-side suffers from drought. This sort of
thing has occurred wherever man has been sufficiently
civilised and enterprising to commit the folly of destroying
forests. Forests have an immense effect on climate,
causing humidity of both the air and the soil, and give
rise to moderate and persistent instead of torrential
streams. Spain has been irretrievably injured by the
cutting down of her forests in the course of a few hundred
years. The same thing is going on, to a disastrous extent,
in parts of the United States. Whole provinces of the
Thibetan borders of China have been converted into un-
inhabitable, sandy desert, where centuries ago were fertile
and well-watered pastures supporting rich cities, in conse-
quence of the reckless destruction of forest. In fact,
whether it is due to man's improvident action or to
natural climatic changes, it appears that the formation of
"desert" is due in the first place to the destruction of
forest, the consequent formation of a barren, sandy area,
and the subsequent spreading of what we may call the

HOPE IN IRRIGATION 371

" disease " or " desert ulcer," by the blowing of the fatally
exposed sand and the gradual extension, owing to the
action of the sand itself, of the area of destroyed vegeta-
tion. Sand-deserts are not, as used to be supposed, sea-
bottoms from which the water has retreated, but areas ot
destruction of vegetation — often (though not always), both
in Central Asia and in North Africa (Egypt, etc.), started
by the deliberate destruction of forest by man, who has
either by artificial drainage starved the forest, or by the
simple use of the axe and fire cleared it away.

The great art of irrigation was studied and used with
splendid success by the ancient nations of the near East.
They converted deserts into gardens, and their work was
an act of compensation and restitution to be set off
against the destructive operations of more barbarous men.
But they, too, long ago were themselves destroyed by con-
quering hordes of more ignorant but more war-like men,
and their irrigation works and the whole art of irrigation
perished with them. One of the absolutely necessary works
to be carried out by civilised man, when he has ceased to
build engines of war and destruction, is the irrigation of the
great waterless territories of the globe. A little home-work
of the kind has been carried on in Italy regularly year by
year since the days of Leonardo da Vinci, and our Indian
Government is slowly copying the Italian example. In
Egypt we have built the great dam of Assouan, whilst
in Mesopotamia it is proposed to re-establish the irriga-
tion system by which it once was made rich and fertile.
But, as has lately been maintained by Mr. Rose Smith in
his book, ' The Growth of Nations,' the vast possibilities
of irrigation have not yet been realised by the business
men of the modern world. Millions of acres in the
warmer regions of the earth now unproductive can be
made to yield food to mankind and rich pecuniary profits
to the capitalists who shall introduce modern engineer-

372 THE EFFAGEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN

ing methods and a scientific system of irrigation into
those areas.

The whole problem of the increase of the more civilised
races and the necessary accompanying increase of food-
production/depends for its solution on the speedy intro-
duction of irrigation methods into what are now the great
unproductive deserts of the world.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE EXTINCTION OF THE BISON AND OF
WHALES

THE almost complete and very sudden disappearance
of the bison in North America thirty years ago
does not seem to have been due simply to the slaughter
of tens of thousands of these creatures by men who made
a commerce of so-called " buffalo- rugs." These "hunters"
miscalled the unhappy bison, which is not a buffalo, nor
at all like that creature, just as they gave the name "elk"
to the great red deer (the wapiti), although there was a
real elk, the so-called " moose," staring them in the face.
The sudden extinction of the bison resulted partly from
the slaughter and partly from the breaking up of the
herds and the interference with their free migration by
the trans-continental railway. An interesting discovery
made only this year, in regard to the closely allied
European bison, suggests that disease may also have
played a part in the destruction of the North American
bison. A few hundred individuals of the European bison
are all that remain at this day. Some are carefully pre-
served by the Emperor of Russia in a tract of suitable
country in Lithuania and another herd exists in the
Caucasus. Some of the Lithuanian bison have lately
been dying in an unaccountable way, and on investigating
a dead individual a Russian observer has discovered a
4 trypanosome " parasite in the blood. The trypanosomes

374 EXTINCTION OF THE BISON AND WHALES

are microscopic corkscrew-like creatures, of which many
kinds have become known within the last ten or fifteen
years. They are " single cells " — that is to say, " proto-
plasmic " animalcules of the simplest structure — provided
with a vibrating crest and tail by means of which they
swim with incessant screw-like movement through the
blood. They rarely exceed one thousandth of an inch in
length exclusive of the tail. The poisons which they
produce by their life in the blood are the cause of the
sleeping-sickness of man (in tropical Africa), of the horse
and cattle disease carried by the tsetze fly, and of many
similar deadly diseases — a separate " species " being dis-
covered in each disease. A peculiar species is found in
the blood of the common frog, and another in that of the
sewer-rat. The last discovery of a " trypanosome " is
that of one in the blood of the African elephant, announced
to the Royal Society by Sir David Bruce.

It is a matter of great interest that a trypanosome has
been found in a death-stricken herd of European bison.
It suggests that one of the causes of the disappearance of
the bison, both in Europe and America, may be the
infection of their blood by trypanosomes, and that possibly,
whilst a freely migrating and vigorous herd would not be
extensively infected, a dwindled and confined herd may
be more liable to infection, and that thus the final destruc-
tion of an already decadent animal may be brought about.
It would now be a matter of extreme interest to ascertain
whether the few dwindled herds of bison in North
America are infected by trypanosomes, and no doubt we
shall soon receive reports on the subject.

A most interesting branch of this subject of the un-
thinking extermination of great animals by man is that
of the extermination of whales. Man is worrying them
out of existence. Some are already beyond saving. It
would be interesting to know whether there are trypano-

DROWNING IN A DEAD WHALE'S HEART 375

somes or other blood-parasites in whales. I suppose that
no one has an ill-feeling towards whales. Most of us have
never seen a whale, either alive or in the flesh — only a
skeleton. I have seen a live whale or two off the coast
of Norway ; and I once, in conjunction with my friend
Moseley, when we were students at Oxford, cut up one,
1 8 ft. long, which had been exhibited for three weeks
during the summer in a tent on the shores of the Bristol
Channel, where we purchased it. The skeleton of that
whale is now in the museum at Oxford, but happily the
smell of it exists only in my memory. The late Mr.
Gould, who produced such beautifully illustrated books on
birds, told me that he once fell into the heart of a full-
sized whale, which he was cutting up. He narrowly
escaped drowning in the blood. The whale was not very
fresh, and Mr. Gould was unapproachable for a week.

An immense number of whales are killed every year
for their oil, and their nighty nutritious flesh is wasted.
There was an attempt some years ago to make meat
extract from it. Some which was brought to me reminded
me of the whale on the shores of the Bristol Channel. I
do not know if the extract has proved palatable to other
people. The Norwegians are specially expert in killing
whales. They have been allowed to set up " factories "
on the west coast of Ireland and in the Shetlands, where
they kill whales with harpoons fired from guns, cut them
up, and boil down the fat.

Whales are warm-blooded creatures which suckle their
young, and have been developed in past geological times
from land animals — the primitive carnivors — which were
also the ancestors of dogs, bears, seals and cats. Whales
have lost the hind limbs altogether and developed the
forelegs into fingerless flippers, whilst the tail is provided
with " flukes " like the fins of a fish's tail in shape, but
horizontal instead of vertical. The whole form is fish-

376 EXTINCTION OF THE BISON AND WHALES

like, the skin smooth and hairless. It is a remarkable
conclusion arrived at by the investigators of the remains
of extinct animals that a little four-legged creature the
size of a spaniel, and intermediate in character between a
hedgehog and a dog, was the common ancestor from
which have been derived such widely different creatures
as the whale and the bat, the elephant and the man. We
can at the present day trace with some certainty the
gradual modifications of form by which in the course of
many millions of years the change from the primitive,
dog-like hedgehog to each of those four living " types "
has proceeded.

The whales of to-day are divided into the toothed whales
and the whalebone whales. The great cachalot or sperm
whale is captured, chiefly in the Southern Ocean, and
killed in large numbers for the sake of the " spermaceti,"
or " sperm oil," which forms the great mass of its head,
but he is so fierce and active that he is not easily captured,
and is not in immediate danger of extinction. The
smaller toothed whales, the killers, dolphins, and porpoises
(though one of them — the bottle-nosed whale — is being
killed out), are not as yet seriously threatened by com-
mercial man. But the whalebone whales are in a parlous
state. The right whales as they are called are the chief
of these. They are huge creatures, 60 ft. in length, with
an enormous head : it is as much as one third of the total
length in the Greenland whale. Besides the Greenland
species there are four other " right whales," which may be
considered as four varieties of one species. The head is not
quite so large in them. The Biscay whale is one of them,
and was hunted until it was exterminated in the Bay of
Biscay, when the whalers, extending their operations
further and further north, came upon the Greenland whale,
which proved to be even more valuable than the Biscay
species. The huge mouth in these two whales has hang-

THE VALUE OF WHALEBONE 377

ing from its sides within the lips a series of long bars
or planks of wonderfully strong, elastic, horny substance
— the " baleen " or " whalebone " — each plank being as
much as eight or in rare cases twelve feet long. Following
close on one another and having hairy edges, they act as
strainers so as to separate the floating food of the whale
from the water which rushes through its mouth as it
swims. The whalebone is of great value commercially, as
is also the fat or oil. A hundred years ago whalebone
fetched only £2$ a ton, now the same quantity fetches
more than £1500. The Rorquals, or " Finners," have
smaller heads and mouths ; their whalebone is so short as
to be valueless, but they grow to even greater size than
the Right whales and are found on our own coasts and all
over the world. The Hump-back whale is one of these
" Finners," distinguished by its excessively long flippers
and huge bulk.

The Biscay whale was the first of these great creatures
to be hunted. The Basques began its capture as early as
the ninth century. It was exterminated by them in the
Bay of Biscay, and only saved from complete extinction
elsewhere by the discovery of the more valuable Arctic or
Greenland whale. The capture of the Greenland whale
began in 1612, and in 200 years the unceasing pursuit
of this species had driven it to the remote places of the
Arctic Ocean. It is now so rare that it is not worth
while to send a ship out for the purpose of hunting it, and
it will probably never recover its numbers. An idea of
its value and former abundance may be formed from the
fact that between 1669 and 1778 it yielded to 1400
Dutch vessels about 57,000 individuals, of which the
baleen and oil produced a money value of four million
pounds sterling. Of late years a single large Greenland
whale would bring £900 for its whalebone and £300 for
its oil. These two great Right whales having been

378 EXTINCTION OF THE BISON AND WHALES

practically exterminated, the merciless hunt has now been
turned on to the wilder and less valuable Finback whales
or Finners. In these days of steam and electric light the
Arctic night is robbed of its terrors, and the whale chase
goes on very fast. The shot harpoon was invented in
1870 by Sven Foyn, a Norwegian, and is the most
deadly and extraordinary weapon ever devised by man
for the pursuit of helpless animals. It is this invention
(a commercial, not a scientific, discovery !) which has, in
conjunction with swift steamships, rendered the destruc-
tion of whales a matter of ease and deadly certainty.
It is this which is being used on the Irish as on the
Scandinavian coast, resulting in the pollution of the air
and water by the carcases of the slaughtered beasts from
which the oil has been extracted. This revolting butchery,
without foresight or intelligence, is carried on solely for
the satisfaction of human greed, and apparently will be
stopped only by the extinction of the yet remaining whales.
In forty years in the middle of last century the whale fishery
of the United States yielded 300,000 whales to 20,000
voyages, and a value of sixty-five million pounds sterling
in baleen and oil. It is calculated that in the thousand
years during which man has hunted the great whales not
less than a million individuals have been captured. Man's
skill and capacity have now become such that he will soon
have cleared the ocean of these wonderful creatures, since,
like the bison, the whales cannot persist when harried and
interfered with beyond a certain limited degree.

It appears that the curious musk ox which now lives
on the fringe of the Arctic circle, and in the glacial period
existed in the Thames Valley, is doomed. There (as in
similar instances in other lands), the comparatively harm-
less savage race of men (in this case the Eskimo), whose
weapons did not enable them seriously to threaten the
existence of the animals around them, have now obtained

NO MORE TURTLE SOUP 379

efficient firearms. The musk ox is consequently now
between two lines of fire — that of the white hunter on the
south, and of the Eskimo on the north.

From regions far remote from the Arctic complaints
come of an even more reckless destruction of helpless
animals. Perhaps our legislators may feel some personal
concern in this case, since it is neither more nor less than
the approaching extinction of the turtle, the true green
turtle of City fame, to eat which at the invitation of City
dignitaries is one of the few duties of a legislator. Both
the green turtles and the tortoise-shell turtles are being
destroyed indiscriminately on the coast of Florida and
in many West Indian Islands by brutal, careless, " white "
beach-combers and idlers. By proper care of the eggs
and young the turtles could easily be increased enormously
in number, and a regulated capture of them be made to
yield a legitimate profit. But neither the United States
Government, nor our own, take any steps to restrain
promiscuous slaughter of the turtles which come to the
shore in order to lay their eggs. Soon the City Fathers
will have to do without the " green fat " and their
wives without tortoise-shell combs. It will serve them
right. Such destitution in these — and, be it noted, in
many other matters — will deservedly fall upon those who
ignorantly, wilfully, and contentedly neglect to take
steps to understand and to control the withering blight
created by modern man wherever he sets his foot.

CHAPTER XXX
MORE ABOUT WHALES

THE possibility of protecting whales from wanton
slaughter by man is, no doubt, a matter open to
discussion. Protection has, however, been accorded to
one particular whale in an exceptional instance. Passenger
steamers along the coast of New Zealand used to
call at a station in a narrow inlet of the coast, called
Pelorus Sound. A black whale, said to be of the
kind known as Risso's Grampus, of about 14 ft. in length,
was apparently a settled inhabitant of this channel,
and used to follow the steamers and accompany them
through the sound. He became famous and popular,
and was known as " Pelorus Jack." He was always
looked for and recognised by the sailors and passengers.
Certain savagely destructive persons on one of these
steamers — to the horror and disgust of the New Zealand
world — made an attempt to shoot " Pelorus Jack."
It is stated, and believed by sailors, that ill-luck conse-
quently fell on that steamer. On its next voyage it was
avoided by the whale, who had never failed to welcome
friendly and non-aggressive steamships, and on a third
voyage the steamer was wrecked. The feeling about
" Pelorus Jack " was so strong that his Excellency the
Governor of New Zealand, Lord Plunket, signed, on
September 26th, 1904, an Order in Council, protecting

THE SHAPE OF WHALES 381

" Pelorus Jack " by name for five years, and any person
interfering with him was made liable to a fine of £100.

It appears that under the New Zealand Sea Fisheries
Act of 1894 the Governor in Council is empowered to
make regulations protecting any fish. Although zoologi-
cally not belonging to the class of fishes, whales are,
technically and for all legal and commercial purposes,
" fishes," since they are " fished " and are the booty of
" fisheries." I believe that no Governor, Council, or
Secretary of State has power in the British Islands
similar to that conferred on the Governor of New Zealand
by a modern State which desires good and effective
government. Such power is needed in all parts of the
British Empire.

The whales, as compared with their dog-like ancestors,
are modified to a more extreme degree and in more special
ways than is the case in any other group of which we can
trace the history over a similar period of development.
This is connected with the complete change of conditions
of life to which these mammals (" warm-blooded, air-
breathing quadrupeds which suckle their young ") have
become adapted in passing from a terrestrial to a marine
existence. Other mammalian ancestors have indepen-
dently taken to a marine life and given rise to strange-
looking adaptations, namely, the seals and also the
Manatee and Dugong known as the Sirenians (so-called
because they give rise to sailors' stories of mermaids and
sirens), but these are far less changed, less modified than
the whales. The whales have acquired a completely fish-
like form. They frequently have a large back fin, and
have lost the hind legs altogether. The horizontally
spread flukes of the whale's tail have nothing to do with
the hind legs, whereas the common seal's hind legs are
tied together so as to form a sort of tail. In the bigger
whales, sunk deep in the muscle and blubber, we find on

382 MORE ABOUT WHALES

each side well forward in the body (not near the tail) a
pair of isolated, unattached bony pieces, which are the
hip-bone and thigh-bone — all that remains of the hind
limbs. The neck is so short that in many whales the
seven neck-bones, or "vertebrae," are all fused into one
solid piece not longer than a single ordinary vertebra,
and showing six grooves marking off the seven vertebrae
which have united into one.

The head is more strangely altered than any other
part of the whale. The jaws are greatly elongated — so
as to give a beak-like form in all — but this region is
specially long and narrow in the " beaked whales " known
to zoologists by the name Ziphius, in which it consists of
a solid piece of ivory-like bone, which we find in a fossil
state in the bone-bed of the Suffolk Crag. Farther back
the bones of the face are suddenly widened in all whales
and porpoises, and in many these bones grow up into
enormous crests and ridges. The nostrils, instead of
being placed, as in other animals, at the free end of the
snout or beak, lie far back, so as to form the " blow-hole,"
which is near the middle of the head.

The circulation of the blood and the breathing of whales
(including in that term the smaller kinds known as
dolphins and porpoises) is still a matter which is not pro-
perly understood. When a Greenland whale is struck by
the harpoon it dives vertically downward to a depth of
400 fathoms and more (nearly half a mile), and occasion-
ally wounds the skin and bones of its snout by violently
striking it on the sea-bottom. It remains below as long
as forty minutes. Physiologists wish to know how the
sudden compression of the air in the lungs in plunging to
this depth and the equally sudden expansion of it in
rising from such a depth is dealt with in the whale's
economy, so as to prevent the absolutely deadly results
which would ensue were any ordinary air-breathing animal

ENORMOUS PRESSURE OF GAS IN BLOOD 383

subjected to such changes of pressure. Man can endure
without suffering an increase of pressure of the gases in
his body amounting to three or four times that to which
he is accustomed, as, for instance, when working in the
compressed air of " caissons." But the whale goes sud-
denly to a depth at which the pressure is eighty times
that at the surface ! Then, too, man (and other terrestrial
animals), after being subjected (for instance, in a caisson)
to a pressure of four times that which exists on the free
surface of the earth, is liable to be killed by suddenly
passing from that high pressure into the ordinary air.
The gases dissolved in his blood expand like the gas in
a bottle of soda-water when the cork is drawn, and the
bubbles interfere with the circulation of the blood in the
finer blood-vessels (of especial importance being those of
the brain and spinal cord), and the serious illness and the
death of workmen has frequently resulted from this cause.
Accordingly, the men who work in such " compressed
atmospheres " are now made to pass slowly through a
series of three chambers, in each of which the pressure is
diminished and brought nearer to that of the normal
atmosphere. By spending twenty minutes in each
chamber successively, the workman is gradually brought
to the pressure of the outer world, and his blood pre-
vented from " effervescing." But what must be the con-
dition of the gases in the blood of a whale which suddenly
rises from 400 fathoms to the surface ? The whale
suddenly goes, not from a pressure of four times the
normal (" four atmosphere," as it is called), but from
eighty times the normal, to the normal pressure.

Whales, and also seals, are provided with remarkable
special networks of blood-vessels in various parts of the body
(called " retia mirabilia " by the old anatomists), and also
with a thick layer of fat under the skin, the " blubber "
(some feet deep in a large whale), full of blood-vessels.

384 MORE ABOUT WHALES

It has been suggested that these networks of blood-
vessels are related in some way both to the power of
keeping long (forty minutes !) under water without
breathing, and also to the freedom of these marine
monsters from the deadly effects of rapid passage from
great to little gas-pressure. But it is only a suggestion ;
no one has shown how the networks can act so as to
effect these results, and I am quite unable to say how they
can do so. Another suggestion worth considering is that
the whale completely empties the gas out of its lungs by
muscular compression of the body-wall before diving, so
that there is no gas left in the body to be acted on by the
increased pressure resulting from its sinking into deep
water. I am unable to deal with this puzzle myself, and
I have not been able to find any naturalist or physiologist
who can throw light on the matter.

The toothed whales are nearer to the ancestral primi-
tive whales than are the whalebone whales. The latter
are the more peculiar, and specially adapted with their
huge heads and mouths (a third the length of the
whole animal in the Greenland whale), and their pali-
sades of 350 whalebone planks, some 12 ft. long, on
each side of the mouth. I may mention in parenthesis
that, whilst whalebone has been largely superseded by
light steel in the making of umbrellas and corsets, its
value remains, or rather increases, on account of its being
the only material for making certain kinds of large
brushes which are used in cleaning machinery. The
whalebone whales have, when first born, very minute
teeth hidden in their jaws ; they disappear. Some of
the toothed whales have teeth only in the lower jaw
(the cachalot), others (the beaked whales, Ziphius, etc.)
have only one pair or two pairs of teeth. These are
tusk-like, and placed in the lower jaw. Others (the
dolphins and porpoises) have very numerous peg-like

THE KILLER AND THE NARWHAL 385

teeth in each jaw. Some of them feed on fish, pursuing
the shoals of fish in parties or " schools."

A truly terrible toothed whale is the large porpoise
called the killer (known to zoologists as Orca gladiator).
He is the wolf of the sea, far more active and formidable
than any shark, about 10 ft. long, and strangely marked in
black, white, and yellow. He has jaws bigger than those
of the largest Mugger crocodile, and a tremendous array of
fang-like teeth. These killers hunt the right (or whale-
bone) whales in all parts of the world, in parties of three
to twelve. They hang on to the lips of their enormous
" quarry," and once they get a hold, in twenty minutes tear
it into pieces. Often they satisfy themselves with tearing
out and devouring the gigantic tongue of their victim,
leaving the carcase untouched.

The narwhal and the white whale, or Beluga, which
furnishes " porpoise-hide " for boots and laces, are both
caught in northern seas, and form a closely allied pair,
similar to one another in shape and colour (the one white,
the other grey), and of moderate size, about 1 2 ft. long.
They both feed on cuttle-fish and minute shrimps, but the
Beluga has many teeth and the narwhal (with the excep-
tion of some rudimentary ones) only a single pair, and
these in the front of the upper jaw. In the female
narwhal this pair of teeth remain permanently concealed
in the jaw bone, and so does the right side one of the
male. But the left side tooth of the male grows to an
enormous size, projecting horizontally in front of the nar-
whal to a length of seven or eight feet. It is a powerful
weapon, and is formed of ivory spirally grooved on the
surface. The narwhal was called " the unicorn fish " or
" Monoceras " in ancient times, and its spirally marked
tooth was confused with the horn of the terrestrial unicorn
— the rhinoceros. Very rarely the right tooth of the male
narwhal grows to full size side by side with the left tooth.

25

386 MORE ABOUT WHALES

A specimen showing this double-toothed condition is in
the Natural History Museum. A most curious fact, quite
unexplained as yet, is that the spiral grooving on both the
teeth turns in the same direction ; in both it is like a
spiral staircase in mounting which (starting from the base
implanted in the jaw) you continually turn to the right.
Now, in all other animal structures which have a spiral
growth and are paired — one belonging to the right side
of the animal, the other to the left, as, for instance, the
spirally marked horns of antelopes and the more loosely
coiled horns of sheep and cattle — one of the pair forms a
right-handed and the other a left-handed spiral. They
are " complementary " ; one is the reflection, as in a mirror,
of the other. Why the narwhal's tooth does not conform
to this rule is a mystery.

It is a remarkable fact that only a few whales and
porpoises eat fish or the flesh of other whales. The large
toothed-whales, including the cachalot or sperm whale, and
also the Ziphius-like beaked whales, live upon cuttle-fish.
And it seems that they know where to hunt for this
special article of diet and how to find it in quantity (pro-
bably at great depths in the ocean), which naturalists do
not. Many new kinds of cuttle-fish have been discovered
by examining the contents of the stomach of captured
whales. The sperm whale feeds on monster squid and
poulp such as we rarely, if ever, see alive or washed up on
the shore. The hide of these cuttle-fish-eating whales
and porpoises is scratched and scarred by the hooks
attached to the suckers on the arms of the great cuttle-
fish, and a test of the genuine character of ambergris
which forms as a concretion in the intestine of the sperm-
whale is that it contains fragments of the horny beaks and
hooks of the cuttle-fish digested by the whale. The food
of the whalebone whales consists of minute Crustacea and
of the little floating molluscs known as Clio borealis, as

FOSSIL WHALES 387

big as the last joint of one's little finger, which float by
millions in the Arctic Ocean. The whalebone whales, after
letting their huge mouths fill with the sea-water in which
these creatures are floating, squeeze it out through the
strainer formed by the whalebone palisade on each side —
by raising the tongue and floor of the mouth. The water
passes out through the strainer, and the nourishing
morsels remain.

Some fossil jaws and skulls of whales from miocene
and older tertiary strata are known which tend to connect
the toothed whales with those mammals not modified for
marine life. But the approach in that direction does not
go very far. The extinct whales called Squalodon have
tusk-like front teeth and molars which have the outline of
a leaf with a coarsely " serrated " edge. The bones of the
face are also, in them, more like those of an ordinary
mammal than is the case with modern toothed whales.
The snout is not so long, and the bones which form it are
a little more like those of a fox's snout than are those of
the dolphin's " beak." But on the whole it is astonishing
how little we know of fossil whales. We have yet to
discover ancestral forms possessing small hind legs, but
whale-like in other features. Some day a lucky " fossil-
hunter " will come upon the remains of a series of whale-
ancestors probably of Eocene age, and we shall know the
steps by which a quadruped was changed into a cetacean
— just as we have recently learned the history of the
development of elephants. We know even less about the
ancestry of bats and the steps by which they acquired
their wings than we do about the history of whales.
These discoveries await future generations of men when
" cuttings" and "pits" and quarries shall have been made in
the rest of the earth's surface to the same extent as they
have been in Europe and in parts of the American
continent.

CHAPTER XXXI
MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

I SUBMIT, as the final chapter of this little volume of
miscellaneous diversions, a few words intended to
meet what has become a recurrent misrepresentation and
absurdity for which the annual congress of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science furnishes the
opportunity. Glib writers in various journals regularly
seize this occasion to pour forth their lamentations con-
cerning the incapacity of " science " and the disappoint-
ment which they experience in finding that it does not do
what it never professed to do. They deplore that those
engaged in the making of that new knowledge of nature
which we call " science " do not discover things which
they never set out to discover or thought it possible to
discover, although the glib gentlemen who write, with a
false assumption of knowledge, pretend that these things
are what the investigations of scientific inquirers are
intended to ascertain. We read, at that season of the
year, articles upon " What Scientists do not know " and
"The Bankruptcy of Science," in which it is pretended
that the purpose of science is to solve the mystery, or, as
it has been called, the " riddle," of the universe, and it is
pointed out, with something like malicious satisfaction,
that, to judge by the proceedings of the congress of
scientific investigators just concluded, we are no nearer a
solution of that mystery than men were in the days of

WHAT SCIENCE t>OES NOT EXPLAIN 389

Aristotle: and it is added that false hopes have been
raised, and that matters which were once considered
settled have again passed into the melting-pot !

This kind of lamentation is not only (if I may Use an
expressive term) " twaddle," but is injurious misrepresent
tation, dangerous to the public welfare. The actual
attitude of the investigators and makers of new know-
ledge of nature is stated in a few words which I wrote
ten years ago: "The whole order of nature, including
living and lifeless matter — from man to gas — is a network
of mechanism, the main features and many details of
which have been made more or less obvious to the
wondering intelligence of mankind by the labour and
ingenuity of scientific investigators. But no sane man
has ever pretended, since science became a definite body
of doctrine, that we know or ever can hope to know or
conceive of the possibility of knowing, whence this
mechanism has come, why it is there, whither it is
going, and what there may or may not be beyond and
beside it which our senses are incapable of appreciating.
These things are not ' explained ' by science and never
can be."

So much for those who reproach science with the non-
fulfilment of their own unwarranted and perfectly gratui-
tous expectations.

When, however, having created in their readers' minds
an unreasonable sense of failure and a mistrust of
science, such writers go on to make use of the want of
confidence thus produced, in order to throw doubt
upon the real conquests of science — the new knowledge
actually made and established by the investigators of
the last century — it becomes necessary to say a little
more. The public is told by these false-witnesses that
science has " dogmas/' and that men of science are less
satisfied than they were with the "dogmas" of the last

390 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

century. Science has no dogmas; all its conclusions are
open to revision by experiment and demonstration, and
are continually so revised. But science takes no heed of
empty assertion unaccompanied by evidence which can
be weighed and measured. " Nullius in verba " is the
motto of one of the most famous Societies for the pro-
motion of the knowledge of nature — the Royal Society of
London.

It is especially in the area of biology — the knowledge
of living things — that the enemies of science make their
most audacious attempts to discredit well-ascertained
facts and conclusions. They tell their readers that those
greater problems of the science (as they erroneously
term them), such as the nature of variation among
individuals* the laws of heredity, the nature of growth
and reproduction, the peculiarities of sex, the charac-
teristics of habit, instinct, and intelligence, and the
meaning of life itself, have advanced very little beyond
the standpoint of the first and greatest biologist, Aristotle.
This statement is vague and indefinite; the conclusion
which it suggests is absolutely untrue. Aristotle knew
next to nothing about the mechanism of the processes in
living things above cited. At the present day we know
an enormous amount about it in detail. But when
men of science are told that they do not know the
"nature" of this and the "meaning" of that, they
frankly admit that they do not know the real "nature"
(for the expression is capable of endless variety of
significance) of anything nor the real " meaning " not
only of life, but of the existence of the universe, and they
say, moreover, that they have no intention or expectation
of knowing the ultimate " nature " or the ultimate
" meaning " (in a philosophical sense) of any such things.
These are not problems of science — and it is misleading
and injurious to pretend that they are.

DARWIN'S THEORY IS ADEQUATE 391

I recently read an essay in which the writer is good
enough to say that, owing to the work of Darwin, the fact
that the differences which we see between organisms have
been reached by a gradual evolution, is not now disputed.
That, at any rate, seems to be a solid achievement. But
he went on to declare that when we inquire by what method
this evolution was brought about biologists can return no
answer. That appears to me to be a most extraordinary
perversion of the truth. The reason why the gradual
evolution of the various kinds of organisms is not now
disputed is that Darwin showed the method by which
that evolution can and must be brought about. So far
from "returning no answer," Darwin and succeeding
generations of biologists do return a very full answer to
the question, " By what method has organic evolution
been brought about ? " Our misleading writer proceeds
as follows : " The Darwinian theory of natural selection
acting on minute differences is generally considered
nowadays to be inadequate, but no alternative theory has
taken its place." This is an entirely erroneous statement.
Though Darwin held that natural selection acted most
widely and largely on minute differences, he did not
suppose that its operation was confined to them, and he
considered and gave importance to a number of other
characteristics of organisms which have an important part
in the process of organic evolution. The assertion that
the theory of natural selection as left by Darwin " is now
generally held to be inadequate " is fallacious. Darwin's
conclusions on this matter are generally held to be essen-
tially true. It is obvious that his argument is capable of
further elaboration and development by additional know-
ledge, and always was regarded as being so by its author
and by every other competent person. But that is a
very different thing from holding Darwin's theory of
natural selection to be "inadequate." It is adequate,

392

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

because it furnishes the foundation on which we build, and
it is so solid, complete and far-reaching that what has been
added since Darwin's death is very small by comparison
with his original structure.

Lastly, we are told by the anonymous writer already
quoted that at the present time discussion is chiefly con-
centrated on the question as to whether life is dependent
only on the physical and chemical properties of the living
substance, protoplasm, or whether there is at work an
independent vital principle which sharply separates living
from non-living matter ! And the obvious and common-
place conclusion is announced that " the ultimate problems
of biology are as inscrutable as of old." All ultimate
problems are, I admit, inscrutable. It is, on the other
hand, the business, and has been the glory and triumph
of science, to examine and solve problems which are
scrutable ! It is certainly not the case that, at the present
time, discussion is concentrated on the question of the
existence of a vital principle. There is absolutely no dis-
cussion in progress on the subject. No one even knows
or attempts to state what is meant by " a vital principle."
It is a phrase which belongs to "the dead past," when
men of science had not discovered that you get no nearer
to understanding a difficult subject by inventing a name
to cover your ignorance. Thirty-five years ago the word
" vitality " was used as some few philosophising writers
are now using the term "vital principle." Huxley at that
time attacked the views of Dr. Lionel Beale, who called
in the aid of a mystical " principle," which he named
" vitality," in order to " account for " some of the remark-
able properties of protoplasm. As Huxley pointed out,
this supposed principle " accounted for " nothing, since it
was merely a name for the phenomena for which it was
supposed to account. Huxley pointed out that many
chemical compounds have remarkable properties — as

THE AQUOSITY OF WATER 393

assuredly have the chemical compounds which are present
in protoplasm — but men of science have not found it to
help them in investigating the mechanism of those pro-
perties to ascribe them to mystical intangible " principles"
differing from the agencies at work in other less excep-
tional substances.

Thus, for instance, water, though a very common and
abundant chemical compound formed by the union of two
chemical elements, hydrogen and oxygen, which, at the
temperature and pressure of the earth's surface, are
gaseous, offers many strange properties to our considera-
tion not shared by other compounds of gaseous elements.
For instance, hydrogen, when it combines with gaseous
elements other than oxygen, does not form a compound
which is liquid at the temperature and pressure of the earth's
surface. Its combinations with nitrogen, with chlorine,
with fluorine, and even with the solid element carbon, are
under those conditions gaseous. What a special character,
therefore, has water ! Moreover, water, though a liquid,
yet behaves in a most peculiar way when either cooled
below ordinary temperatures or heated above them. It
becomes solid when cooled, but expands at the same time,
so that it is less dense when solid that when liquid — a
most unusual proceeding ! And when heated it is con-
verted into vapour, but with a loss or " making latent " 01
heat, which, like its behaviour when solidifying, indicates
that water is endowed with a very peculiar structure or
mechanism in the putting together of its molecules. We
might call these combined peculiarities of water
"aquosity," and as we certainly cannot say why water
should possess the lot of them, whilst other compounds of
either hydrogen or of oxygen, or, in fact, of any other
elements, do not possess this combination, we might say
that their presence is due to " the aqueous principle," or
" aquosity," which enters into water when it is formed,

394 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

but does not exist in other natural bodies, and, indeed,
" sharply separates aqueous from non-aqueous matter."

Happily, though such a view would have been con-
sidered high philosophy 200 years ago, no one is deluded
at the present day into the belief that by calling the
remarkable properties of water "aquosity" you have
added anything to our knowledge of them. Yet those who
invoke "a vital principle" or "vitality" in connection with
protoplasm should, if they were consistent, apply their
method to the mystery of water. Let us see how it would
run. Though we may (these " vitalists" or "aquosists "
would say) experiment with water, determine exactly the
temperature and pressure at which these remarkable phe-
nomena are exhibited, though we may determine its
surface tension and its crystalline form, and even though
we may weigh exactly the proportion of hydrogen to
oxygen in its composition, yet when we look at a drop of
water, there it is, a wonder of wonders, endowed with
" aquosity," the ultimate nature of which is as inscrutable
now as it was to Aristotle ! It is perfectly true (we con-
cede to the " aquosists ") that the properties of water are
not accounted for by science ; that is to say that, though
we can imagine the molecular and atomic mechanism
necessary for their exhibition, we cannot offer any sugges-
tion as to how it is that that particular mechanism is
present in the chemical compound which the chemist
denotes as H2O, and is not present in other compounds,
still less can we say " why " these remarkable properties
are present — that is to say, for what purpose, although we
know that if they were not present the whole history and
economy of our globe would be utterly different from what
it is. Nevertheless, in spite of fheir ignorance about the
real nature of water, men of science do not invent an
" aqueous principle " or " aquosity " with the notion of
" explaining " water. And I have yet to hear of any duly

NEED FOR INTERPRETERS OF SCIENCE 395

trained and qualified biologist who is prepared at the
present moment to maintain the existence of a " vital
principle," or of a force to be called " vitality," supposed to
be something different in character and quality from the
recognised physical forces, and having its existence along-
side, yet apart from, the manifestations of those forces.

Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton recently said : " The
advance in science takes the workers in science more and
more beyond the ken of the ordinary public, and their
work grows to be a little understood and much misunder-
stood ; and I have felt that, as in many other cases, the
need would come for interpreters between those who are
carrying on scientific research and the public, in order to
explain and justify their work." Probably everyone will
agree with the Lord Justice : but what are we to say of
those responsible owners of great journals who not only
abstain from providing such interpretation but allow
anonymous and incompetent writers to mislead the public?
Is the literary critic of a prosperous journal employed to
write the City article ?

There has been a repetition this year (1912) of the usual
misrepresentation on the occasion of the meeting of the
British Association. The President, Professor Schafer,
had let it be known that his address would be concerned
with the chemistry of living processes, the gradual passage
of chemical combinations into the condition which we
call " living," and the possibility of bringing about this
passage in the chemical laboratory without the use of
materials already elaborated by previously existing "living"
material. The announcement was immediately made in
some " newspapers " that "startling revelations " were to be
made by the President, that he was " to throw a bomb-
shell " into the camp, etc. He did nothing of the kind.
He gave an admirable and clear statement of the progress
during recent years towards the realisation of the con-

396 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

struction in the laboratory by chemical methods of the
complex chemical combination which exhibits those
" activities " — essentially movements, unions, disruptions
and re-unions of extremely minute particles— which we
call " living." The conclusion that such a gradual building
up has taken place in past ages of the history of our earth
was formulated more than forty years ago by Spencer,
Tyndall, Huxley, Haeckel, and others, and has not been
seriously attacked in the interval, but, on the contrary,
generally accepted as a legitimate inference from the facts
ascertained and the theory of the evolution or gradual
development of what we call the material universe.

Professor Schafer expressed the opinion, anticipated and
shared by many other investigators, that the progress of
chemical experiment renders it probable that further steps,
culminating in the successful construction of " living "
matter in the laboratory, are not beset by any insurmount-
able obstacles and will sooner or later be accomplished.
There was no " bomb-shell " in this statement, and no ex-
citement as its result among scientific workers nor amongst
those who do not neglect to study the writings of the
" interpreters " desired by Lord Justice Moulton. There
are still some such interpreters carrying on the work of
Huxley and of Tyndall, those great interpreters whose
writings should be studied and treasured as classics.

The most interesting result of the attempt to treat the
discussions at Dundee as a newspaper " sensation," com-
parable to the reports relating to motor-car bandits or
the pronouncements of political factions, has been its com-
plete failure. Serious thinkers of all schools seem to have
adjusted themselves to the more modern way of regarding
natural processes even when these relate to matters of
such age-long interest to mankind as the inception of
" living " organisms and of conscious humanity itself.
There are fewer now than there were forty years ago who

THE EXPLODED GHOST CALLED CALORIC 397

insist on the older barbaric "explanations" of these
marvels. Few indeed venture to assert the existence of
"spirits" — ghostly essences of various grades and capacities
which enter the bodies of living things and escape from
them like so much gas when they die.* The vegetable
soul, the animal soul and the human soul are no longer
imagined and described to us as definite " things " sup-
posed to " explain " the complex processes which go
on respectively in plants, animals and men.

Seventy years ago the facts which were known as to that
changing state of material substances which we describe by
the words "hot" and "cold," were held to be "explained"
by the existence of a ghostly thing called "caloric," which
was believed to enter various bodies and make them
hot and then to escape from them and so make them
cold. Primitive man multiplied such ways of explaining
each and every process going on in the world around him
and in himself. Mere words or names lost their first
simple signification and acquired permanent association
with imaginary spirits, demons, and haunting intangible
ghosts, by reference to which our ancestors in their earliest
" reasoning " explained to their own satisfaction the
strange and sudden events fraught to them with the daily
experience of pain or pleasure. The whole world was held
by them to be " bewitched," and it was only by slow and
painful steps that some knowledge of the persistent order
of Nature was obtained, whilst the phantastic imagery
which had served in its place, bit by bit disappeared.
" Caloric " was a late lingerer, and was only got rid of

* This subject is discussed and some account of the chemical nature of
protoplasm given in my book, ' Science from an Easy Chair ' (Methuen,
1910), which consists of a first series of papers similar to those which are
collected in the present volume as a " Second Series." The chapters in
the earlier volume to which I wish to direct the reader's attention are those
entitled " The Universal Structure of Living Things," " Protoplasm, Life
and Death," " Chemistry and Protoplasm," " The Simplest Living Things."

3g8 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

when what had been so called was shown to be a vibration
of particles — a mode or kind of motion — a " state/' and
not a mysterious fluid existing as a thing in itself.

Just as " caloric " no longer serves and is no longer
possible as the supposed " explanation " of the behaviour
of bodies in the hot or the cold state, so we no longer
require the supposition of" spirits " of one kind or another
as " explanations " of the living state of those products of
our mother earth which are called plants, animals and
men. In neither case do such " spirits " really " explain "
the state in question ; they are only names for the activity
which it was imagined that they served to explain. These
states or affections of matter remain as wonderful and
important to us as they were before. But by giving up the
prehistoric notions about them which have been handed
on until the present day we can think of them in a more
satisfactory way — a way which avoids the multiplication
of unnecessary imaginary agencies and the conception of
an intermittent and hesitating Creative Power, and substi-
tutes for it the operation of continuous orderly and pre-
ordained forces.

It is true that we can neither ascertain nor imagine
either the beginning or the end of the orderly process
which we discover in operation to-day. We can trace it
back by well-established inference into a remote past, but
a beginning of it is not within the possibilities of human
thought. We can, with reasonable probability of being
correct, foretell the changes and developments which time
will bring in many combinations and dispositions which
are the manifestations of that process at this moment of
time, but we can not even think of a cessation of that
process.

Should we ask, " Why does this process exist ? " there
is no answer. Nature does not reply ; an awful silence
meets our inquiry. The reproach is often urged against

NIGHTMARES DESTROYED BY SCIENCE 399

science — the knowledge of the order of nature — that it
does not tell us " why we are here." Man inevitably
desires to know why he is here ; but " science," as that
word is now understood, does not profess or even seek to
answer that question, although the false hope has been
raised in ignorant minds, sometimes by knavery, sometimes
by honest delusion, that it could do so. By knowledge of
nature mankind can escape much suffering and gain the
highest happiness, but that is all that we can hope for
from it. We shall never satisfy our curiosity ; we shall
never know in the same way as we know the order of
nature, why — to what end, for what purpose — that order
and not another order exists.

It is very generally supposed that it is the business and
profession of science "to explain " things — that is to say,
to show how this or that must and does come about in
consequence of the operation of the great general pro-
perties of matter, known as the "laws" of chemistry and
physics. This is true enough, but it is equally the work
of science to assert that of many things for which mankind
demands " an explanation," there is no explanation. It
is further the work and the service of science to destroy
and to remove from men's minds the baseless and pre-
tended " explanations " which are no explanations but
causes of error, blindness, and suffering.

Science, the destroyer of " explanations," is the purifier
of the human mind, its cleanser from the crippling infec-
tion of prehistoric error and from domination by the
terrifying nightmares of our half-animal ancestry.

Finally, in reference to the very ancient attempt to
"explain" life and consciousness by the assertion that
they are due to " spirits " which enter the bodies of
animals and men, I must caution the reader against
supposing that — for those who do not accept the belief
that such spirits exist — the gravity and mystery of the

4oo MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

manifestations of life and consciousness are in any way
lessened. Those who reject the belief in " spirits " do
not in consequence reject the ethical and moral doctrines
which have too long been rendered " suspect " by the
shadow cast over them by ancient superstition. The
disappearance of that shadow will reveal friends where
enemies were supposed to be entrenched.

At the meeting of the British Association in 1879 I
delivered an address on " Degeneration : a Chapter in
Darwinism." In the printed version of that address,
published in the same year, there are some statements
bearing on the matter above discussed which I reproduce
here, since I can still make them with conviction.

"Assuredly it cannot lower our conception of man's
dignity if we have to regard him as ' the flower of all the
ages ' bursting from the great stream of life which has
flowed on through countless epochs with one increasing
purpose, rather than as an isolated miraculous being, put
together abnormally from elemental clay, and cut off by
such portentous origin from his fellow animals and from
that gracious nature to whom he yearns with filial instinct,
knowing her, in spite of fables, to be his dear mother."

"A certain number of thoughtful persons admit the
development of man's body by natural processes from ape-
like ancestry, but believe in the non-natural intervention
of a Creator at a certain definite stage in that develop-
ment, in order to introduce into the animal which was at
that moment a man-like ape, something called ' a con-
scious soul ' in virtue of which he became an ape-like man."

" No one ventures to deny, at the present day^that every
human being grows from the egg in utero, just as a dog or
a monkey does ; the facts are before us and can be scruti-
nised in detail. We may ask of those who refuse to admit
the gradual and natural development of man's conscious-
ness in the ancestral series, passing from ape-like forms

WHEN DID THE SOUL ARRIVE? 401

into indubitable man, ' How do you propose to divide the
series presented by every individual man in his growth
from the egg ? At what particular phase in the embryonic
series is the soul with its consciousness implanted ? Is it
in the egg ? in the foetus of this month or that ? in the
new-born infant ? or at five years of age ? ' This, it is
notorious, is a point upon which churches have never been
able to agree ; and it is equally notorious that the un-
broken series exists — that the egg becomes the fcetus, the
foetus the child, and the child the man. On the other
hand we have the historical series — the series, the exist-
ence of which is inferred by Darwin and his adherents.
This is a series leading from simple egg-like organisms to
ape-like creatures, and from these to man. Will those who
cannot answer our previous inquiries undertake to assert
dogmatically in the present case at what point in the
historical series there is a break or division ? At what
step are we to be asked to suppose that the order of
nature was stopped, and a non-natural soul introduced ?
. . . The theologian is content in the case of individual
development of the egg to admit the fact of individual
evolution, and to make assumptions which lie altogether
outside the region of scientific inquiry. So, too, it would
seem only reasonable that he should deal with the histori-
cal series, and frankly accept the natural evolution of man
from lower animals, declaring dogmatically, if he so please,
but not as an inference of the same order as are the
inferences of science, that something called the soul
arrived at any point in the series which he may think suit-
able. At the same time, it would appear to be sufficient
even for the purposes of the theologian, to hold that what-
ever the two above-mentioned series of living thing contain
or imply, they do so as the result of a natural and uniform
process of development, that there has been one * miracle '
once and for all time. • • •

402 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

" The difficulties which the theologian has to meet when
he is called upon to give some account of the origin and
nature of the soul certainly cannot be said to have been
increased by the establishment of the Darwinian theory.
For from the earliest days of the Church, ingenious specu-
lation has been lavished on the subject.

" St. Augustine says (I give a translation of the Latin
original) : ' With regard to the four following opinions
concerning the soul — viz. (i) whether souls are handed on
from parent to child by propagation ; or (2) are suddenly
created in individuals at birth ; or (3) existing already
elsewhere are divinely sent into the bodies of the new-
born ; or (4) slip into them of their own motion — it is un-
desirable for anyone to make a rash pronouncement, since
up to the present time the question has never been dis-
cussed and decided by catholic writers of holy books on
account of its obscurity and perplexity — or, if it has been
dealt with, no such treatises have hitherto come into my
hands.' "

There must be many who will be glad to shake off the
illusion of explanation which is no explanation, and to
escape from the futile discussion of the possible behaviour
of spirits and ghosts born in the dreams of primaeval
savages. They will gladly accept the conclusion that the
marvellous qualities and activities of living things and
that inscrutable wonder, the mind of man, are outcomes
of the orderly process of Nature no less than are the
miracles which we call a buttercup, a rock crystal, a
glacier, the noon-day sun ! We can trace, by observation
and inference, the orderly growth and development of
these things from simpler things ; we can discover con-
tinuity and common properties determining their diverse
existence. But we find no explanation of them; we cannot
account for the properties of matter which determine
them, nor for the existence of anything — whether it be a

THE GREAT SILENCE 403

drop of water, or human thought and consciousness.
There are no special and exceptional " incomprehen-
sibles " requiring us to assume that special " principles "
or " spirits " are concerned with them whilst the rest are
to be accounted for and explained in a more general way.
Wherever we push our inquiries we come equally and
inevitably, as did primaeval man, to that of which there is
no explanation — the perpetual miracle, the miracle of the
nature of things, of existence itself. The man of science
bows his head in the presence of this all-pervading mystery.
He is called arrogant by those who arrogate to themselves
the right to " explain " things and to deal in vital spirits
and metaphysical nostrums for that purpose. From time
to time they fill with their proclamations the great silence
which he has learnt to accept with reverence and humility.
As the years roll on their hollow phrases are less frequent,
and acquire the pathetic interest which belongs to all
such decaying remnants of the thought and effort of the
childhood of man.

It seems still to be necessary to insist that it is not
reasonable to assume as an indisputable fact that man
can arrive at an " explanation " of existence and the
nature of things. This assumption has been made in the
past, and, by a wrell-known trick of advocacy, it has been
argued that since science fails to " explain " these things,
the old prehistoric fancies as to spirits — even though
they " explain " nothing and have themselves to be
" explained " — hold the field and must be accepted as true.
There is an alternative, and that is to admit our ignorance.
No man has ever seen or knows what is on the other side
of the moon, that which does not face our earth. There
are few amongst us who, in this admitted and complete
state of ignorance, would persist in declaring that we
must accept as true the suppositions of ancient races of
men as to the existence there of men-like creatures, or

404 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE

would be deluded by the argument that since we do not
know what is there the suppositions in question must be
accepted as true. We cannot, as a matter of observation,
assert that these supposed beings are not there, but we
can find no reason to make it appear even probable, nor
any means of proving by experiment, that they are. We
refuse to entertain such suppositions.

THE END

INDEX

Acrobats, female Cretan, 253
Agglutination test for typhoid fever,

354

Ague and gnats, 332
Airy, Sir George, and the Shah, 265
Akkas, a pygmy race, 235
Alexins, 353
Alpenrose, 16
Alpine flowers, 17, 19

grass, 20

Altamira cavern, paintings of the,247
Alternation of generations in jelly-
fish, tape -worms, sea-
squirts, and ferns, 226
Ambergris, 94, 191, 274
Amethyst, origin of the name, 95
Ancestral mammals, 136, 137
Andaman Islanders, 230
Angel of death, the, 331
Animals exterminated by man, 367
Antelopes, large and small species

of, 239

Anthropological garden, 234
Antitoxins, 348

the theory of their formation, 352
April fish, 268
Aquosity, 394
Aristotle, 86

and the mechanisms of living

things, 390

on sexes of plants, 102
Aristotle's notions on reproduction,

i 226
Arunta tribes of Australia, their

theory of conception, 229
Ascidian, anatomy of (figure), 278
gill slits of, 285

tadpole brain and eyeof (figure), 287
tadpole fixing itself by its head
(figure), 288

Ascidians, gem-like colours of, 29^.
glass-like, 296, 302
or sea-squirts or tunicates, 277

et seq.

phosphorescent, 299
various composite or compound

kinds, 296
Assizes, black, 330
Augustus Caesar and the calendar,

262

Aurignacian statuettes, 255
Australians, their views on spiritual
conception, 228

Bacteria as causes of disease, 339

Baking instead of roasting, 176

Barnacle fixes itself by its head, as
does Ascidian tadpole, 295
history of the, 293

Bataillon, his discovery of artificial
parthenogenesis, 213

Bate, Miss Dorothea, discovers a
strange extinct beast, 149

Baveno, 23

Bayeux tapestry, horse from, 57

Beaver, when exterminated in Bri-
tain, 367

Bees taken to New Zealand to ferti-
lise clover, 363
fertilise sage, 4

Beluga, or white whale, 385

Bestiaries, 87

Bezoar-stone, 94

Birds of New Zealand, such as the
Moa or Dinornis, Kiwi or
Apteryx, Takahe or Notor-
nis, Kakapo or Stringops,
Huia or long-billed crow,
Kea or sheep -killing parrot
359

26

406

INDEX

Biscay whale, the, 376
Bison very nearly extinct both in
America and Europe, 367,

373
Blood, the wonderful properties of,

.151

Blood-parasites, 340

Blood-red worm of the Thames
mud-banks, 368

Bode, Dr., and the Bond Street bust,
272

Boldini, modern painter, similarity
of his drawing to that of
prehistoric Cretans, 250

Borromeo isles, 23

Botryllus, 297
figure of, 281

British Museum Act of 1753, 318

Browne, Sir Thomas, on the breed-
ing of animals from rotten
wood, 223

Budding, reproduction by, 222

Buns, hot cross, 268

Burbot, 3

Butler, Mr. Samuel, on the larger
mammalia, 119

Cachalot, cruise of the, 273
Cagots, an accursed race in France,

242

Cagul, caverns of, 248
Calendar, the, 257
the Chinese, 264

Caloric, an exploded explanation, 398
Caprifigs, 103
Carnivorous animals and their teeth,

161

Carriers of disease, 339
Carthage, coin from, showing ele-
phant, 121
Carvings and pictures by cave-men,

245

Catalonia, rock drawings in, 248
Caverns, decorated prehistoric, 246
Cetyl, present in the fat of the sperm-
whale's head, 274

Chemotaxis, as guiding the sperma-
tozoa of ferns, 109
Childhood of man, the, 403
Chimpanzee and typhus fever, 336

its laughter, 207

Chinese picture of galloping horse, 59
Cholera carriers, 343

Christmas Island, ravaged by phos-
phate merchants, 369
Cinematograph described, 53
Clavelina, 296
Cleanliness, need for, 345
Clock, pendulum of, how seen, 67
Clover, Dutch, a false shamrock, 271

not successfully introduced into
New Zealand until bees
were also introduced, 363
Colour of flowers due to insects, 118

of ice and of liquid oxygen, 47
Combination of instantaneous pic-
tures, 70
Conception by intervention of spirits,

228

Congo pygmies, 230
Contortions of rock-strata, 8, 9
Convention in art, 84
Cookery, sham French, 179

neglected by English women, 181

wholesale, 177
Cooking and food, 165, 170
Correlation, small size as an instance

of, 243

Crapaudina (toad-stone), 91
Crayfish, stone in, 93
Cretan female acrobats, 253
Crete, ancient frescoes from, 250
Cycad, 106, 114

Darwin's theory, 391

Date-palm, fertilisation of, 103

Degeneration — a chapter in Dar-
winism, 400
and simplification, 293
not a true retrogression, 306

Dents du Midi, 16, 22

Derby, Epsom (figure), 57

Deserts made by man, 370

Diarrhoea of infants carried by house-
flies, 344, 345

Diet, vegetarian, carnivorous and
mixed, 163

Disease, carriers of, 339

Dog, galloping (figure), 57

Easter eggs, 268
Eastertide, 267
Eastra and Pascha, 267
Echites, the viper stone, 93
Edelweiss, 5, 6

Egg-pits on fern's prothallus (figures)
104, 105

INDEX

407

Eiger glacier, n, 16
Eismeer, 1 1

Elephant, African, north of the
Sahara, 249

African (figure), 121

Indian (figure), 120
Elephants (chapter), 119

ancestors of, 143-147

dig with their tusks, 131

ears of, 125

food consumed by, 123

foot of, 128

in menageries in ancient times, 127

in war, 134

intelligence of, 133

legs of, 129

Mr. Rudyard Kipling on, 130

of Julius Caesar, 128

Shakespeare on the legs of, 130

size of, 123

teeth of, 126, 141

Topsell on, 130

trunk of, 132

tusks of, 124

weight of, 123

Elk, approaching extinction, 367
Emin Pasha, elephant tusks of, 125
Equinox and solstice, 260
Evans, Sir Arthur, his discoveries in

Crete, 250
Existence is the perpetual miracle,

403

Explained, things, and things not
explained by science, 388

Explanation of existence and the
nature of things not pos-
sible, 403

Explanations, barbaric, of life and

consciousness, 397
pretended, destroyed by science,

399
which are no explanations, 399

Fatherless frogs, 213

Fern, a sexless spore-bearer, 106

spore, germination of, 99
Ferns as big as trees, 1 17

of the coal-measures, 1 17

the ancestors of flowers, 107

which produce seed, 117
Fern-seed, 96

how to gather, 98

tradition as to, 97

Fertilisation by the wind, 228
of clover by bees, 363
of ferns, 106
of frogs' egg, 213, 214
of sage, 4

Figs and capri-figs, 103
Flavours of grouse, canvas-backed
duck, whales, flounders,
eels, mutton and beef, 190
Flies, house-, danger and diminution

of, 332, 344, 345
Flower, diagram of, in
Flowering fern (Osmunda), no
Flowering plant and fertilisation,

116

Food and habit, 173
Forests, injury caused by cutting

them down, 370
Frames, picture, 327
Frogs, tadpole (figures), 291

Gallop, flying (figures of), 57

Galloping horse, 52

Gaol fever, 330

Generations of fern, alternate sexual

and sexless, 106
Geneva, lake of, 15
Germicidal poison in the blood, 348
Gericault, his picture of a galloping

horse, 57

Ginko tree, 106, 114
Gioconda, La, 212
Glacial periods, 38, 39, 41
Glacier grains, 26

scratches and polish, 49

the Corner, big enough to build

three cities, 46
Glaciers, 29
flow of, 45

increase and shrinkage of, 35
movement of, 35
vast size of ancient, 35
Gletsch, 23, 25
Globe-flower, 16
Gnaphalium leontopodium, 6
Goa-stone, 94
Goat, skull and jaw of common,

150, 151

the rat-toothed (figure), 155
Gregory XIII, Pope, suppressed ten

days in the calendar, 263
Grew, the discoverer of the fertilising
action of pollen, 103

408

INDEX

Grote, Mrs., on Owen's smile, 211
Grimsel pass, 28

Guinea, New, pygmy men of, 237
Gulliver and Hercules, 236

Harpoon, the shot, invented by
Sven Foyn, the great means
of exterminating whales,
37.8

Harvey's dictum, 223
Heart, reversible, of Ascidians, 280
Heaving, an English custom, 269
Herb, Paris, 21
Herodotus, 87

on the African pygmies, 236
Herring's racing plates, 56
Hirase and Ikeno, Japanese dis-
covers, 115

Horse-jumping (figure), 59, 64
the galloping, 52
various figures of, 55, 57, 59, 64
Hortus sanitatis, picture from the,

89

Hotels, bad food in, 176
Huli, a Hindoo feast, 269
Huxley and Lionel Beale, 392
Hyena, the laugh of the, 208

Ice, colour of, 47

properties of, 31
Ice-caves, 43
Ignorance, the scientific man admits

his, 403

Illusions as to size, 81, 82
Immunity, 346-348
Incubus, the, 228
Infants killed by house-flies, 344
Inoculations, 346-348
Insects, fertilisers of flowers, 17
the cause of the colours of flowers,

118

Interlaken, I

Interpreters of science needed, 395
Irrigation, need of this great art and

modern engineering, 371
Ivory known before the elephant,

133

Japanese picture of galloping horse,

59

Jenner introduced inoculation with
cowpox to protect against
smallpox, 347

Jephson, Mr., and the great elephant's

tusks of Emin Pasha, 125
Jewel in the toad's head, 85
Jonson, Ben, refers to fern-seed, 96
Julius Caesar and the calendar, 262,

263

Jungfrau, 7
railway, 1 1

Kew Gardens, green rose in, 112
Kisses, 193

two kinds of, 193
Kissing an exploration by smell, 195

between men, abandoned, 194
Koban, flying gallop (figure), 57
Koran, drinking the ink which
has been used to write a
sentence of the, 95
Krebstein, stone from crayfish, 93

Laplanders, 237
Laugh of derision, 211

of escape, 209

of exultation, 21 1
Laughter, 205

of animals, 207, 208

origin of, 207

value of, 206

varieties of, 207
Leonardo da Vinci, bust supposed to

be by him, 272

Lepidotus, fossil fish, the teeth of
which are the toadstones,

91

Lerida rock shelter, 248
Lice in the heads of 80 per cent, of

rural school-children, 333
regarded with favour, 332
Liitschine Valley, i

Maggots, views of early writers as to

their origin, 223
Magic and medicine, 94
Majorca, extinct rat-toothed goat

discovered there, 150
Make-believe and children, 257
Malaria and mosquitoes, 333
Malic acid and chemotaxis, 109
Mammoth destroyed by man, 366

the, of Siberia, 122
Man as a carrier of disease, 343
Man, the flower of all the ages, 400
Marchantia-like growth from fern-
spore, 100, IOI

INDEX

409

Martagon lily, 2O

Mai ten cat, 24

Mastodon, the American, 142

Meaning and real nature of things,

39°

Medicine and magic, 94
Memory and smells, 185
Mercedonius, the intercalary month,

261

Meritherium, 147
Metchnikoff and phagocytes, 352,

355
Miani, pygmies brought to Naples

by, 234

Microbes, Pasteur's word, 339
Milton, his notion of creation, 223
Mincopies, a pygmy race, 230
Miracle, the perpetual, of existence,

403

Miracles — a buttercup, a rock-
crystal, a glacier, the
noonday sun, 402
Misconceptions about science, 388
Mites and itch insects, 296
Mithridates and poison, 349
Molar teeth of man, 169
Monaco, the Prince of, books pro-
duced at his charges, 247
Monkeys and typhus fever, 336
Montagu, Lady, introduced inocula-
tion for smallpox, 347
Month, lunar and calendar distin-
guished, 261
the Greek, 259
Months, Chinese names of the, 264

Roman names of the, 261
Moon, apparent size of, 79
artists' errors about the, 75, 81
the, and the stage, 83
the other side of, not seen, 403
suppositions as to what is there
cannot be entertained, 404
track of the rising (figure), 77
Moraines (of glaciers), 50
Morot, Aime", painter of the photo-
graphed gallop, 56
Moulton, Lord, his definition of

health, 346
Muses, ancient and later names of,

3". 312

Museum and Muse'e of Paris, 310
Ashmole's at Oxford, 313
of Alexandria, 312

Museum, the British, 313

the Victoria and Albert, 316
Museums, 310
badly governed, 318
no agreement as to their purpose

or methods, 317
service rendered to the State by,

321,322
Musk, 1 88
Musk-ox, rapidly being exterminated

by man, 378
Muybridge, his photographs of

galloping horse, 54
Mycenaean art and the gallop, 62, 63
gallop (figure), 57

Narwhal, the, 385

National Portrait Gallery, 327

Nature effaced by man, 365

of things, a miracle, 403

the order of, 389
Neandermen, 245
Negrilloes, 232
Negritoes, 232

Negroid race of Mentone caves, 238
Newgate, gaol fever at, 330
New Year's Day, 257

laughter on, 209

of the Jews, 258

of the Greeks, 259

of the Mahometans, 258

of the Romans, 258

of Julius Caesar, 259
New Zealand, animal life in, 357

failure of the colonists to intro-
duce birds, 364

rabbits flourished too much and
ferrets introduced to check
them — failed to do so and
became a serious nuisance,

3<53

slaughter of native birds, and
destruction of forests and
bushes by colonists, 361

success in introduction of sheep

and cattle, 363
half

animal an-

Nightmares of our

cestry, 399
Notochord, the, of the Ascidian

tadpole, 284

Onions, smell of, 189
Opsonins or relishes, 354

INDEX

Opsonising microbes, 355, 356

Oran, in North Africa, rock draw-
ings at, 218

Orca gladiator, the killer, a terrible
hunting whale, 385

Origin of the soul, treated by
St. Augustine, 402

Osmunda, royal fern, no
figure of, in

Owen, Sir Richard, his smile, 212

Ox, the great wild, of Europe — last
seen in 1627, 367

Oxygen, liquid, colour of, 47

Paces and poses of wild animals, 72

Palaeomastodon, 145, M6

Papuans, 232

Paris, herb, 21

Parmaceti of Shakespear, 272

Parthenogenesis, 213-229

Parthenon, horse from (figure), 59

Pavloff on digestion, 175

Peacocks, train feathers of, as ex-
amples of both progressive
and degenerative develop-
ment, 307, 308, 309

Pediculus vestimenti, 331

Pelorus Jack, a friendly whale, 380

Penck, Professor, on date of the
glacial period, 43

Petticoat with five flounces on a pre-
historic Cretan statuette,
252

Petticoats, prehistoric, 244

Pfeffer's discovery, 108

Phagocytes and chemotaxis, 109
the devourers of disease germs,
348

Photography, instantaneous, value

of, 75

Physiologus, the Byzantine cyclo-
pedia, 87

Picture galleries must not be too
large, 326

Pictures and specimens, reserved
and exhibited collections,
326
prehistoric, of human beings, 249

Pine-cone, diagram of, in

Pinkus, Dr., on spermaceti in Dr.
Bode's bust, 273

Pinus strobus, 23

Plants exterminated by man, 369

Pliny on toadstone, 92
Poa alpina, 20

Poison-producing parasites, 341
Poisoning of rivers by civilised man,

368

Pollen carried by wind, 113, 114
Polypody fern, spore-cases of (figure),

96

Prancing, 61

Prehistoric petticoats, 244
Primitive man and the belief in

spirits, demons and ghosts,

397

Prothallus from spore of fern, 100,101
Protozoa contrasted with bacteria as

disease germs, 340
Pygmies of the Nile on a Greek vase

(figure), 235
the Mincopies, Akkas, Bushmen,

/Etas and Samangs, 230
Pygmy hogs, deer, buffaloes, 240
races, advantages of, 241
races of man, 230

regarded as pathological, 242
why do they exist ?, 239
Pyrola, 20

Pyrosoma — a phosphorescent com-
pound Ascidian, 299-301
Pyrrhus and his elephants, 133

Quartz, smell given out by, 192

Races, pygmy, 230

Rat, the Coypu, skull and jaw of, 152,

153

Rat-toothed animals, 156

Records, to keep, is first duty of a
national museum, 320

Redi, his experiments on the pro-
duction of maggots, 223

Re-gelation, 31, 33

Reinach on galloping horse, 60, 61
on Joan of Arc's laughter before
the stake, 210

Reindeer men, 245

Reproduction without fertilisation of
the egg, 221

Retina, impression on the, 53

Rhone glacier, 25, 27

Rivers poisoned by man, 368

Roasting of meat, decline of, 177

Robin redbreast disliked by the
New Zealand colonists, 364

INDEX

411

Roches moutonne'es, 49
Rodin, the sculptor, 84
Rorquals or finners, 377
Rose, the Alpine, 16
Rose, the green, 112
R6tisseur, the, 183
Royal fern, osmunda, no
figure of, 1 1 1

Sage, the yellow, fertilisation ef, 4

St. Helena, plants exterminated, 369

Salvia glutinosa, 4

Salps, alternation of generations in

the, 302, 303
floating sea-squirts, 302

Schafer, Professor, his presidential
address to the British Asso-
ciation at Dundee in 1912,

, 395, 396

Scheidegg, u

Schillings, his remarkable photo-
graphs, 73
Schweinfurth, discovery of the Akka

pygmies by, 236

Science, misconceptions about, 388
Sea-birds, photographs of, 71
Sea-squirts or Ascidians, 277
Secret, the, of a terrible disease, 330
Seed, nature of, 116
Seeing, some account of, 67
Shah of Persia wishes to behead the

Astronomer Royal, 265
Shakespeare and the jewel in the

toad's head, 85
refers to fern seed, 96
Shamrock, false, 270

the real, 269, 271
Simplification and degeneration, 293,

304, 305-309

Sinclair, Mr. Upton, on food, 164
Skin, the, as a defence against the

entry of parasites, 342
Smell, attraction and repulsion by,
200-202

curious, of sponges, 187

minute size of particles which pro-
duce, 199

of rubbed quartz stones, 192

of smelts, of mackerel, of snail, of
cuttle-fish, of musk-rat, of
musk-deer, of toads, of
civet, badger, and fox, of
bats, 188

Smell,sense of, differs in development

197

unconscious guidance by, 203
Smells and memory, 185
and perfumes, 104
caused by bacteria, 189
Snow, red, 34
Snow-crystals, 33
Soldanella, 17
Solstice and equinox, 260
Soul, St. Augustine on the origin of

the, 402

when introduced into the develop-
ing individual man, 401
when introduced into the man-
like ape, 400
Spark, electric, used in photography,

Spermaceti and a bust, 272

chemistry of, 273 ^

Sperms, motile, of the Gingko and

Cycad, 114
or spermatozoa of ferns, 105

Sperm - sacs on fern's prothallus
(figures), 105

Sperm-whale or cachalot, 273

Sphenodon or tuatara, 358

Spiders compared with scorpions, 294

Spirits and ghostly essences, 397
are no explanation of life, 398

Spiritual conception, 228

Spore of fern germinating (figures),
100

Spore-bearer (fern), 106

Stage, the, and the moon, 83

Star- patterned mats which are com-
pound Ascidians (figure),
281

Steatopygous figures drawn by
bushmen and carved by
Aurignacians, 252

Stones, magical, from various ani-
mals, 93

Strata, contortions of, 8, 9

Stubbs, painter of the flying gallop, 60

Suffolk crag, 39, 49

Sulphurous acid to ward off body-
louse, 337

Swift derived Lilliputians from story
of Hercules, 236

Tadpole of frog and ascidian com-
pared (figures), 283, 285

412

INDEX

Tadpoles of the sea, strange history

of the, 276
Teeth of man, 162, 166

of the pig (figure), 140

typical, 138, 139
Tetrabelodon, 143, 144
Ticks living on African natives,

333

Tiger, skull of (figure), 160, 161
Toad, jewel in its head, 85
Toad-stones, 88, 89, 90
Toleration of poisonous drugs, 350
Totensee, 28
Trout, 2
Tuatara, the, a New Zealand Kzard,

358

Turtles, the green, of turtle soup
now being brutally exter-
minated, 379

Typhoid carriers, 343

Tophus causes deaths of Russian

medical officers, 337
fever, 330, 334, 335

discovery of the mode of its
dissemination, 335, 336

Vaccination, 349
Veddas of Ceylon, 205, 231
Vegetarians and their teeth, 159
Vernet Carl, his picture of a horse,

57
Virgil on mares fertilised by the

wind, 228

Virgin reproduction, 221
Vital principle, a, 392
Vitality and aquosity, 392, 393,

394

Wasp-like waists of prehistoric
figures of women, 250

Water and the aqueous principle,

394

the strange and peculiar pro-
perties of, 393

Water-lily, the common, 112
Week, days of the. 259

Greek, of ten days, 259
Weymouth pine, 23
Whalebone whales, nearly extinct,

376
Whales, annual slaughter of, 377,

378
extermination of, by man, 375-

378

food of, 386

the problem as to the effect of
pressure on the diving
whale, 383
toothed, 384, 385
value of the whale fisheries, 377
Why are we here ? No answer to

this question, 399
Wind supposed to fertilise mares,

228

Winter-green, 20

Wissman, von, on English grilled

meat and London stout, 182

Wolf, when destroyed in Britain,

367
Women drawn on a rock-shelter at

Lerida, Spain, 249
Wood-sorrel, the shamrock, 271
Wouwerman, his representation of

moving wheels, 66

Year, length of, 259
Yellow fever and mosquitoes, 332
Yorkshire pudding, improperly pre-
pared, 178

Zweilutschinen, I, 2

t'NWIX BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESIIAM PRES3, WOKIXG AND LONDON'

Q

171
L32
1915

Lankester, (Sir) Edwin Ray

Science from an easy
chair

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