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SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

VOLUME X

JANUARY TO JUNE, 1920

NEW YORK Br
THE SCIENCE PRESS
1920

Copyright, 1919
THe ScteENcE PRESS

PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
LANCASTER, PA.

THE SCIENTIFIC
MONTHLY

JANUARY, 1920

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN’*

By C. B. DAVENPORT
FORMERLY MAJOR, S. C.
AND
ALBERT G. LOVE
ET, COL, M. C., U. S. A;

I, STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

HE ideal population of any country is one in which all the
a, inhabitants are physically sound, mentally competent and
temperamentally controlled. Actually, the condition of any
population comes far from meeting the ideal. Witness the army
of doctors, the cities of hospitals, the thousands of court-houses,
jails and penitentiaries. Those persons who come to the notice
of such physicians and such institutions are more or less sporad-
ically or even accidentally brought to notice. Any survey of
the physical, mental and temperamental health of a large sec-
tion of the population taken without selection had until recently
not been made. A complete survey of the defects in the Amer-
ican population which would give information would be of im-
portance for many interests. Such knowledge would be impor-
tant from the standpoint of social and industrial life, since it
would give some insight into the suitability of the population for
the various occupations which our social organization requires.

1 This study is based on data recorded on Form 1010 of the office of
the Provost Marshal’s General and Surgeon General of the Army. Ac-
knowledgments are made to Colonel James Easby-Smith, Colonel Frank
H. Wigmore and Colonel Frank R. Keefer, of the Provost Marshal Gen-
eral’s Office. The statistics were prepared in the Section of Medical
Records, Medical Department, U. S. Army, compiled under the direction
of the Surgeon General, M. W. Ireland, and published with his permission.
This paper is extracted from the Introduction of a larger work which is to ~
appear shortly under the same title as a Congressional document.

6 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

It would have social-medical bearings, since it would indicate
the physical and mental status of our population in different
parts of the country, amid different sanitary conditions-and with
varying opportunities for medical and surgical treatment. It
would have important military bearings since it would indicate
the proportion of men available for military service of various
kinds. It would have social-therapeutic bearings, since it would
indicate the size and nature of the task before those who would
seek to improve, by better conditions, the physical and mental
standings of our population. Finally, it would have a biological
and eugenical significance in so far as it would reveal the inher-
ent failures in man to make complete adaptation to the rapidly
advancing requirements of a highly artificial civilization, the
constitutional limitations of the various races to meet the con-
ditions imposed by that civilization, and the influence of mili-
tary selection on the breeding stock of the next generation.

II. METHOD

The emergency of a great war, however, made necessary
the drafting of 3,000,000 men. This included all kinds of men
outside of institutions between the ages of eighteen and thirty
years. Military necessity demanded that careful physical and
mental examination be made of these men in order to eliminate
those who would not be fit for the severe service which they
would be called upon to perform. The examination was made
by physicians in thousands of local boards and dozens of camps
for a period of over one year. Each man was examined by one
physician and in many cases by from four to twelve. These
physicians were often specialists and each rendered a verdict
upon the man’s physical condition, and, in case a significant
blemish was found, whether important enough to prevent ac-
ceptance or not, diagnosis of the defect was recorded upon the
physical examination form carried by the recruit. The records
thus made were sent to the office of the Surgeon General of the
Army, copied upon statistical cards, and counted and tabu-
lated. They form the basis of the present study.

The total number of men involved in the present study was
about 2,500,000. Of these about 500,000 were rejected. by the
medical examiners of the local boards, and there are 2 lots of
about 1,000,000 each who were examined at mobilization camps,
September, 1917, to October, 1918. This number constitutes
practically all of those rejected by local boards and about two
thirds of those examined by mobilization camps, but it is repre-

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN é

sentative of all. A few men between the ages of eighteen and
twenty-one are included, but the great majority are men be-
tween the ages of twenty-one and thirty years inclusive. The
exact number of men examined to furnish these data can never
be precisely known. By a method of approximation based upon
statistics of the Provost Marshal General’s office and those of
the Surgeon General’s office, a hypothetical number of 2,753,922
is arrived at, and this is used as the “‘ strength,” or total popula-
tion, upon which ratios are calculated. In the present paper the
unit of discussion is the rate of incidence of a particular defect
in 1,000 men. The rate 1, therefore, when given as the rate for
a defect, means that 1 man out of 1,000 was found with that
defect. Since the total of the men is about 2,754,000, “1”
means that there were 2,754 men found with the given defect.
The rate “2” means that there were twice this number, 7.e.,
about 3,500, etc. In the present paper, rates will usually be
given as integral numbers, except in the case of small ratios.

III. RESULTS

It is proposed to consider in turn: first, the relative fre-
quency of the main groups of defects found; secondly, the classi-
fication of men in relation to military service on the basis of
these defects; and thirdly, the relation of the defects to geo-
graphical distribution, occupation and race.

1. Total Defects Found

In the total population examined there were found 468 men
defective per 1,000 examined. That is to say, over half of the
men were found to be without any physical or mental blemish
significant enough to be recorded. In some of the men 2 or
more defects were noted, so that in the total there are 557 de-
fects noted per 1,000 men examined. The number would have
been somewhat higher except for the fact that only one, the
major defect, was, in the first million men, copied from the
examination form and was used in the present statistics. The
number 557 is important because it represents the sum of all
of the ratios per 1,000 men examined for the 269 defects and
groups of defects that were recognized.

Of the defects found, those of a mechanical sort, involving
bones and joints, appendages, hands and feet, were commonest
and constitute about 39 per cent., or about two fifths, of all de-
fects. The second place is taken by defects of the sense organs,
about 12 per cent.; next come the two great and nearly equally-

8 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

sized disease-groups of tuberculosis and venereal disease,
which constitute together 11 per cent.; then follow the cardio-
vascular diseases and defects, about 10 per cent.; and those that
fall into the group of defects of developmental and metabolic
processes, also about 10 per cent. Of minor importance are the
groups of nervous and mental defects, about 6 per cent.; dis-
eases of the nose and throat, about 5 per cent. ; those of the skin
and teeth, about 3 per cent.; those of the respiratory organs
(other than tuberculosis) 1 per cent.; and “others” about 3
per cent.

The defects of the mechanical group are, as stated, far and
away the commonest defects found in examination for military
service and they constitute the most important group from the
military point of view. As stated, the group includes about two
fifths of all defects and 218 out of every 1,000 men examined
showed some important defect belonging to this group. Numer-
ically the most important item in this group, and indeed in the
whole list of defects found in young men, is that of weak feet,
including various forms. Of these, there were over 300,000
cases noted, constituting more than half of the group of mechan-
ical defects and giving a rate of 124 per 1,000 men examined.
That is, one eighth of the men examined had weak feet. As
for other mechanical defects, deformed and injured appendages
were found in over 50 men per 1,000, and hernia in 40 per 1,000.

Of the group of defects of the sense organs, about half were
refractive errors of the eye, and one fourth were defects and
diseases of the ear, including deafness.

Tuberculosis gave a rate of 30 per 1,000, constituting over
5.4 per cent. of the defects found. Venereal diseases gave a
rate of 32, nearly 5.8 per cent. of the defects.

Of the developmental and metabolic defects, the most impor-
tant are: weight below the standard required for military serv-
ice, under-height, curvature of the spine, goiter (both simple
and exophthalmic), defective chest measurement, imperfect de-
velopment of the genitalia, and cleft palate and hare lip. There
were 73,000 men found to be below the military standard of
weight and this group constitutes about 5 per cent. of the de-
fects found.

Of the nervous and mental defects, mental deficiency was
the most important. It was recorded by medical examiners in
nearly 40,000 men, but many more than this were detected in
subsequent psychological examinations.

Of diseases of the nose and throat, the most important was
enlargement of the tonsils, recorded in 64,000 cases.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 9

Finally, of defects of the skin and teeth, those of the teeth
constituted the most important group, including 40,000 men.

This summary of the various groups of defects found in the
American population must not be passed by without a word of
warning. As was stated above nearly half of the men examined
showed a defect considered worthy of remark. It may well be
a matter of surprise that not more defects were detected; prob-
ably this would have been the case, had the examinations been
less expeditiously conducted. Many of the defects were ob-
viously noteworthy only from a military standpoint. From the
point of view of civil life, it is no defect that the South Italian
is under 60 inches tall, though this constituted a defect from a
military point of view. Also many of the defects noted, includ-
ing most cases of venereal disease and many of the mechanical
group, were not of a grade sufficient to render the man unfit for
military service. A large proportion of the mechanical de-
fects, important as they are in a man who is to be used as part
of a fighting machine, are not a serious handicap in civil life.
Also many of the defects of the sense organs that were found
are easily capable of correction so as to fit a man to perform his
duties in civil life. Altogether it is clear that fully ninety per
cent. of the defects found are not of such a nature as to inter-
fere seriously with the man’s performing services of the highest
order in civil life.

From the standpoint of the Army, as stated, the defects are
not equally important. Recognition of this fact led to the es-
tablishment of 5 categories by draft and military officials.
There was first the so-called Class Vg, the class of men who,
on account of physical defects, were rejected by local boards
from any military service. These men were not sent to camp.
The men received at camp were placed in one of four “ Groups,”
denominated respectively A, B, C, D. Group A includes men
who were accepted for general military service. It comprised
2 groups, those in whom was found no defect, and those in
whom was found only some minor defect which did not inter-
fere with full military duty. Group B (which became operative
only during the latter part of the draft period) included regis-
trants with a defect which would permit of general military
service after a cure had been effected by operation or otherwise.
Group C included registrants with such defects as would permit
them to function only in a special or limited military service
in a special occupation or capacity, usually clerical. Finally,
group D, included men rejected on physical grounds from any

10 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

military service. The relation of certain major defects to
grouping is shown graphically in Fig. 1. It appears from this
figure that nervous and mental defects, including feebleminded-
ness, mental deficiency, paralysis, psychasthenia, constitutional

PROPORTIONAL. DISTRIGUTION OF CERTAIN DEFECTS
INTO GROUPS A,B,C,D, AND CLAS VG

PROPORTION PER t0CO
Geeve B CabmARny Too GmALL T REPRCEENT

os 6 Group a & crove 8 GB croup c ES Group o GB ciass V-G

00 EEE cee 2 iS HEV Nt he)! INA NL SR WS he
2. Loss oF deformity of extremities other then hands er fect. excep? maherean of f & Refractna errors ard defochwe wren, Cause not otated.

Fig. 1.

psychopathic states, and neurasthenia were among the defects,
victims of which were most commonly rejected. These are the
defects that are incapable of or incompatible with the strain of
military training and active service. It doubtless would have
been well had none of these been accepted for general military

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 11

service. It is noteworthy that certain of these conditions, like
psychasthenia, constitutional psychopathic states, neurasthenia
and hysteria, which are difficult to detect, were passed over by
local boards and were, therefore, an exceptionally common cause
for rejection at mobilization camps. On the other hand, the
figure shows that relatively few men were rejected for enlarged
inguinal rings (incipient rupture), for enlarged tonsils, for
venereal diseases, and even for flat foot. For loss of fingers,
hemorrhoids (piles) and hernia (rupture) about one half were
rejected and one half accepted for general military service.
Among other defects which led to nearly complete rejection
were otitis media (inflammation of the middle ear due to infec-
tion), valvular diseases of the heart, asthma, paralysis, and,
above all, tuberculosis. Altogether about 12 per cent. of the
men examined were rejected for any military service.

2. Distribution of the Defects Found.

We may now consider briefly the principal results secured
concerning the geographical, occupational and racial distribu-
tion of the principal diseases and defects. The statistics for
each disease have been classified by states, by sections, and by
consolidated sections. A word may be said at this point about
sections. It was early recognized that most of the larger states
could with advantage be divided into one or more sections, de-
pending upon geographical, occupational or racial differences.
Sections having similar geographical, occupational or racial
conditions were grouped in many cases and for the purpose of
further study grouped or consolidated. Some of the findings
of these consolidated sections are considered below toward the
end of this paper.

1. Tuberculosis.—The facts concerning the distribution of
this widespread and frequently fatal disease are shown in Fig. 2.
It appears at once that the region of highest incidence of this
disease is in the desert states of Arizona and New Mexico and
the adjacent states of Colorado and California. The reason for
this is that the described area includes so many young men who
have gone there because they were already victims of active
tuberculosis. Perhaps some of the tubercular men are sons of
men who have migrated to these states on account of non-
resistance to tuberculosis and themselves show the family di-
athesis. Thenext most infected territories are the two northern-
most Pacific states, the New England states and New York, and
the group of states immediately south of the Mason and Dixon

12 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

line, including also the states of Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi
and Georgia. New England has long been known as a region
with a high rate of tuberculosis, a disease whose fires are fed

PULMONARY AND SUSPECTED TUBERCULOSIS

= 1022— 19800
HS 1801— 21,00

E= 21.01 -— 3600
RATIO PER 1060 MEN REJECTIONS, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS
Fig. 2.

by the large number of recent immigrants. The states of Vir-
ginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky contain numerous sana-
toria for the tubercular. The high rate in the Gulf States is
probably due to the presence in them of a large proportion of
negroes, as this race, particularly the mulatto, is especially sus-
ceptible to tuberculosis. The smallest amount of tuberculosis is
found in the Great Plains region and the northern part of the
Rocky Mountain range. This is an area occupied largely by
non-British stock, which comprises exceptionally vigorous peo-
ple. Tuberculosis in the rural southern states tends to over-
weigh the rate of tuberculosis in the rural population of the
country as a whole. But in general, the agricultural areas of
the north show less tuberculosis than the urban districts.

2. Venereal Diseases.—These diseases have a social interest
which far exceeds the military one. Their numbers give a
rough index to the success that the different states have met
with in their efforts to inculcate the sex mores and the capacity
that the population of the different sections have in inhibiting
the sex instincts. The details of distribution in different parts

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 13

of the country shown in Fig. 3 will repay careful study. This
group includes syphilis, chancroid and gonococcus infections,
which together give a rate of 32. This rate, or at most the rate
of 56 per mille obtained from the second 1,000,000 men alone,
must be taken as the most precise information we have concern-
ing the proportion of men in the United States of the ages of
eighteen to thirty, who show symptoms of venereal disease at a

TOTAL, VENEREAL DISEASES

3 1503 — 21.00
EB 2101 — 31,00
3 s10: — 5300
@ 5501 —16332

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, SECOND MILLION MEN AT CAMP

Fic. 3.

given time. There is no adequate statistical justification for the
statement made by propagandists that 10 per cent., or more, of
the men of the United States are affected with venereal disease.
No “conservative estimate” can replace, or add anything to,
the results of the exhaustive individual examination of over
2,500,000 (probably 2,754,000) men which have led to the fig-
ures just quoted. It is to be remembered, moreover, that this rate
of 3, or at the maximum 5.6 per cent., includes the colored popu-
lation as well as white, and there is good statistical evidence
that colored men are several times as apt to be infected as white
men. As the figure shows, just those states with the largest
proportion of colored population have the highest ratio of
venereal diseases. Adjacent regions with an intermediate pro-
portion of colored population showed an intermediate amount.
Relatively small rates were found in the New England states, ~

14 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

including New York, and in the northern states west of the
Mississippi River. Wisconsin and the Dakotas, inhabited
largely by immigrants from northern Europe, especially Scan-
dinavia, show the lowest rate for these diseases. If the rural
rate is a shade higher than the urban rate, it is because the
negroes of the south unduly swell the proportion of infected
states. In the northern states, like Maine, Massachusetts, New
Jersey and Ohio, the rural rate is less than the urban. On the
other hand, the venereal disease rate for the eastern manufac-
turing states, and especially for the commuter sections (rate
1.9) is less than that of the northern agricultural districts; but
they are not lower than the rate in those agricultural regions
which contain a large proportion of recent immigrants, espe-
cially from northwestern Europe.

3. Goiter.—Goiter is a disease characterized by an enlarge-
ment or a misfunctioning of the thyroid gland which occupies
the lower neck region. Two types of goiter are distinguished ;
simple goiter, characterized primarily by enlargement of the
gland, and exophthalmic goiter characterized less by enlarge-
ment of the gland than by a nervous, irritable condition, by
rapid heart, and by distention of the eyeballs. It was formerly
regarded as rather a rare disease in America; it was thought of
as a defect which belongs to mountainous regions of Europe.
One of the surprises of the draft examination is that many
young men, the sex which is relatively the less affected by
goiter, should be so affected. There were found over 20,000
cases, giving a rate of about 8 men per 1,000. Not less surpris-
ing is the geographical distribution of simple and exophthalmic
goiter. It seems that goiter is a disease preeminently of the
Great Lakes basin and of the extreme northwest. Goiter is
almost absent throughout the southern states from the Cape
Fear River to the Colorado. This clean-cut distribution of
goiter should help in the solution of its etiology. The area of its
greatest incidence in the Great Lakes region nearly coincides
with that of the hard waters of the Niagara limestone. But in
Oregon and Washington, where the incidence reaches the maxi-
mum, the waters are soft. However, the water of the cities of
the northwest comes largely from the mountains of the Cascade
Range and the Rockies, and mountainous regions are those of
the highest incidence of goiter in the European countries. On
the other hand, the Great Lakes region is without important
mountains. Consequently the presence of lime in the water or
the mountain origin of drinking water can neither of them be

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 15

considered sufficient or exclusive causes of goiter. It is believed
that the distribution of goiter by occupations is subordinate to
the geographical distribution. It is not because the men of

GOITRE, SIMPLE

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARBS
Wig. 4.

GOITER, EXOPHTHALMIC

=|

ES 101 —aes

E 226 -450

BH 451 —942

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL. CAMPS AND LGCAL BOARDS
~ Fig. 4a.

Washington are largely lumbermen that they have goiter, but
it is because they live in the state of Washington. On the other
hand, it is not clear that race has no significance in the occurrence
of goiter. For not all persons who live in goiterous regions are
affected with goiter, and it is possible that there is a selection
based on race of those who show the symptoms. There is an
excess of goiter among the Scandinavians and the rate is higher
still in those sections with a large proportion of Finns, but it |
must be recognized that the sections inhabited by Finns are

16 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

both in northern Michigan, a center of goiter. See Fig. 4,
simple goiter, 4a, exophthalmic goiter.

4, Curvature of the Spine.—Though it can not be denied
that there are hereditary factors which favor the development
of spinal curvature, yet it is probable that a large proportion of
the cases are developed under conditions of bad posture. How-
ever it is induced, the amount of it found was strikingly large.
It occurred on the average 5.5 times in every 1,000 men ex-
amined. The map in Fig. 5 shows the distribution of curva-

CURVATURE OF SPINE

;

aremese

HY 60: — 903
RATIO PER (000 TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Fig. 5.

ture of the spine by states. It appears that New England and
the densely populated states about the Great Lakes are regions
of high incidence. States of the Great Plains and the Gulf show
relatively little curvature of the spine. The low rate in the
Gulf states is doubtless due largely to the negro population,
which is one relatively little affected with curvature of the spine.
In general, the great agricultural regions are less affected than
the eastern manufacturing sections. There is a minimum rate
in the sparsely settled sections along the Mexican border, which
contain a great many Indians and Mexican-Indians. The high-
est rate, 7 per 1,000, is found in sections having a large propor-
tion of French-Canadians.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 17

5. Defective Physical Development and Deficient Chest
Measurement.—These terms include a large range of conditions
due to a variety of causes. The group is of great significance
from a military standpoint, but its numbers are not very large,
only about 9,700, giving a rate of about 3.6 per 1,000 men.
The group has a great importance for social therapeutics since
it is largely due to unhygienic methods of living, although in a
considerable part it is due also to congenital defects. The dis-
tribution of these defects is shown in Figures 6, 6a, 6b. The center
for defective physical development is found in the states which
are grouped around Chattanooga, and it seems probable that
the high rate in this territory is largely determined by the pres-

OEVELOPMENTAL OEFECTS

LIMCLUDING DEFECTIVE PHYSICAL DCVELOPTIENT, UNDERWEIGHT, UNDERHEIGHT,
SEPICMMT CHEST MEASUREMENT. TOTAL, CAPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Fic. 6.

DEFECTIVE PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT DEFICIENT CHEST MEASUREMENT

a

‘AL, CAMPS AND LOCK. BoAnDS

Fic. 6a, Fig. 6b.

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AMD LOCAL BORROS RATIO PER 1000 MEN

ence of hookworm infection. There is another center in New
England, and this seems to be controlled very largely by the
French-Canadian immigrants, who show a high rate of defective
physical development. There is a slight excess of defective
physical development (but not of deficient chest measurement)
in rural districts. This is doubtless determined by the hook-
worm infection among the agricultural whites of the south. In
the northern states that contain large cities, there is a relatively _
low urban rate for “defective physical development” which
VOL. x.—2.

18 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

—~

UNDERWEIGHT MALNUTRITION

=

RATIO PER 1000 MEN ToT’

» CAMPS AND LOCAL BOAROS RATIO PER (00 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS ANDO LOCAL BOARDS

Fic. 7. Wie. Va.

may be due to an avoidance of this vague term by physical ex-
aminers. There is a relatively low urban rate for deficient chest
measurement in rural districts of the north and this may be in
part accounted for by the more varied muscular activity of the
children who live in the open country.

6. Underweight.—The physical examination standards pre-
scribed a minimum weight of 114 (or in certain cases 110)
pounds. Many of the registrants, however, were rejected who
weighed far more than the lower limit, when their weight was
markedly below that of the normal man of their height. Under-
weight, consequently, included two groups, those who were
racially small and those who suffered from malnutrition in the
broad sense. Malnutrition was, of course, chiefly the result of
parasitism ; and altogether there were noted 73,000 men, giving
a rate of 27 (Fig. 7a). The map in Fig. 7 shows the distribu-
tion of underweight in the different states. One obvious center
is in New England. This is largely due to the recent immigra-
tion to that section of small races like the South Ialians, Portu-
guese, and Polish Jews. The second center, in the southeast, is
chiefly due to hookworm and malaria. The underweight that
characterizes the state of California is doubtless chiefly due to

UNDERHEIGHT

@AVIO PCR 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Fie. 8.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 19

tuberculosis, but may in part be due to the presence of small
races, like the Japanese. Underweight is prevailingly an urban
defect, primarily because the northern cities which tend to con-
trol the statistical result are those to which the small races of
South Italians and Polish Jews have largely immigrated.

7. Underheight.—Stature is determined primarily by racial
conditions. Thus, the Scotch are the tallest people on the globe
and the South Italians and Polish Jews are among the shortest
people of Europe. Stature seems to be practically independent
of environmental conditions and, if underheight is commoner in
cities than in the country, it is not due chiefly to environmental
conditions in urban districts, but to the fact that the short races
prefer to live in cities, while the tall Scandinavians and Scotch
are largely rural dwellers. The total amount of underheight
was not as great as of underweight—only about 8,000 cases, giv-
ing a rate of 3 per 1,000 men examined. This is largely because
the minimum requirement for military service was, during
most of the period of the draft, retained at 60 inches, a stature
a little less than the average for males of the short races that
have made their home in this country. The geographical dis-
tribution of underheight is shown in Fig. 8. New England and
the Middle States, the states that have received the greater part
of the new immigration, show the largest proportion of pres-
ence of underheight. The rate is high on the Pacific coast also,
which result may possibly be due in part to the influence of
Crientals. Relatively little underheight was found in agricultural
districts, especially in the south. The rate is high in the east-
ern manufacturing and commuter group because of the presence
of short races in them. There was a rate of less than 2 in the
Scandinavian sections, but a rate of over 8 in those occupied
largely by French-Canadians. The condition, while not serious,
is also one that can not be altered by any prophylactic measures.
If there is any desire to keep down the proportion of our popula-
tion who are below the stature requirement for military serv-
ice, it can only be done by restricting immigration of people
belonging to short races.

8. Imperfect Sex Development.—Of the defects of this group
about 8,000 cases were found, making a rate of 3. The defects
of this group, congenital in their nature, can not be altered by
prophylaxis, and, though remedied by surgical operations, recur
in subsequent generations by inheritance. The commonest of
these defects is cryptorchidism, or failure of descent of one or
both testes. The distribution of these defects is shown in Fig. 9.

20 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

This map yields the striking result that the defect predominates
in the northern one or two tiers of states west of the Mississippi
from Minnesota to Washington. There is also another center of
incidence in southern New England. The latter is possibly due
to the presence of French-Canadians, since the section in which
they are most numerous have a rate for cryptorchidism of over
3. As for the states in the northwest, most of them contain con-
siderable Scandinavian population and the Scandinavian group
section also shows a rate of over 3 for cryptorchidism alone.

EXTERNAL GENITAL ORGANS

CONGENITAL DEFECTS

Sis 20)
4eeeeneenp-
==5

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS
Fic. 9.

In any case, the variations in the rate are to be accounted for on
racial grounds. The relatively low rate throughout the south
is probably influenced by the presence of negroes, in whom
cryptorchidism is relatively uncommon. (?)

9. Deformed, Atrophied or Lost Arms.—Serious defects in
the arms were found in about 15,000 cases. The loss or defor-
mation of the arms is not only of great military, but also of
great civil importance, since it limits a man’s activity in indus-
trial life. Indeed, most of the operations of manufacturing and
commerce require the use of two arms. Such a defect is en-
tirely prohibitive of military service. The distribution of loss
of upper extremities by states is shown in Fig. 10. It is seen
that this is common in the states bordering on the Allegheny

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 21

Mountains from Pennsylvania to Georgia. It is also found in
excessive numbers in the Gulf states from Mississippi west-
ward, and in the state of Washington. The loss of the upper
extremity is determined largely by the hazard of occupation.
Probably an important reason for loss of the upper extremity
along the Allegheny Mountains and in the western Gulf states is

LOSS OF UPPER EXTREMITY

WHOLE OR PART

—& 59-150
GA ois: —175
= 1.76 -230
| 23! —4399 ma

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Fig. 10.

the extensive lumbering operations going on in those states, or
which have gone on in them during the last ten or fifteen years.
Similarly with the state of Washington, which is now the prin-
cipal lumbering state of the Union. Saw-mills, planing-mills,
box factories, all offer special hazards to the appendages. Also
in rural communities the opportunity for the proper setting of
broken bones is much less than in cities. Consequently, we find
faulty union of fractures of the upper extremities relatively
common in rural states. Also loss of upper extremity, de-
formity of upper extremity, ankylosis of joints are all much
commoner in rural districts. However, the hazard of cotton
mills in the south (in which there seems to have been in the past
imperfect protection of workmen) is doubtless responsible for
a considerable part of urban loss of arms such as is found in
southern cotton mill states and their cities.

10. Deformed, Atrophied or Lost Legs.—This defect is 50
per cent. commoner than the preceding defect, showing that
legs are more subject to hazards that maim but do not kill than
arms. The map showing the distribution of loss of lower ex-
tremity, whole or in part, is given in Fig. 11. This figure shows
the relatively large incidence of loss of lower extremity in the |
states of Washington and Utah, and in the mining states

22 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

grouped around the head of the Ohio River, and also Virginia.
There is more than the average of this defect found in the states
from Louisiana northwest to Colorado, while the mining states
of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana have relatively little of it.
It seems probable that the loss of extremity in the different
states is determined in part by lumbering operations and in part
by mining. At any rate, the defect is found more predomi-

LOSS OF LOWER EXTREMITY
WHOLE OR PART

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS
Fie. 11.

nantly in the rural regions than is loss of the upper extremity.
This is probably because there is little danger to loss of lower
extremity as compared with loss of upper extremity in cotton
and other mills, while the hazard to the lower limbs in various
agricultural pursuits is equally great to both pairs of appen-
dages. In centers for railroad shops, like Ogden, Utah, the rate
for defective legs is very high.

ll. Weak and Deformed Feet.—As already stated, this is far
and away the most important defect, numerically and from the
standpoint of military service, found in drafted men. It is also
of considerable economic importance in civil life, since it handi-
caps a man in performing duties which require standing on the
feet, the very conditions which have induced it in the first place.
It is to a great degree dependent upon the wearing of ill-fitting
shoes and hence may be combated in the future by propaganda
directed toward the reform in the shape of shoes. From the
biological standpoint the important breakdown of the feet in
the comparatively young male population indicates that the feet
are badly adjusted to the demands made upon them in modern
civilized life.

The geographical distribution of flatfoot (which controls in

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 23

this group of defects) is shown in Fig. 12. The one striking
fact in the geographical distribution is comparative freedom
from foot defects enjoyed by the southern states. This is due
both to the comparative absence of shoes in the rural population,

PES PLANUS

FLAT FOOT

= 4t- 7a
EB 80-105
= 106-144
HB 145.—231.

R&TIO PEA 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL SoaRDS
Rhy Brae 19!

HAMMER-TOE AND HALLUX VALGUS

HB 90) —2308 4
RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS
Fie, 12a.

s)

during early years of life and to the large colored population
which, partly because of such freedom from shoes and partly
because of anatomical and physiological peculiarities, is less
affected with weak feet than whites. The great center of flat-
foot is in the northwest, probably partly on account of the large
body-size of immigrants into that territory. For flatfoot, among
other things, is induced by the weight of the body which has to
be supported. Flatfoot and particularly hammer toe and bent
great toe (Fig. 12a) are common in the densely populated states

24 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

of the northeast. This is due to the presence in those states of
large cities, for bad feet are above all defects of the cities, due
to the conditions of life, which make it necessary to stand on the
feet, to walk on hard pavements and to perform less varied oc-
cupations than the country man is expected to do. Especially
in the North there is a more constant use of shoes during the
earlier years of life, and of deforming and ill-fitting shoes at
all times of life. The racial difference in respect to flatfoot is
not striking. It is especially common among the larger races,
like the Germans, Austrians, and Scandinavians.

12. Deformity of Hand or Loss of Fingers.—Although less
important from a military point of view than weak or deformed
feet, deformed or absent hand or fingers are of great impor-
tance in social life, particularly in the various industries.
There were over 20,000 cases of this defect recorded, which
means that nearly 8 out of every 1,000 men are defective in this
respect. There are 3 principal regions of incidence: first, the
New England states; second, the group around the Great Lakes;
and third, the group in the northwest. As the defect is much
commoner in rural than in urban districts, those states which
contain great cities like New York, New Jersey, and Illinois fall
below the upper third of states arranged in order of incidence.
The defect mentioned is associated in part with the lumbering
industry and its associated saw-mills. This is no doubt why the
rate reaches a maximum in the state of Washington and why
it is very high in Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin. Also it is
quite clear that mining operatons are contributory and hence
we find a relatively high rate in the states of Montana, Idaho,
Wyoming, West Virginia, Ohio and Michigan. The rate in
Pennsylvania is kept low by the presence of large cities. The
region of the great southwest with treeless plains and deserts
is relatively devoid of injury to or deformation of hands. The
rate for finger defects is high among the Finns, but that is
largely because they are engaged in mining. It is relatively low
in the agricultural sections, particularly those made up of
native stock.

18. Hernia.—The inability of the lower abdominal muscles
and fascia to withstand extraordinary strain is an indication
of man’s imperfect adaptation to the erect position and to the
demands made upon him by the severe physical strains of mod-
ern civilization. The presence of threatened or frank hernia is
one of the greatest defects found in men of military age. It
was detected in nearly 40 per 1,000 or 4 per cent. of them, a
total of over 100,000 individuals.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 25

The distribution of hernia and enlarged inguinal rings over
the United States is shown in Fig. 18. One of the striking facts
represented on this map is the great uniformity in the distri-
bution of hernia in the different states. The range is small,
varying from a maximum of 29 in Florida to a minimum of 13
in Maryland. Consequently the variations in incidence as
shown on the map are apt to be influenced by such incidental
matters as idiosyncrasies of examiners at the various camps.
Taking the chart as it stands, it appears that there is a high
rate for hernia in the Rocky Mountain states, Great Basin and
the Pacific slope. Men from these states were all examined at

HERNIA AND ENLARGED INGUINAL RINGS

BB 51-16. Er _
RATIO PER 1000 MeN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Fig. 13.

Camp Lewis. On the other hand, these are largely mining
states where, there is reason to suspect, the men of military
age have been subjected to an unusual amount of heavy work.
Similarly, we find that the rate is high in Pennsylvania and
West Virginia, mining states; also in most of the New England
states, Michigan and Wisconsin. Among the different races
considered we find the highest rate among the French-Cana-
dians, Germans, and Austrians, and the lowest rate among re-
eruits of Scotch origin.

(To be Concluded)

26 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE HAVEN OF HEALTH

By GEORGE ERIC SIMPSON
OSBORN ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY, YALE UNIVERSITY

HOMAS COGAN, physician and schoolmaster of Man-
iF chester, in 1584 published a book to which he gave the
modest title “The Haven of Health.” At the time of the publi-
cation Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne twenty-six
years. Four years later the Spanish Armada was to be inglori-
ously swept from the seas by a combination of British valor and
unfriendly winds. Three years were still to pass before William
Shakespeare would move to London. The jubilee of learning
was soon to be at its full height.

Galen was still the god of biological science, whom to ques-
tion was blasphemy. At this time, as for the previous fourteen
centuries, his writings were considered the last word in all dis-
cussions physiological or anatomical. None might question his
authority without encountering the opposition of all God-fear-
ing folk. There had come from the pen of Vesalius some forty
years previous to the writing of the “ Haven” a work of anat-
omy, the ‘Fabrica Humani Corporis,” which was a worthy
harbinger of the new learning. Vesalius had arrived at the
peculiar conclusion, probably not without many misgivings, that
more might be learned by direct observation than by poring
over the works of the philosophers of Greece and Rome. But
even so strong-minded and purposeful man as Vesalius found
it sometimes expedient to tread with meticulous discretion so
that his differences with Galen should be passed over lightly, as,
for example, when he was content to wonder at the power of
Almighty God who was able to cause the forcing of the blood
from the right to the left ventricle through the invisible pores
in the thick wall separating these two cavities. But the two-
score years must still pass before Harvey, in 1628, should bring
out his book demonstrating the proofs of the circulation of the
blood. Harvey followed in the footsteps of Vesalius in that his
knowledge was gained by direct observation rather than by
minute and painstaking perusal of the authorities.

The “‘ Haven of Health” was first published in 1584 or 1586.
There was a second edition, “corrected and augmented,” in

THE HAVEN OF HEALTH 27

1589, followed by others in 1596, 1605 and 1636. The last edi-
tion was merely a reprint of the first. The copy of Cogan’s
book to which the present writer has access was “Imprinted at
London by Richard Field for Bonham Norton, 1596.” The
dedication to the “Right Honorable and my verie good Lord,
Sir Edward Seymour Knight, Baron Beauchamp, and Earle of
Hertford” bears the date 1588.

Cogan tended to break away from precedent by writing in
English. As early as 1534 to be sure, Sir Thomas Elyot had
brought out a semi-scientific book, ‘‘ The Castell of Helth,” in
the vernacular. But so much feeling was aroused in medical
circles by Elyot’s presumption that it was found necessary in
the preface of the later editions to set forth a defence of the
innovation :

Now when I first wrote this boke I was not all ignorant in physicke.
And although I have never been at Mountpelier, Padua, nor Salern, yet
have I found some thyng in physicke whereby I have taken no little profit
concerning myne owne helth. .. . But if physicions be angry that I have
written in englishe, let them remember that the grekes wrote in greke, the
Romains in latin. . .

Pure scientific literature continued to be written almost
exclusively in Latin. Vesalius had written his book in Latin,
and Harvey was to write his in the same language. Neverthe-
less, the ‘‘ Haven of Health” exemplifies the spirit of the times.
A positive statement is seldom made without marginal reference
to the authority for such statement. It is a rare page that has
not at least one marginal note, while many have three and
sometimes four such references, so that they resemble the pages
of a cross-reference Bible. Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen
are frequently referred to. For the author makes no claim
for originality:

And if they [the readers] find whole sentences taken out of Master
Eliot his Castle of Health,1 Scho. Sal.2 or any other author whatsoever,
that they will not condemne me of vaine glorie . . . for I confess that I
have taken Verbatim out of others where it served for my purpose, and
especially out of Scho. Salerni; but I have so interlaced it with mine owne,
that (as I think) it may be better perceived. And therefore seeing all my
travail tendeth to common commoditie, I trust everie man will interpret
all to the best.

1Sir Thomas Elyot, “ The Castell of Helth,” London, 1534.

2“Regimen Sanitatis or Schola Salerni,” a work on health in Latin
hexameters composed by Robert, Duke of Normandy and son of William
the Conqueror. The annotations to this work by various subsequent wri-
ters were of more value than the original composition. It is said to have
gone through no less than 160 editions.

28 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

It is of course necessary for Cogan to explain in these pref-
atory remarks the form or order which he observes in assem-
bling his material:

Such as have written of the preservation of health before me, for the
most part have followed the division of Galen into things not natural,
which be fixed in number, Ayre, Meate and Drinke, Sleepe and watch,
Labour and rest, emptiness and repletion, and Affections of the mind.
However, Hippocrates in the sixth book of Epidemies, set down Labour,
meate, Drinke, Sleepe, Venus, all in a measure, as a short summe or forme
of a man’s whole life touching diet.

In the disagreement of such high authorities, our author is
able to exercise some choice in the “order” of his book. Such
manipulations of authority are not infrequent. For instance,
the “ Haven of Health” is written primarily as a guide for stu-
dents. This circumstance provides the author a means of brush-
ing off some of the dusty accumulations of the ages, because
Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen and the rest did not limit their
field in this way. Those things which are good for laborers
may not be good for students, for we are constantly reminded
that ‘‘Great labour overcometh all things,” especially in the
way of dietary indiscretion. Thus, ‘‘ In some shires in England
they use in Lent to eate raw Leekes and hony, with Beanes or
Pease sodden, but what Rustickes do or may do without hin-
derance of their health, it is nothing to students: for Gross
meate is meete for grosse men.” And, furthermore, “ pease
potage” can not be recommended for students, but “I leave it
to Rustickes who have stomacks like Ostridges, that can digest
hard iron. And for the student I allow no bread but that which
is made of wheat.”

Although Cogan does not always hold to current views and
sometimes goes out of his way to disprove them, this is never
done by ready recourse to his two good eyes, but, consonant
with the spirit of the times, by quotations from authority. Thus
in order to prove that rabbits are not hemaphroditic he does not
recommend examination of the animals themselves, but says:
“The opinion which some holde, that everie hare should be of
both kindes, that is male and female, is disproved by Matthiolus

. as untrue.”

The book proper opens with a discussion of the geography
and physiography of the British Isles, especially as they are in
contrast to the Roman world. This is evidently a bit of hocus
pocus so that when our author disagrees with the older philos-
ophers he may be able to show that the differences are more

THE HAVEN OF HEALTH 29

apparent than real and are bound up in differences in climate,
topography, or what not. Thus, although the Salernian school
discountenances the use of beef, and Galen too, disapproves its
use, saying “It maketh grosse blood and engendereth melan-
cholie,’” Cogan is able to approve its use as follows: “ All
these authors (in mine opinion) have erred in that, they make
the Biefe of all countries alike, For had they eaten of the Biefe
of England, or if they had dwelt in this our climate, which
through coldness doth fortifie digestion, and therefore requireth
stronger nourishment.’

After this safety valve introduction we are justified in going
on with the subject in accordance with the aforesaid schedule.
First,

When you are arisen from sleepe, to walk a little up and downe, that
so the superfluity of the stomacke, guttes and liver, may the more easily
descend, and the more easily be expelled. ... Morover to extend and
stretch out your handes, and feete and other limmes that the vitall
spirites may come to the utter partes of the body. Also to combe your
head that the pores may be opened to avoide such vapours as yet by sleepe
are not consumed. Then, to rub and cleanse the teeth. For the filthiness
of the teeth is noysome to the braine, to the breath, and to the stomacke.

When the “ vitalle Spirites”’ have wandered to their proper
stations, and the vapours have arisen from the head, exercise is
in order, provided the oracle is favorable. The oracle consulted
in this case is the color of the urine which should be neither too
pale nor too red. As an example of the benefits to be procured
by exercise, the case of Milo Crotoniates is brought forth. Milo
was a gentleman of no mean ingenuity and initiative. For he it
was, who, in the lack of Whitney exercisers, made use of avail-
able material, and by carrying a “calfe every day certain fur-
longs was able to cary the same being a Bull.” Perhaps all the
young married men of the neighborhood engaged in the pas-
time. Perhaps classes were formed. Perhaps in those days
astute men of affairs neglected their business to carry appealing
young calves, or the same being bulls, along the country lanes
just as in 1919 otherwise sane men are known to spend hours at
a time whacking little white balls across green fields. Who
shall say that the golf widow of 1919 is not the lineal descendant
of the ‘‘ calfe widow ” of 1594?

Further exercise suitable for the development of the various
parts of the body are set forth. Tennis is stated to have been

3I have omitted no part of this last sentence. It is complete as
quoted. It is quite usual to leave a loose end hanging over in this way,
ready to drop off and endanger traffic. ‘

30 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

recommended by Galen as an exercise proper for all parts so
that “‘ Those founders of Colleges are highly to be praised, that
have erected Tenis courtes.” Cogan, of course, had never heard
of the dilation of the blood vessels in the walls of the intestine
during digestion, but nevertheless discountenances hard exer-
cise after meat, because, we are told, “‘ Hastie moving driveth
the natural heate from the inward parts.”

That so many of the recommendations made in an empirical
spirit have been supported by later scientific findings makes
the book especially interesting. One is frequently surprised at
the wise counsel given, only to be later amused at the seemingly
absurd reason which supports the advice. However, it is yet
too easy to find a physician who will explain the use of certain
remedies for rheumatism as due to their ability to dissolve uric
acid, the reliance on quack remedies is still too widespread, for
the modern reader to assume any air of superiority over the
sixteenth century writer. In reading his book, sensations are
aroused akin to those provoked by correcting a set of examina-
tion papers. High hopes of deep knowledge are raised, only to
be rudely dashed to the ground by the shallowness revealed in
excessive loquacity.

But some of Cogan’s explanations might very readily be
accepted by a large group of non-scientific men to-day. In this
respect I believe the average man of science has an exalted idea
of ordinary “lay” opinion. Within the last month the writer
heard an intelligent man, who had seven years ago graduated
from one of our foremost American colleges give the reasons
why lemon and milk had better not be eaten together. “The
essence of lemon is citric acid, the essence of milk is malt, and
of course the two do not mix.” In the subsequent development
of these novel views it appeared that the modern cow produced
Horlick’s Malted Milk, or milk that needed only to be evapo-
rated carefully in order to yield the proprietary preparation.
But to proceed—

Many of the home remedies now in use or their prototypes
were known to Mrs. Crotoniates. Who, in his childhood days
has not had onion concoctions inflicted on him by a well-mean-
ing, but erring grandmother? Cogan had.

And if any be troubled with the cough, and be overlayed with
abundance of fleume in the breast, so that they can not easily draw their
winde, let them rost Onions under hotte embers and eate them with Hony
and Pepper and Butter morning and evening, and within few dayes they
shall feele their breastes loosed, and the fleume easily to be avoided.

THE HAVEN OF HEALTH 31

The lowly prune is shown to have a long and a proud lineage.

Prunes being eaten first, beside that they are pleasaunt, they loose
the belly. . . . I have written the more of Prunes, because it is so common
a dish at Oxford.

The unchangeableness of college boarding houses is evi-
dently not a new thing under the sun.

In the section on labor considerable advice is given regard-
ing study, the assumption being that this is an activity with
which a student may be not unacquainted. Morning is the best
time for this, as then the “planets are favourable, Sol, Venus
and Mercurie being near.” One should work earnestly for an
hour,

then the hair comber upwards forty times and the teeth rubbed. No new
reading to be done in the afternoon, as now the sun is not convenient.
But nothing is more hurtful than study at night.

Let the freshman gloat. But his gloating will be short-lived,
for, our author continues,

Good students will spare no time from their books. ... And if they
wax pale with over much study, it is no reproche, but a verie commendable
signe of a good student.

As for mental recreation, the playing of gambling games is dis-
couraged (somehow the reader obtains the idea that this advice
is rather half-hearted) but chess is recommended as an easily
accessible pastime which students may have available at all
hours. A prime source of recreation “for a mind wearied with
study and for one that is melancholie (as the most part of
learned men are) is music.” Aristotle is properly given credit
for this bit of wisdom.

Under the caption “‘Meate” a great variety of edible sub-
stances, together with some of the medicinal plants are discussed
and classified according to their ‘“‘ hotnesse or coldnesse, dryness
or moistness.”

Goates flesh ...is dispraised of Galen. Because, beside that it
breedeth ill bloud it is tarte. Yet kidde is commended of him next unto
pork. But Auicen and the sect of the Arabians, doe prefere kids flesh
before all other flesh, because it is more temperate and breedeth pure
bloud; as being in a meane betweene hote and colde, subtill and grosse. So
that it can cause none inflamation nor repletion. . . . But it is not conve-
nient for labourers because great labours would soone resolve the juice
engendered thereof.

“Rammes mutton” our author leaves “unto those that
would be rammish, and old mutton to butchers that want teeth ©

32 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

. . . Pork is most like human meat” and the “inward parts”
of swine resemble the inward parts of man. For these reasons
“some” have eaten human meat instead of pork. This atrocity
our author attributes to “certain Scots.” That the English
land question was fomenting even in the sixteenth century ap-
pears from a long discussion on the evils of giving over large
tracts to the raising of deer,—tracts which, if used for cattle,
would be able to produce more food for the poor man.

Cogan evidently realized that various parts of animals do
not necessarily nourish homologous parts of the human body,
for he says: “‘ That heads do not necessarily nourish heads best
is seen by people with the falling sickness (a disease of the
head), wherefore, I think that reason proceeded first out of a
calves head or a sheepes head.”

In these war times, the modern reader will sympathize with
the author’s observations on the eating of fish. We learn that
in the sixteenth century England had a Hoover in no less a per-
sonage than good Queen Bess herself. 'The queen had ordained
Wednesday for the eating of fish as well as Friday and Satur-
day, “not for holiness purpose, but as a civil policy. For the
many lakes provide much good fish,” and if the ordinance were
obeyed, one half the days of the year (when fast days are in-
cluded) would be meatless days. But some are selfish (sighs
Cogan) and do not obey.

In this section we are told that “ Milk is blood twice con-
cocted. ... A windie food, but can be made less windie if
boyled.” It is corrective of melancholy—a property which
Metchnikoff would have undoubtedly ascribed to the reduction
of intestinal putrefaction following its ingestion. Variety of
foods is best (as the obvious way to supply a mixture of amino
acids and a sufficiency of vitamines?), according to Hippo-
crates, for “Everie offence in dyet is wont to be more grievous
on a slender diet, than a full dyet, and for the same cause, a very
spare, precise and exquisite dyet is not so sure for them which
be in ill health, because the breaking thereof is the more
grievous.” This advice has received ample justification in Ger-
many within the past two years, where scientific studies have
shown that medical students existing on the official civilian diet
were completely unable to maintain health after taking a mod-
erately long walk. Alive to-day, Cogan would doubtless be of
the high-protein school.

The higher level of metabolism of childhood seems to be ap-
preciated since it is advised that ‘Children, especially lively
ones, should not fast, but should eat more.” The idea of the

THE HAVEN OF HEALTH 33

calorie and the fine conception of energy relations as applied
to food requirements seems almost realized in practise, while
the theoretical explanations set forth to support the advice
seem as usual, absurd in the light of our fuller knowledge.
Thus, to explain the wise advice that less be eaten in summer,
the reader is informed that at this season of the year the per-
spiration is more copious, giving rise to loss of digestive juices.
Carlson is not the first to advance the idea that the feeling of
hunger is associated with certain contractions: for, to quote
again,

When to eat is best told by hunger, hunger riseth by contractions of
the veynes, proceeding from the mouth of the stomach, for want of meate,
for as Leonard Fuchsus teacheth “ True hunger ariseth of the feeling of
want, when the veines do draw from the stomack as if they did milke it or
sucke it.”

Perhaps the widest departure from modern conceptions is
found in the discussion of “‘ Drinke.” But even here the final
impression is the same as might very well be obtained from
reading a number of up-to-date tracts on the subject; that is,
that the whole subject is a matter of controversy. Prohibi-
tionists would surely not agree with Cogan, while, on the other
hand, his ideas would be far more to their taste than those of
earlier writers quoted.

Water may safely be consumed in England at certain times,
provided due precautions are taken. Sanitary engineers will be
glad to learn that the relative purity of waters may easily be
determined by dipping linen cloths into the samples submitted,
the notion being that the cloth drying soonest has been dipped
in the purest water. “Some” in certain parts of the country
are known to use no other beverage than water. ‘“ For young
folkes and those of hote complexion, it doeth great harme, and
sometimes it profiteth.” This is evident pussy-footing. But
it is not to be used by the “olde, phlegmatic or melancholie.”
Wine is the gift of God to man. Does then (Cogan plaintively
asks) God love the Germans and French better than he loves the
English, since he has given these people a climate so much better
suited to the raising of the grape? No, Britons need not fear.
This uneven distribution of favorable climate fulfills God’s good
purpose. He has made England dependent on the Continent for
its wine supply so that a spirit of cooperation and of brotherly
love will be engendered among the people of these nations.

“Wine is disliked by one in a thousand and these be those
of a doggish nature, while it is good for clergymen of ready wit.” .
Students, however, are to be cautioned, as they “have but feeble

VOL. xX.—3.

34 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

brains,” so that excess of wine is probably the cause why so few
students have profound knowledge and ripeness. Plato for-
bade the use of wine up to the age of twenty-one, while Galen
thought wine should not be indulged in until the age of thirty-
five. (Cogan is well above this age.) On the other hand,
Arnoldus says “Hipp” thought drunkenness was sometimes
expedient in that it provoked vomiting and was for this reason
cleansing. ‘Hippocrates counseled drunkenness once a month
forso we might be procured to vomit.”” Once more Cogan ven-
tures to express an opinion of his own. He believes that one
had better be induced to vomit in other ways, less pleasant per-
haps, but also “less beastly.”

As regards “sleepe,’” the toxin theory—which in 1919 has
yet to be definitely rejected—is supported :

Here is showed by what meanes sleepe is caused. That is, by vapours
and fumes rising from the stomacke to the head, where, through coldnesse
' of the braine, they being congealed, do stoppe the conduits and wayes of
the senses, and so procure sleepe, which things may plainly be perceived
hereby: for that immediately after meate we are most prone to sleepe.

We are all doubtless familiar with the common idea that
lettuce causes drowsiness. This idea originated before Cogan’s
time, probably with the ancients, for he says:

I procured sleepe of set purpose: for it was grievous unto me to wake
against my will. . . . Therefore Lettuce eaten in the evening was my only
remedie.

It is only a few years since Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup
reformed. Under another name, a similar substance, unregen-
erate, was used by the Italian women before Cogan’s time.

And the women of Salerne give their children the powder of the
white Popie seedes with milke, to cause them to sleepe, it may be given
otherwise for the same purpose, as in Posset, drinke, or in aleberie, or best
of all in a Cawdle [cordial] made of Amondes and hempseede.

Nowe that I have spoken sufficiently of Labour, Meate, Drinke and
Sleepe, it remaineth only that I speak of Venus. ... And as it is last in
order of the wordes, so ought it to be the last in use.

These chapters on Venus are interesting. The author’s ad-
vice regarding the exercise of the sexual functions is not so ad-
vanced as that given by the most enlightened medical men, per-
haps, but his views are certainly nearer the truth than those
of a large part of any modern population. Be it remembered
that we still have with us a few well-meaning though poorly
informed physicians of the old school who do not hesitate to

THE HAVEN OF HEALTH 35

advise incontinence for what they would call “meaty” young
men. Among three classes of men named by Cogan as able to
practise continency, clergymen are said to have this power con-
ferred by the grace of God.

Yet I do not think the gift of continence so general as it was supposed
in times pwast, when all the Clergie were restrained from marriage.

Some stories are then told which indicate that either the
gift of God was not always comprehensive enough, or human
weakness was sometimes so powerful that all contingencies
were not provided for.

Cogan advises thirty-eight as the correct time for men to
marry, and eighteen for women. At this time a man has at-
tained self-control, so that the size of his family need not exceed
his plans, while the woman is easily ruled. ‘“ The first dish that
is served up at the marriage feast is miserie and the second is
care,” proclaims our author. But this is only hearsay. Cogan
himself did not marry until three years after the first edition
of ‘The Haven” was published.

“ Appended ” to the main part of the book is a discussion of
the plague, which has been “ Twice in Oxford in my time within
12 yeares, being brought from London both times: Once by
clothes, and another time by lodging of a stranger.” In reality
these chapters are as much a part of the book as any of the
others. I suspect they are “appended” merely because Cogan
can not find any authority for introducing such chapters into a
work on hygiene. The cause of the disease is ‘‘ The influence of
sundrie starres, great standing waters never refreshed, car-
raines lying long above ground, much people in small roome,
living uncleanly and sluttishly, that is, and one principall or
generall cause, that is, the wrath of Gop for sinne.”

Ways of avoiding the plague are given, one of which is to
inhale the fumes produced by pouring acetic acid over heated
copper. But the most effective measure is precipitant flight.
The fatalistic attitude toward the disease is seen in the last
chapter of the book:

Yet thankes be to God hitherto no great plague hath ensued upon it
[the plague of 1577]. But if it do (as I doubt it will) unless we speedily
repent either the pestilence, or famine, or warre, or all three, I say if it
do, then must we do as the Prophet David did, offer a sacrifice unto the
Lord, a contrite and humble hart: and say with that holy Prophet Let us
fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great, and let us
not fall into the hand of man. And I beseach God that whensoever it shall
please him to visite our offences with his rod, and our sinnes with scourges,

36 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

that we may likewise escape the hand of man and fall into the hand of the
Lord, to whom be all glorie, prayse, and honour for ever and ever. Amen.

Who was this Thomas Cogan, whose memory has survived
three centuries? Born in 1545, he received his B.A. from Ox-
ford in 1563. An M.A. followed in 1566, and a degree of
bachelor of medicine in 1574. A year before he received his
medical degree, Cogan wrote the “ Well of Wisdome .. . con-
taining Chiefe and chosen sayings which may leade all men to
perfect and true wisdome as well to Godward as to the worlde
. . . gathered out of the five bookes of the olde Testament. . . .”
This book was not published for several years.

After obtaining his medical degree, Cogan settled in Man-
chester, where he was, we are told, not only the leading physi-
cian, but high master of Manchester Grammar School, and a
“classical scholar.”’ One does not give white elephants to one’s
alma mater, so we know with what esteem our author regarded
Galen and his work. For in a gift to Oriel College in October,
1595, he included five volumes of Galen’s “ Works,” besides
Thomas Geminies’ “ Anatomy ” and Malthiolus’ ‘‘ Commentaries
on Dioscorides.”

At fifty-eight he resigned the position in the grammar
school for the purpose, I suppose, of devoting more time to his
medical practise. This must have been reasonably large, for
he seems to have been very well connected and very well known
in the neighborhood. In his spare moments he now prepared a
selection of Cicero’s letters for school-boys, which was published
under the title “ Epistolarum familiarum M. T. Circeronis. . . .”

Unless a man’s gift to the world be far greater than its
Cogans are destined to give, the interest after three hundred
years is, I suppose, not so much in his attainments as in the
character of the man himself. The reader of biography in
2200 will perhaps remember but few of even Huxley’s mono-
graphs. The vast amount of work which was the center of his
interest will be forgotten. That, however, Huxley successfully
engaged in a public altercation with Bishop Wilberforce will
long live in the memory of man.

Thomas Cogan died in 1607. Of his will, one sentence re-
veals the man. Given the single bone, the character of the man
may be reconstructed. For, after bequeathing “certain moneys
to the poor in Manchester” and to his “ poore neighboures...
all my Shirts, one appece,” he says, “‘I give to every Scholler of
the ffree Schoole in Manchester, 4 d. apeece. . . .”

John Bunyan or Milton would have moralized over the gift.
Dickens would have become intensely sentimental. Tears would

THE HAVEN OF HEALTH 37

have freely flown. Samuel Johnson would have excluded Scotch
scholars from the benefits to be conferred and would have stipu-
lated that the money be spent on something which no boy of
tender years should possess. But not Thomas Cogan. He knew
boys. And schoolmasters seldom do. In knowing boys, he
knew and understood men. And after all, it is because of this
knowledge and because of the injection of his personality into
the book he wrote that makes it still interesting.

38 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN

By Professor B. W. KUNKEL

LAFAYETTE COLLEGE

AN early came so habitually to regard himself as the
M crown of animate nature, “the masterwork, the end of
all yet done” in Milton’s words, that he long ago arrogated to
himself the perfection of the gods and to-day ordinarily blinds
himself to the natural imperfections of his body and the dis-
advantages of being human until his machinery is in such poor
working condition that he has to go to the doctor’s. Far back
in the days of pre-history, some genius suggested that man was
made in the image of god and from that time on, there has been
a pride of birth on the part of man, reaching a climax with the
Junkers of Prussia and their super-manhood.

From time to time, however, prophets and seers have abun-
dantly appreciated the imperfections of humanity, as when the
Psalmist exclaims in an outburst of pessimism: “I am a worm.”
The ministers of the Scotch church in the seventeenth century,
says Metchnikoff, quoting Buckle, the historian of civilization,
thought there was nothing more surprising than that the earth
could contain itself in the presence of that horrid spectacle,
man, and that it did not gape as in former times, to swallow
him in the midst of his wickedness. Even in our own time,
Mark Twain more than once bemoaned the fact that he was a
man and that humanity had very little to be proud of. The
consideration of the physical disadvantages of being human is
no new theme, but in the flush of victory over the arrogant
Huns under the leadership of would-be super-men, it may be
especially salutary to attend to this subject for a short time in
order that the pride of creation may the better appreciate how
far short of the gods he falls. In spite of thankfulness for
being fearfully and wonderfully made, there are, as I shall
show, some respects in which we may indeed be in fear of our
precarious machinery and stand in amazement at the malad-
justments of our own bodies.

At the same time that I wish to point out especially the dis-
advantages of being human from the bodily standpoint, I would
not leave the impression that man is nothing but a bundle of
mistakes and a poorly built machine. In spite of obvious de-

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN 39

fects he is, like every living creature, closely adapted to his
environment and must, within limits, constantly adjust himself
to changes in the environment. The crawling Ameba no less
than the Marathon runner and the calculating philosopher are
from moment to moment adjusting their internal relations to
external relations with wonderful nicety. The muscles of the
Marathon runner are absorbing oxygen as well as fuels neces-
sary for their explosive action in contracting. The brain of
Newton in contemplation of the law of inverse squares is ab-
sorbing molecules from the blood and discharging different
molecules which have been produced by the activity of the brain
cells. The failure of the heat-regulating mechanism to keep the
bodily temperature within a few degrees of 98.6° Fahrenheit,
or to respond to the increased temperature of the bake shop or
boiler room causes illness and possibly death. From certain
points of view the human mechanism is marvellously adapted
and warrants man’s high regard for himself. But in no case is
adaptation to environment absolutely perfect. The more closely
an organism is investigated, the more apparent is it that there
are present disharmonies and imperfections. Johannes Miiller
sixty-odd years ago showed that in spite of the perfection of
the eye as an optical instrument, it is very imperfect in cor-
recting aberration of light. An ordinary camera or micro-
scope made with so little regard for optical axes and irregular-
ities of curvature of lenses would be a most unsatisfactory in-
strument. Helmholtz, to whom we are indebted for so large a
part of our knowledge of the optics of the eye, says: ‘“‘ Nature
seems to have packed this organ with mistakes, as if for the
avowed purpose of destroying any foundation for the theory
that organs are adapted to their environment.” And yet the
eye does very well for most of us and we are thoroughly happy
in the possession of this structure whose lenses are not exactly
curved and centered!

Disharmonies abound in practically all forms of living
things. Rudimentary structures, which have outlived their
usefulness, occur in all higher animals and are constantly
“getting in wrong” with things about them. But besides the
rudimentary structures there are others which may be regarded
as incipient structures which have not yet attained the size and
complexity necessary for their perfect functioning. Besides
imperfect structures, a great many animals exhibit instincts or
reactions to stimuli which seem to go counter to the best inter-
ests of the individual and the race. Perverted tastes in man
are no less destructive than some perverted reactions in ani- |

40 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

mals. For instance, the moth flying into the candle flame
represents a maladjustment of the moth’s mechanism and its
environment which results in the destruction of untold myriads
of moths. The nervous mechanism of the moth in this case is as
much out of correspondence with its environment as the
broken shaft of an ocean liner which in its rotation beats a
hole in the side of the hull.

It is hard to explain in most cases the origin of these dis-
harmonies, although in general it may be said that they repre-
sent a failure on the part of all the organs of the body to keep
pace with the changing environment, or of the several organs to
keep pace with each other. Some organs seem to be less plastic
than others; some, on the other hand, apparently get into the
habit, so to speak, of changing too rapidly. To enter into a
discussion of the causes of these maladjustments that are dis-
advantageous to the organism would take us too far afield into
the fundamental problem of biology, the origin of variations.
It is enough at present to remember that the survival of the
fittest is in spite of these defects.

Many of the defects of the human body may be referred
back from the mechanical point of view to the present habit of
striding about on two legs, a habit of very recent phylogenetic
development—a fact vouchsafed by the length of time the
infant crawls on “all fours” and the slowness with which it
assumes the bipedal method of locomotion and exhibits a fairly
well adapted structure for the upright position. So late in
phylogeny has this position been acquired that many parts of
the body have not yet become perfectly fitted for this remark-
able experiment. So closely adjusted to each other, however,
are the different parts of the body that any change in one part
almost always brings about a change in every other part. As
we shall have occasion to show, the upright posture has affected
directly the skeleton, the muscles, the blood vessels, the jaws
and teeth, and probably indirectly other parts of the alimentary
canal and the organs of respiration; while many students of
human evolution regard the abnormal development of the in-
tellect of man as a direct outcome of the upright position with
the freeing of the hands to learn of the environment by
handling and the elevation of the principal sense organs in
order to give man a broader horizon.

Let us turn first to a consideration of some of the defects
of the skeleton which are associated with the upright position.
The ancestral foot of man was characterized by the slant of
the sole in relation to the axis of the leg so that the sole could

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN 4]

be applied more perfectly to the cylindrical trunk of the tree, to
which primordial man was fairly well adapted. In order to
bring about this position of the foot, the heel bone is skewed
and set off slightly to one side in such a way that when the
anthropoid ape of to-day attempts to walk on the ground, it is
necessary for the sole of the foot to be turned toward the middle
plane of the body with the heel bone brought beneath the axis
of the leg and the weight of the body borne on the outer edge
of the foot. Man’s heel has moved over somewhat further
toward the inner side of the foot in order to bring the sole
squarely on the ground, but the parts have not become perfectly
adapted to the new arrangement for there is still a little weak-
ness that manifests itself as fallen arch in thousands of human
beings. The weakness of the arch in great measure is due to
the long stretch between the ball of the foot and the heel and an
imperfect support of the arch on the inner margin of the foot,
a defect which is remedied often by the surgeon in treating
fallen arches by extending the heel of the shoe forward along
the inner side of the instep and also by building up the inner
side of the heel to throw the sole of the foot inward and shift
the weight of the body more to the outer side of the foot.
Another defect of the skeleton occasioned by the upright
position is in the pelvis, which is attached to the vertebral
column and encircles the posterior end of the alimentary canal
and genital ducts and affords attachment of the hind legs. In
the quadrupeds this part of the skeleton serves almost entirely
for the attachment of the hind legs and plays only a very
secondary role in supporting the viscera which are suspended
along the entire length of the body cavity by mesenteries. As
soon as the trunk assumes an upright position, however, the
weight of the viscera pulls toward the tail instead of toward
the underside of the animal and the mesenteries afford a far
less efficient support. To compensate for this, however, the
pelvis changes its function somewhat, and consequently its
form, and instead of serving simply as an attachment for the
limbs to the vertebral column, it now becomes a basin to aid
the mesenteries in supporting the viscera by a partial closing
together posteriorly so that a comparatively small opening is
allowed for the passage of the alimentary canal and the genital
ducts, and a flaring outward at the anterior end. This is not
inconvenient or harmful in the least in the male, but in the
female it increases the difficulty of parturition seriously, espe-
cially among the white races which have somewhat larger
heads and less compressible skulls at the time of birth. Com-

42 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

plete support of viscera and sufficient passage for the fetus at
birth are mutually opposed to each other with a consequent
disharmony.

The upright position has brought about several disadvan-
tageous maladjustments in the blood vessels. Unlike the quad-
rupeds, in which the axis of the body is carried habitually
more nearly parallel with the ground, in man the axis is vertical
so that the blood vessels especially of the lower part of the leg
must support an unusually tall column of blood and thus be
subjected to a relatively great pressure. This pressure is
borne by the arteries as well as by the veins, but the strong
muscular walls of the arteries are easily able to withstand the
strain of the weight of blood lying above them and the thinner
walls of the deep-seated veins supported by the surrounding
muscles are not likely to give way. But in addition to the deep-
seated veins there are several superficial veins which lie beneath
the skin only and so are deprived of the added support of the
surrounding muscles. The walls of these vessels frequently
give way, particularly in those who stand for long periods and
whose blood vessels may be slightly weak. When these vessels
rupture under the pressure of the blood, varicose veins result
which have discommoded thousands upon thousands of human
beings. The offending blood vessels may be supported by
bandages, or in extreme cases they are generally removed by
the surgeon and the blood which ordinarily passed through
them finds its way through other vessels which gradually en-
large to accommodate the increased blood flow thrown upon
them with no apparent inconvenience.

The veins of man exhibit further lack of adaptation to the
upright position by the arrangement of the valves. These
valves, which are pockets to prevent the blood from flowing
away from the heart, are obviously important only in those
veins which have a vertical course and in which the blood flows
upward to reach the heart. Thus, the valves are found for the
most part in the veins of the fore and hind limbs and in the
intercostal veins. Were the valves thoroughly adapted to the
upright position they would be quite differently distributed.
There would be none in the veins between the ribs which have
a nearly horizontal position in man and there would be an
abundance of them in the large vessels entering the heart from
the abdominal region. The great vein which receives blood
from the legs and kidneys and the great vein which brings
blood from the stomach and intestines are both without valves
so that the circulation in the lower extremities and the abdom-

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN 43

inal organs is retarded and the pressure on the veins of the legs
is sometimes seriously increased. Furthermore, congestion of
the abdominal organs, especially the liver in which the circula-
tion of the blood is at best sluggish, is frequent in the human
race, a condition which would be improved if there were valves
in the veins leading from the different organs which would
relieve the tendency to back pressure and consequent retarda-
tion of the circulation.

The absence of valves in the great abdominal veins works
hardship in another way. In case the extensive vessels of the
alimentary canal suddenly enlarge as they do under the stim-
ulus of a blow on the solar plexus, the blood is drained rapidly
from the brain and the recipient of the body blow falls in a faint.
With valves in the veins of the trunk to prevent the back flow
of blood, the vessels of the brain would not be drained so
rapidly and the insensibility would not follow such temporary
derangements of the abdominal circulation.

The straightening up of the body involves the extension of
the trunk on the thigh which exposes certain vessels danger-
ously. This condition is met with in no other vertebrate, and
consequently is one of the most highly specialized conditions in
the human body. Whereas in a dog or other quadruped, the
groin is deeply seated between the thigh and the abdominal
wall, in man it is fully exposed and unprotected. Just below
the groin on the front of the thigh, a little toward the median
side, is the superficial femoral artery, which is one of the prin-
cipal channels by which blood is carried to the leg. In an
animal with the thigh habitually bent on the trunk, this super-
ficial vessel lies deep in the crease between thigh and trunk,
securely protected from tooth and talon of the aggressor. But
not so in man. With the feet spread in order to give him a
broader base and a more secure balance, the femoral artery lies
exposed in a most dangerous way, ready to be torn open by
talon or spear. The genital organs are also dangerously ex-
posed in upright man while in the quadrupeds they are fairly
secure against frontal attack.

Not the least of the disadvantages of the upright position
is the exposure of the entire abdominal wall to injury. As if
it were not enough to expose to teeth and talons a large area
which is unprotected by skeleton, the whole trunk is flattened
and broadened so that a larger target for the attacker is
afforded and some vulnerable points are dangerously exposed.
It is hardly necessary to call attention to the solar plexus which |
is but poorly protected behind only a moderate rampart of vis-

44 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

cera and which must in the history of the human race have
caused the downfall of many a fighter before the modern
pugilist came to realize the importance of this weak point of
human anatomy. In this connection, too, it is interesting to
note that some of the most skilful pugilists assume a crouching
position in the prize ring which incidentally protects the de-
fenseless abdomen more perfectly and presents a more formid-
able rampart to the enemy.

Turning aside from some of the defects which are the imme-
diate outcome of the upright position we may turn for a moment
to some defects which are not so closely connected with stand-
ing “upright, with the front serene.”

The skin of man has lost certain structures which render
it a less perfect hull for the internal organs than is the skin
of many of the lower mammals. The coat of hair, so scanty
over most of the surface, no longer affords a protection against
cold or teeth and talons like the shaggy mane of the lion or the
heavy pelt of the bears. In fact, the imperfect hair follicles of
man are a positive disadvantage, for bacteria lodge in these
tiny cups and often set up inflammation, giving rise to various
eruptions of the skin. In the history of the race, thousands
of men must have suffered untold annoyance from this cause
and in many cases serious blood poisoning must have followed
through the injury of these eruptions. The scanty coat of hair
may have proven an advantage by affording poorer lodgings
for fleas and other bodily vermin, but this advantage could
hardly compensate for the exposure to cold and mechanical in-
jury which a loss of hair involves.

Together with the loss of hair has also gone an extensive
loss of dermal musculature by means of which the skin can be
twitched, as is well seen in the horse when troubled with flies.
This extensive layer of muscle has disappeared from the human
species except on the front of the neck and the face and the
scalp. Unlike the quadrupeds that can scare off insects without
moving the limbs, man is under the painful necessity when dis-
turbed by crawling insects of using a limb to chase off the
offender like the proverbial Jerseyite in the mosquito season.
It is conceivable that many of our forbears must have lost their
balance in the tree tops in trying to drive off an insect with
hand or foot. The advantage that would arise from being able
to wriggle the skin independently of the limbs and thus over-
come the irritation of tickling insects is obvious.

The skin muscles in man, as already said, are limited to the
front of the neck and the head. By means of them mankind is

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN 45

as well as some of the apes, able to express various emotions.
We draw down the corners of the mouth to express sadness and
wrinkle the forehead in perplexity, and draw the corners of the
mouth upward to indicate hilarity of spirit; but these func-
tions are decidedly secondary in importance to the scaring off
of insects.

There are rudimentary muscles attached to the external ear
which are entirely comparable to those by which the ear of the
grazing animals particularly is directed toward the source of
the sound and by virtue of which the acuteness of the hearing is
increased considerably, a fact borne out by the practise of those
whose hearing is defective of holding the hand to the ear and
making a kind of funnel with the large end toward the source
of the sound. The loss of mobility of the ears has probably
not been compensated.

The defects of the eyes as optical instruments have already
been alluded to. But the defects here are as nothing in com-
parison with those of the neighboring organ of smell. So im-
perfect is the sense of smell in man that it is only by courtesy
that we may be said to have such a sense. We recognize pleas-
ant and disagreeable odors, if they are sufficiently concentrated,
together with flavors, which we refer quite generally to the
sense of taste; but the delicate odors that are appreciated by
many of the lower animals are totally beyond our powers. To
the dog with its sense of smell a whole world of sense impres-
sions of which we know absolutely nothing is open. The human
subject is generally unable to appreciate the difference in odor
of the secretions of the skin under different strong emotions
although there is abundant evidence that the nature of these
secretions is modified by emotions. On one occasion I was
greatly terrified at the sight of my small child calmly sitting
on the edge of a roof upon which she had climbed, and, although
I had just returned from my bath, I was conscious of a most
fetid odor from my skin immediately after I had rescued the
child—the odor of fear. With a sense of smell acute enough
to perceive the passing variations in our bodily secretions would
our knowledge of mankind who come in contact with us not be
vastly increased? Sherlock Holmes equipped with a sense of
smell keen enough to differentiate between the odor of sanctity
and deceit would have made the feats of Conan Doyle’s hero
pale into insignificance! Primitive man might have escaped
many an enemy by perceiving the odor of the skulking stranger
suffering from the necessity of concealing his identity, and fear-
ing discovery.

46 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Nor is it alone in the function of the organ of smell that
man is defective. The structure of that organ is rudimentary
as might be expected and like all such structures is liable to
great variation in form and to various diseased conditions.
The sensitive organ of smell is spread out over a most com-
plexly folded scroll of bone in the nose so that there is little
chance for any fraction of the air drawn over it to fail to come
in contact with the sensitive membrane. But these turbinal
bones in the human subject are greatly reduced in size in com-
parison with our more sharp scented animal cousins and are
often so deformed as to make little pockets in which the secre-
tions of the nose accumulate and undergo decomposition. The
disinfecting of the nose and the removing of these troublesome
pockets in which mucus accumulates is an important work of
the nose specialist. And this is largely due to the rudimentary
condition of this sense organ whose function we of polite soci-
ety are all too prone to taboo.

Before leaving the organs which cooperate in the function
of respiration, it is of interest to note a trivial defect in the
lungs which may have been the cause of countless deaths in the
past and which seems to indicate a failure on the part of the
body to be perfectly fitted for its environment. As is well
known, the trachea passes from the mouth, or more properly
the pharynx, to the lungs, dividing into the two bronchial tubes.
The right bronchus is given off from the trachea at more nearly
a right angle than is the left so that mucus rolling downwards,
or disease germs carried down by the air current, find their way
into the left lung with greater frequency than into the right
lung. Correlated with this difference in the form of the two
bronchi is the occurrence of pneumonia infections. In the
typical case of lobular pneumonia, the congested areas cluster
around the extremity of the left bronchus more closely than
the right in exactly the fashion that would be expected when it
is remembered that the germs of pneumonia do not have the
power of independent locomotion but are wafted whither the
wind listeth and multiply wherever they find a favorable
environment.

The respiratory organs have suffered directly as a result
of the upright position of man, for the emancipation of the
forelimb from supporting the weight of the front part of the
body has brought about a great change in the movements of
respiration which have not been accompanied by perfectly
adapted changes in the lungs. The anthropoid apes in captiv-
ity and man are very prone to.tuberculosis of the lungs which

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN 47

gains a foothold generally in the more poorly ventilated parts
of the lungs, the apices. In the respiratory movements of the
anthropoid apes and man the diaphragm plays a very important
part in enlarging the capacity of the thoracic cavity. By its
contraction, the convex, domelike diaphragm is flattened and
the length of the chest is thereby increased. But in addition to
the diaphragm are the intercostal muscles and certain auxiliary
muscles of respiration which extend from the shoulder blade
to the ribs and from the arm to the ribs, the serratus and pec-
toral muscles principally. With the arms free, these last named
muscles, which are very strong, in contracting draw the
shoulder blade ventrally to increase the reach, as for example
in striking a blow with the fist. With the arms free, the ribs
serve as the fixed point of attachment and the shoulder blade is
the movable portion of the mechanism. In the quadrupeds the
relative importance of the movements of the diaphragm and the
external muscles of respiration is almost reversed. In the
quadrupeds bearing a part of their weight on the forelimbs,
the arm becomes fixed and a contraction of the serratus muscle
results in a raising of the ribs and consequent enlarging of the
cross section of the chest. The gymnast swinging from hori-
zontal bar or trapeze fixates his arms so that these muscles in
contracting pull up the ribs and ventilate the apices of the
lungs particularly well. On the same principle, in some dis-
- eased conditions in which shortness of breath is experienced,
the patient finds it necessary to rest his hands on the back of a
chair or other support in order to get his breath. But in so
doing he is virtually becoming quadrupedal, at least to the ex-
tent that his arms become fixed and the strong external muscles
of respiration aid in the elevation of the ribs in a way which is
impossible where the arms swing freely.

The liberation of the forelimb from the work of supporting
the body weight has been responsible further for several
changes in the front part of the digestive system which are not
unmixed joys although our ideas of human beauty are curiously
enough closely bound up with them. The hands have become
prehensile organs and the earlier prehensile function of the
jaws has been lost and the jaws have shortened. By becoming
a hand feeder, man’s teeth have grown smaller and more closely
crowded together. The teeth no longer have the important
function which they once had, for the incisors are aided by the
bare hands or knives and the grinders are rendered less impor-
tant by pestle and grinding mill. The wisdom teeth show sev- .
eral unmistakable signs of degenerating. They are smaller

48 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

than the molar teeth immediately in front of them, they are
frequently imperfectly cut, and the cusps and cavities of the
grinding surfaces fit with their opponents less perfectly than
in the teeth in front. In fact the wisdom teeth fail to be cut in
about ten per cent. of adult human beings. With the imperfect
functioning of the wisdom teeth is a great tendency to decay,
and on account of the delicacy of the membrane about their
roots which is not stimulated as that around more frequently
used teeth, infections and abcesses are much more common.

Even the milk teeth of children are weakened and become
liable to decay in a way which indicates that they are far from
well adapted to their purpose. How far the feeding of gruels
and other foods offering little resistance to the teeth in chewing
plays a part in inducing or facilitating decay, it is hard to say,
but examination of the skulls of children of primitive peoples
as late as the beginning of the Christian era shows that it is
only very recently that the milk teeth have fallen so far short
of expectations.

Even more rapidly than the disappearance of the teeth has
been the shortening of the jaws which has brought about a con-
dition giving much work to modern dentists. The shortening
of the jaws has crowded the teeth together so firmly that par-
ticles of food decompose in the crevices with the formation of
acids which soften the enamel. The handsome human chin,
prominent and forming a decided angle, which is a measure, so
called, of our determination, is the result of the more rapid
shortening of the margin of the jaw bearing the teeth. The
prognathous jaw of the Australian Bushman may not be a
thing of beauty according to our standards of human beauty,
but from the point of view of mouth hygiene, it is a consumma-
tion devoutly to be wished.

Other parts of the alimentary canal have lost their original
function and to that extent have become liable to disease with
all its consequences. Preeminent among useless parts of the
alimentary canal is the vermiform appendix that has won an
immortal fame through mortality due to inflammation of the
little member. The anthropoid apes all have an appendix which
is invariably longer than that of man. Its function in the
‘human species, so far as our knowledge goes at present, is nega-
tive. In fact there are features of its embryonic development
that would seem to indicate that it is simply one step in the
reduction of the cecum to which it is attached and which in like
fashion is also undergoing further decrease in the human sub-
ject. The cecum in herbivorous forms attains a large size and

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN 49

probably plays an important part in the digestion of the coarser
parts of vegetable foods like cellulose. But in the human
species, and as far as that is concerned, in the apes as well
which have already begun to feed on more delicate foods in-
cluding fruits and insects, this part of the alimentary canal
has undergone considerable reduction. In the human subject
the cavity of the cxcum is cut off completely from that of the
rest of the alimentary canal in about twenty-five per cent. of
the subjects examined.

On account of the relations of the appendix to the cecum
and intestine and its rudimentary character, the contents fre-
quently stagnate and undergo decomposition so that infections
are frequent which produce appendicitis.

Another portion of the alimentary canal which has lost its
function to a greater or less extent is the large intestine or
colon. Like the cecum, the colon probably was originally im-
portant in completing the digestion of cellulose, which forms so
large a part of the tissue of plants and which resists the action
of the digestive juices. But in the human subject who, partly
on account of the weakening of the teeth, does not eat cellulose
in such large quantities, the colon has ceased to be an important
organ of either digestion or absorption. It serves in the human
largely as a reservoir for the indigestible portions of the food
from which water is absorbed. The undigested food residues
in the large intestine, particularly the rectum, decompose under
the influence of countless bacteria which early in life find their
way thither. The products of decomposition if allowed to re-
main in the colon are absorbed and produce the discomfort and
inefficiency of constipation. Without a large intestine, no seri-
ous inconvenience follows, as shown by the cases of removal of
that organ. There is one case recorded in medical literature of
a French woman who lived a perfectly healthy and normal life
for thirty years after the removal of the whole large intestine.

It is not only in the structure of different parts of the body
that disharmonies may be found. Various functions of the
body or reactions to stimuli may become perverted and work
terrific damage on the individual and his progeny. It would
be of great interest to analyze these disharmonies but the
chapter is a long one and only one may be mentioned which
has a physiological basis and which has deep significance in
relation to the bacterial parasites. As is well known about one
half of all the deaths are due to parasitic bacteria which gain
entrance into the body and multiply and give rise to the poisons -
which in so many cases are fatal.

VOL. X.—4.

50 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

It would, however, be very misleading to leave the impres-
sion that there is no defense of the body against parasites like
the pathogenic bacteria. In the course of evolution man has
become protected against a large number of germs and has
developed a number of defenses which stand him in good stead
and without which it would be highly improbable that he could
survive for long. For example, the layer of impervious, re-
sistent, horny skin covering the whole body serves as a bulwark
against the hordes of ever-present bacteria whose activities and
readiness to attack are only too manifest when for any reason
the integrity of the skin is broken as in a wound or surgical
operation, when extreme precautions must be taken to prevent
the entrance of living germs. Then, too, the respiratory tract
including certain parts of the nose and the windpipe and
bronchial tubes are lined with ciliated epithelium by which all
particles which become embedded in the mucus secreted by in-
tervening cells are swept outwards. Were it not for the protec-
tion thus afforded by the normal secretion of mucus and the
constant sweeping of the cilia, infections of the lungs and
respiratory tract would cause a far larger proportion of deaths
than at present. The acid of the gastric juice also kills many
bacteria which are taken into the stomach with the food and
which would multiply rapidly in this otherwise ideal place for
their multiplication. But the most important defenses against
microbes are the so-called antibodies which are manufactured
in the body and which either neutralize the poisons produced by
parasitic bacteria or dissolve the germs after they gain en-
trance to the fluids of the body.

The human mechanism has scarcely begun to develop the
antibodies which it is capable of producing, as is evidenced by
the fact that man is susceptible to many diseases naturally but
becomes immune under the stimulus of vaccines and viruses
artificially administered, or the stimulus of an attack of the
particular disease. The potentialities of the body in this direc-
tion are far beyond the actual accomplishments. What has
been actually acomplished by means of the administration of
antitoxin of diphtheria is indicated, for example, by the fact
that mortality from this cause has been reduced from 50-60
per cent., to 12-14 per cent., by its use. Smallpox, plague,
cholera, typhoid fever and a host of other diseases that have
destroyed their legions, we know now can be prevented by the
activity of the antibodies produced by the living human being
under the stimulus of vaccines and sera. Thus a perfect immu-
nity may be acquired under the stimulus of inoculation with

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HUMAN 51

anti-typhoid serum, as has been amply demonstrated in the
army within the past few years. It is a matter of scientific
knowledge that during the Spanish War, in 1898, every fifth
man in our army of 107,000 was attacked with typhoid; but as
a result of general vaccination against typhoid in the army at
present, in 1916 on the Mexican border, out of 20,000 men only
one man fell ill with typhoid in spite of the fact that it was
prevalent in nearby towns.

This brief survey of the more obvious defects of human
structure and function that put man at a striking disadvantage
in contrast with some of his distant cousins who inhabit this
earth ought perhaps to help us orient ourselves more perfectly
in the universe. As a mechanism, man is far from perfect,
but with his more perfect brain with its powers of logical rea-
soning and invention, he shows a capacity to adjust himself by
the use of tools and other devices of his ingenuity to a rapidly
changing environment, to defend himself against untoward
circumstances and more than hold his own in competition with
the other species of organisms on the earth to-day.

52 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION
IN THE LIGHT OF HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT?

II

By EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN

PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

3. The Germplasm Theory

The germplasm theory of Weismann substitutes a simple
and rational conception for this complicated and inverted view
of development, heredity and evolution. According to Weis-
mann the intrinsic causes of development are in the germplasm
and not in the soma of the developed organism; the germplasm
is continuous from generation to generation and is not made
anew in each generation by the soma; the germplasm is rela-
tively stable as compared with the somatoplasm, so that while
the latter undergoes many changes in response to environ-
mental stimuli, the former undergoes few. Heredity is the
transmission of parental germplasms to offspring, usually
through the male and female sex cells; ontogeny is the con-
version of portions of the protoplasm into the differentiated
tissues of the developed organism, while other portions re-
main unchanged, especially in the sex cells; evolution con-
sists primarily in the transmutation of one type of germ-
plasm into another, not of one type of developed organism into
another. Thus at one stroke the germplasm theory, if accepted,
eliminates most of the older theories of evolution and substi-
tutes in the place of mysterious and even mystical causes rela-
tively simple and mechanical ones.

Shortly after the publication in 1892 of Weismann’s book
on the “Germplasm” there was a general outcry against the
highly speculative character of this theory. It was said that
whereas genuine progress in science depends upon the control
of the scientific imagination by the brake of observation and
experiment, Weismann had allowed his imagination to run wild
without any brake at all. One critic (Ryder) said that there

1 William Ellery Hale Lectures before the National Academy of Sci-
ences, Washington, April 16 and 18, 1917.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 53

was no more evidence for the existence of a germplasm separate
and distinct from the body plasm than for the existence of
“bowlegged hobgoblins on the back side of the moon,” while
another critic (Romanes) asserted that Weismann’s analysis
of the germplasm into units of seven different orders, such as
biophores, determinants, ids, etc., had no more basis in reality
than Dante’s seven circles of the Inferno.

Nevertheless, in spite of the general outcry against it the
germplasm theory is to-day more widely accepted than ever be-
fore and all recent work on heredity and evolution confirms the
essential features of Weismann’s theory. Relatively minor de-
tails of the original theory have been modified or abandoned as
the result of further work, but its main foundations stand fast.
Among the important confirmations of the germplasm theory

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Fic. 9. Diagram of the Mechanism of Ontogeny according to Weismann. 'The
determinants in the nucleus (1, 2, 3, 4) are supposed to be distributed differentially
to the various somatic cells, whereas they are all found in the germ cells.

may be mentioned the great mass of work on Mendelian inheri-
tance and germinal factors, while an important corollary of
this theory is Johannsen’s suggestive distinction of Pheno-
type and Genotype, the former being the developed type or
soma, the latter the hereditary type or germplasm.

In one respect at least Weismann’s theory was probably
wrong and this was in the supposed manner in which the heredi-
tary germplasm presides over development. Differentiation,
according to Weismann, is caused by the disintegration of the
germplasm, portions of it going into one cell and other portions
into other cells, which cells differentiate into various kinds of
tissue cells, depending upon the portions of the germplasm which
they receive (Fig. 9). But there is no satisfactory evidence of

54 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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Wie. 10. Diagram of the Mechanism of Ontogeny according to recent Workers.
The determinants or genes (1, 2, 3, 4) are distributed equally to every cell, but the
cytoplasm is distributed differentially (segregation). ‘The same determinants acting
upon different cytoplasms produce different results in various somatic cells (new
formation).

the qualitative division of the germplasm while the causes of
differentiation may be explained in another way, as we shall
see when we come to consider the mechanism of development,
and as is indicated in Fig. 10.

Germplasm Identical with Chromatin, Somatoplasm with
Cytoplasm.—The germplasm is not a mere logical abstraction ;
its distinctness from somatoplasm, its relatively great stability,
its continuity from cell to cell, from generation to generation,
from species to species are not unsupported hypotheses. We have
within every cell two substances which possess these different
qualities of germplasm and somatoplasm, as Hertwig, deVries,
Roux, Weismann and many others have pointed out. There is
convincing if not conclusive evidence that the germplasm is
located mainly or entirely within the chromatin of the nucleus,
while the somatoplasm, or that portion of the protoplasm which
undergoes differentiation into the various structures, tissues,
and organs of the developed body is the cytoplasm or substance
of the cell body. Osborn (1915) accordingly calls the former
of these the “heredity-chromatin,” but it seems to me prefer-
able to preserve the time-honored and familiar designations
which have hitherto been used; accordingly in these lectures
germplasm is thought of as located in or as identical with the
chromosomes of the nucleus, while somatoplasm is located
largely in the cytoplasm.

Not only is it possible to give the germplasm a cellular
“habitation and a name,” but it is possible to trace it from cell

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 55

to cell, and from generation to generation and thus to establish
its continuity ; it is possible to show that the chromatin is more
stable than the cytoplasm, that it comes in approximately equal
quantities from both parents and that it is distributed equally
to every cell of the developing organism; it is known that the
quantity of this germplasm which goes into every mature egg
or sperm cell is reduced to one half that found in the other
cells of the body and that when egg and sperm unite in fertiliza-
tion the normal quantity is again restored, and it is known that
by means of this reduction and by the subsequent union of the
sex cells in fertilization new combinations of germplasms are
produced. |

Through the work of Morgan and his pupils we are now be-
ginning to understand something about what Weismann called
“the architecture of the germplasm” and indications are at
hand of the way in which this germplasm controls the differen-
tiations of the egg and hence the development of inherited char-
acters; and while we know little or nothing as to the precise
manner in which the germplasm undergoes evolutionary changes
no one acquainted with the evidence doubts that evolution can
take place only through changes in the germplasm.

|
4, The Causes of Development

~ It is interesting and somewhat depressing to observe within
what narrow limits the minds of men move in dealing with any
great problem like that of the causes of development, whether
of ontogeny or phylogeny. The modern investigator arrives at
some conclusion which seems to him new and “ epoch-making ”
only to find as he traces his discovery to its sources that it is
merely a variant on some old, well-recognized theme, or in the
language of modern biology a mere “ fluctuation,” and not a
“mutation.” There is nothing wholly new under the sun even
in our theories, and yet there is development of ideas and evolu-
tion of theories. The outlines of the truth have long been
known, but recent work has supplied many details.

Within the realm of scientific, that is of mechanistic, causa-
tion two general methods of explaining organic development,
whether of a species or of an individual, have been proposed.
The one finds the causes of such development in the environ-
ment, the other within the organism itself.

(a) Environmental Causes of Development.—Formerly great
emphasis was placed upon the influence of environment in both
ontogeny and phylogeny. The theory of epigenesis held that:

56 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the distinctive causes of development were to be found in ex-
ternal forces and conditions rather than in the germ cells, which
were supposed to be very simple in organization and practically
without differentiation: and while no one now maintains, as
St. Hilaire once did, that environmental conditions may deter-
mine whether an egg will develop into a reptile or a bird, it is
still popularly supposed that stature is caused by the quantity
and quality of food, sex by food or temperature, mentality by
education, and that in general individual peculiarities are due
to environmental differences.

From the earliest times it has been believed that one species
might be transmuted into another by environmental changes
and that even life itself might arise from lifeless matter through
the influence of extrinsic conditions. The organism was re-
garded as being passively moulded by outside forces. Thus the
theories of evolution of Buffon, Lamarck, St. Hiliare and to a
certain extent of Darwin also were based upon the direct or
indirect influence of environment in causing evolution. The
sharp contrast which exists in certain respects between the two
systems known as Lamarckism and Darwinism does not concern
the influence or non-influence of environment in causing changes
in organisms. Lamarck held that individual adaptations occur
in response to environment and that these adaptations are in-
herited and thus become the building materials of evolution,
but he did not attempt a mechanistic explanation of individual
adaptations themselves. Darwin held that variations arise
chiefly through changes in environment—“ Variations of every
sort,” he said, “are caused by changed conditions of life ”—un-
favorable variations are eliminated by the environment while
adaptive ones persist. Thus Darwinism offers a mechanistic
explanation of adaptations, but it does not explain how changes
in environment cause variations. The distinction between La-
marckism and Darwinism is to be found, therefore, in the man-
ner in which adaptations are supposed to arise rather than in
the causes of variation, for in both systems variations are usu-
ally attributed to environmental causes.

(b) Intrinsic Causes of Development.—Recent work on on-
togeny and phylogeny places greater weight upon intrinsic than
upon extrinsic factors in development. Modern studies of de-
velopment have demonstrated the overwhelming importance of
heredity as compared with environment; indeed it is doubtful
whether environment serves in any other way than to hasten or
retard, to stimulate or inhibit certain developmental responses

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 57

of the organism, while the character and kind of response, the
possibilities and limitations of development are determined by
the organism itself.

In similar manner it is held by many geneticists that the
distinctive or differential causes of evolution lie within the or-
ganism, and that environment plays a wholly subsidiary part.
The real problem here is as to the causes of heritable variations,
for it is universally recognized that these and these alone con-
stitute the building materials of evolution. Certainly most of
the variations which are caused by environment are not in-
herited and at present no unequivocal cases are known in which
somatic variations caused by environmental change are known
to be inherited.

Non-heritable variations are usually if not invariably caused
by environmental changes, but many students of heredity main-
tain that heritable variations are always due to intrinsic or con-
stitutional causes. Just as the constitution of the fertilized egg
determines the nature of the organism which develops from it,
so the constitution of the germplasm determines the nature of
the heritable variations which arise from it. Davenport says,
“ As the egg develops into the complex adult with multitudes of
differentiated cells, so primitive germplasm has developed into
all present and past organisms.” But this does not signify that
everything which appears in the course of ontogeny or phy-
logeny was actually or “factorially”’ present in the egg or in
the primitive germplasm. Development is not merely a “sort-
ing-out process” but also a creative one. Everything which
comes out of an egg or out of primitive germplasm was poten-
tially in it or it could never have come out of it, but such an
“explanation” of ontogeny or of phylogeny does not really ex-
plain anything. In similar manner it might be affirmed that
the entire world, living and non-living, was potential in the
material from which the world was made, without leaving us
any the wiser.

Overemphasis upon the intrinsic causes of evolution and
neglect of the extrinsic causes has led to the extreme view that
elementary species, pure lines, unit characters or inheritance
factors are immutable, except that in some instances they may
undergo digressive changes like those of the radium atom,
which changes are wholly independent of environment. Ac-
cording to this view “ The foundation of the organic world was
laid when a tremendously complex molecule capable of splitting
up into a vast number of simpler vital molecules was evolved”

58 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

(Davenport, 1916), and evolution consists merely in “the un-
packing of an original complex” (Bateson, 1914) so that it is
a process of devolution, or simplification. According to this
bizarre view, man would be, as Castle has said, ‘‘a simplified
ameba.” Such an extreme position is not unlike the “palin-
genesis” of Bonnet and might properly be called “natural
creation ” rather than “evolution,” for as Caullery says, “ there
is no considerable difference between such views and creation-
ist ideas.”

(c) Epigenesis and Endogensis.—In the field of ontogeny no
one now maintains the extreme view either of epigenesis or of
preformation. The germ cells are not unorganized and wholly
undifferentiated as Wolff maintained, nor do they contain a
preformed organism as Bonnet taught. Development is not the
creation of organization by outside forces nor is it the unfolding
of an infolded organism.

“We should look upon the germ as a living thing, and upon develop-
ment as one of its functions. Just as the character of any function is
determined by the organism, though it may be modified by environment,
so the character of development is determined by heredity, that is by the

organization of the germ cells, though the course and results of develop-
ment may be modified by environmental conditions” (Conklin, 1915).

In similar manner most students of phylogeny maintain that
evolution is the result of both extrinsic and intrinsic causes, of
environmental and organismal factors. Inthe words of Darwin,

“ Although every variation is either directly or indirectly caused by
some change in the surrounding conditions, we must never forget that the
nature of the organization acted upon essentially governs the results.”

(1) Environment and Heredity.—Differentiation and varia-
tion are conditioned by the organism and by the environment,
by intrinsic and by extrinsic causes. In general the direction
and character of individual development are determined by the
organism, that is by heredity, while environment exercises a
stimulating, inhibiting or modifying influence on the organism.
It is altogether probable that the general factors of evolution
are precisely the same as those of individual development,
namely heredity and environment, and that their method of act-
ing is the same, namely the general direction and course of evo-
lution is determined by the organism while environment serves
merely as a stimulator, inhibitor or modifier.

However, this contrast of organism and cavinedbaben is by
no means as simple and clear cut as is usually assumed. In
many cases it is not only difficult to decide whether the differen-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 59

tial cause of a character is one or the other of these, but it is
even difficult to define what is meant by these two terms. The
organism is not everything which lies within the skin and the
environment everything outside of it, for much of the environ-
ment interpenetrates the organism without becoming a part of
it. Moreover, there is an internal environment as well as an
external one. Every organ, tissue or cell has its own environ-
ment in the surrounding body fluids and cells and this internal
erivironment greatly influences the growth and development of
every part. For example the development of many parts of the
body depends upon internal secretions, such as enzymes or
hormones, which act upon these parts as external environment
acts upon the whole organism. At every stage in development
the effects of external and internal environment are built into
the organism and as one traces developed characters back to
their earliest stages he realizes how difficult it is to separate
these two sets of factors. And yet such a separation is at least
ideally possible at every stage. We may say that the proto-
plasm represents the organismal factor, the non-protoplasmic
substances the environmental. Possibly even protoplasm may
be analyzed into a stimulating and a reacting portion, into en-
vironmental and formative substances, and this is indeed the
view to which recent studies on the cellular basis of heredity
have come. According to this view the protoplasm of the germ
cells is not all equally concerned in inheritance, but a small por-
tion of these cells, the chromatin, represents the hereditary
organization, while the remaining portions act as innermost en-
vironment to this innermost organization. So far at least there
is an actual basis in observation and experiment for separating
hereditary and environmental factors, intrinsic and extrinsic
causes, but whether such analyses can be extended to the differ-
ent substances of which the chromatin is composed is at pres-
ent unknown.

In this analysis into outer, inner and innermost environ-
ment and organization what are the distinguishing marks of the
two sets of factors at every stage? Is it not that the intrinsic
factor is in every instance the more specific one? In the same
dish of water one egg will develop into a fish and another into
a frog; the environment being the same in the two cases, the
different results must be due to differences in the two eggs.
Bathed in the same body fluids, one cell develops into muscle and
another into nerve, owing to initial differences in the two cells.
The same internal secretion in the blood affects different kinds

60 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

of cells and different parts of the body differently, thus the in-
ternal secretion of the sex gland leads to the development of the
most diverse secondary sexual characters in different parts of
the body, depending upon the specific nature of the cells acted
upon. Within a single cell different chromosomes have different
peculiarities both of structure and function; one may be short,
another long; one may be a factor in determining sex another
in determining color, etc., and yet all of these chromosomes are
surrounded by a common cell substance and are bathed in com-
mon fluids. In each of these instances both intrinsic and ex-
trinsic factors are indispensable and practically inseparable,
but the intrinsic factors are more specific than the extrinsic ones.

(2) Structure and Function—As environment may be
analyzed into outer and inner, so for convenience and effective-
ness of treatment organisms may be studied from the stand-
point of their structures or their functions, but a living thing
consists of both structures and functions and in reality these
can not be separated from one another. Failure to recognize
this is due perhaps to the fact that after the death of an organ-
ism its functions cease to exist, but its grosser structures, es-
pecially those composed of non-living or formed material, per-
sist for a time and are often referred to as if they constituted
the whole organism. But the active, living structure is the
formative material or protoplasm of the cells and it is certain
that the structure of this is not the same in the living and in the
lifeless condition. Confusion on this subject would be avoided if,
instead of thinking of the structures of organisms or of organs
as a whole, composed as they are of much formed material as
well as of protoplasm, we should have in mind the structures
and functions of the living substance only. As long as life lasts
the structures and functions of protoplasm are both present
and inseparable; neither functionless! living structures nor dis-
embodied functions exist in organisms.? A living thing is a
system in action; it is matter and energy. When the action
wholly ceases the system is dead; when the contained energy is
liberated from coal or from protoplasm the remaining matter
ceases to be coal or protoplasm. Function and structure are
two aspects of one thing, namely, life; they are the obverse and
reverse sides of the same coin.

It would be unnecessary to mention these very elementary
truths were it not for the fact that so many persons have failed

3 Rudimentary organs or structures may seem to negative this state-
ment, but while such structures may lose or change their original func-
tions they can never be said to have no function.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 61

to appreciate their significance. From the time of Aristotle and
Plato to the present many students of organisms have main-
tained that function is the cause of structure, as if a disem-
bodied function could form a body around itself, as if digestion,
or exertion or vision could exist apart from material bodies and
then proceed to form a stomach or kidney or eye. Lamarckians
generally hold that modifications of functions or habits cause
modifications of structures, as if the change in function pre-
ceded the change in structure. But there is good reason to
believe that every change in function is accompanied by a cor-
responding change in structure, and vice versa. Because of
the fact that functional changes are more easily seen than struc-
tural ones a change of function may occur without any visible
change of structure; but this merely means that physiological
indicators are more delicate than morphological ones. We know,
for example, that there are actual structural differences be-
tween the egg of a worm and that of a starfish, but these struc-
tural differences were not discovered until very recently,
whereas the differences in the developmental functions of these
two eggs have been known from the first. There are many
bacteria which can be distinguished only by their functions; for
example one will liquefy agar, another will not, one will ferment
dextrose another levulose, etc., and yet there is no reason to
doubt that there are corresponding structural differences be-
tween these forms which have not yet been seen. Different
- chemical substances are often recognizable only by their reac-
tions and yet every molecule probably has its distinctive
structure.

To attribute growth, differentiation or evolution to function
rather than to structure is due merely to lack of clear thinking.
No doubt functional activity is a most important factor in
growth and development; the used muscle grows in size and
power, the unused one remains undeveloped or even atrophies.
But in the use of a muscle both structure and function are in-
volved; some thing, some structure contracts and as a result
receives increased nutriment, and there is coincident growth
both of structure and function. The long neck of the giraffe
has been attributed to its habit of browsing on trees, the long
neck of the clam to its habit of deep burial in the mud. It is
pertinent to inquire where these animals got these habits and
indeed what habit consists in and whether changes of habits
may occur without corresponding, though perhaps very minute, -
changes of structure.

62 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

On the other hand the morphological view of development
and evolution regards structure as preceding function; changes
in function or habit are held to be caused by changes in struc-
ture. This opinion was once widely prevalent among morphol-
ogists and yet it has no more foundation in fact than the oppo-
site view; the fact is that both the functional and the struc-
tural views of development and of evolution are partial views
caused by a too narrow consideration of organisms from one
or the other standpoint. So far as we know neither function
nor structure stands in a fixed causal relation to the other
though each conditions the other. Instead then of maintaining
as most evolutionists have done that function is the cause of
structure or that structure is the cause of function, the biolo-
gist who can see life and see it whole recognizes that neither of
these aspects of an organism can exist by itself and that neither
is the cause of the other. Function is not primary and struc-
ture secondary, but both change and evolve together.

GROWING PLANTS AS HEALTH-GIVING AGENTS 63

GROWING PLANTS AS HEALTH-GIVING
AGENTS

By Dr. JAMES M. ANDERS
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

VERY one of refined tastes admires, if he does not actually
have a tangible interest in, growing plants and flowers.
Plants and flowers have in all ages been highly prized for their
beauty and sweet perfume, and they are utilized as the chief
objects of ornamental decoration on all occasions of public
festivity. The introduction of these elaborate decorations oc-
curred about the year 1867 (so says the Court Journal) when
Sir Edward Scott gave the first grand floral ball in Grosvenor
Square. The order to a well-known florist was that he (Sir
Edward) wished his to be the handsomest ball of the season,
and that he would place his house in the hands of the florist for
three days to do as he liked, regardless of expense. The decora-
tions caused a perfect furore, and it was the means of entirely
revolutionizing the style of artistic decorations, not only in
London, but also in every part of the United Kingdom, and, in-
deed, the whole of Europe and America. Moreover, this pleas-
ant innovation had the happy effect of proving for all future
time an incentive to the more general cultivation of plants. It
it most gratifying to be able to note that the popularity of the
practise has been growing until the present time (although too
slowly), shedding a beneficent influence upon the progress of
social refinement.

In the light of modern investigation, however, it would
surely be rash to continue to hold the once popular view that the
main purpose of plants and flowers is to appeal to our sense of
the beautiful as displayed in their varied colors and graceful
forms. This statement will become clear to the mind of the
reader, provided we shall be able to make good our promise to
show that while remarkable for their beauty they are not less
remarkable for their effects upon human health and welfare,
or, in other words, to establish new and vital relations between
vegetable growth and the human family.

From the highest antiquity many important material rela-
tions of the vegetable kingdom to man’s various needs have been

64 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

recognized. Further than to make mention of these as they
affect either the productive resources of a region or the various
domestic, artistic, and industrial purposes to which they are
put, would be irrelevant to my present purpose. Apropos of
the well-known metaphor “ mother earth” it is to be recollected
that the mineral kingdom is farther removed from us by one
generation than the vegetable kingdom, hence we should nat-
urally have a greater feeling of affection for the latter than
the former.

It has been well said that the “fad” is an essential adjunct
to every well-ordered life. Even the non-botanist will find a
superficial study of wild flowers a satisfactory diversion for his
vacation days and leisure hours. The plan offered in recent
years by Chas. Lincoln Walton,: M.D., in his book styled “ The
Flower-Finder”’ is an excellent one for the purpose.

These days, the fact is pretty generally recognized, that all
must work and all must play, or otherwise they grow stale or
something worse. The largest measure of success in the appli-
cation of this principle is to be attained by a study of needs of
each individual, or classes of individuals. For example the
mental worker not only requires systematic muscular activity in
the open, but also relaxation for the mind, which must be di-
verted into other than the usual channels. For this large and
important category the recreation exercise so easily obtainable
in connection with the study and classification of wild flowers
is to be earnestly encouraged and advised, as a means of meet-
ing the mental phase of their requirements. The underlying
principle involved quite properly assumes that a change of
mind activities from the usual from time to time is essential to
health and the highest degree of efficiency. Hence it is that the
student of the classics or mathematics or a member of one of
the three so-called learned professions—ministry, law and medi-
cine—would find relief in the association with, and study of,
growing plants and flowers. It is a splendid and effective
method of inducing relaxation from the tension which will in-
variably tend to staleness if not in some way relieved. Indeed,
this suggestion would be very helpful to all civilians.

Incidentally, the study of wild flowers necessitates consider-
able walking exercise. One can not ride and learn to recognize
these beautiful specimens by the roadside and in field and for-
est, and after the love of exercise has been acquired, a brisk
walk of a few miles, the while looking for and observing new

1“ The Flower-Finder,” J. B. Lippincott Co., by Chas. Lincoln Wal-
ton, M.D.

‘GROWING PLANTS AS HEALTH-GIVING AGENTS 65

friends in the plant world, is a wonderful brace, stirring the
blood, clearing the mind and strengthening the muscles,—in
short it improves the vital, organic functions and prolongs life,
not to speak of the enjoyment it affords. The method involves
the observance of an important principle of hygiene, for in this
pleasant pursuit of knowledge we incidentally acquire health,
which is an asset of the greatest moment both from an indi-
vidual and from a community viewpoint.

It is particularly desirable that a ‘‘fad” such as recom-
mended above be adopted after the age of forty so as to ward
off the degenerative diseases which are due to lack of physical
exercise and overeating, and which have been steadily increas-
ing in frequency of occurrence and mortality rate during the
last quarter of a century. Again this statement applies espe-
cially to the dweller in cities, who has less chance than the
dweller in the country to keep his body sound and vigorous.
In this connection certain observations made by the late Theo-
dore Roosevelt are pertinent:

Any young lawyer, shopkeeper or clerk or shop-assistant can keep
himself in good condition if he tries. Some of the best men who have
ever served under me in the national guard and in my regiment were for-
mer clerks or floorwalkers. Why, Johnny Hayes, the marathon victor, and
at one-time world champion, one of my valued friends and supporters, was
a floorwalker in Bloomingdale’s big department store. Surely with Johnny
Hayes as an example, any young man in a city can hope to make his body
all that a vigorous man’s body should be.

The writer ventures to state that the sort of association with
plant life recommended here would prove to be a revelation of
a most agreeable character to the educated, and uneducated
even,—in short to all whose attention has not been previously
directed to its health-giving influence. He would especially
urge heads of families to better the physical condition and in a
measure secure the education of their children in this excellent
manner. Moreover, this method of study would teach the young
and rising generation to avoid temptations lurking in neighbor-
hoods not conducive to good citizenship.

Perhaps one of the best fields in which to carry on these
plant studies is offered by our public and secondary schools, as
well as universities. The method would serve to widen the
mental horizon of students and prove of decidedly stimulating
interest apart from its great health-giving and moral value.
These out-of-door educational and sanitary trips could be easily
arranged for, by forming groups of pupils, in most towns and
cities at least, and the tramps would be greatly enjoyed by all.

VOL. X.—5.

66 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

True it is that wherever found to be practicable students would
soon show an ardent interest in this method of gaining instruc-
tion. The writer cherishes in memory wonderfully delightful
trips of the sort.

It would be especially appropriate and convenient to arrange
such expeditions for classes, or groups of older persons, during
the summer vacation period and in connection with camp life.
Their association with one another while enjoying intimate con-
tact with elemental nature would lead to friendly ties, the while
gaining useful information and healthful recreation. The
method advocated would thus become a potent democratiz-
ing force.

There are also beneficial effects of growing plants and flow-
ers of much importance due to their atmospheric influences.
Until comparatively recent years (and in many quarters still)
erroneous notions were entertained concerning the physiology
of the vegetable kingdom. It must be confessed that the uni-
versal prejudice against plants and flowers in living and sleep-
ing rooms which formerly existed is still exercising consider-
able sway over the more or less ignorant classes. There seems
to be a deeply-rooted belief that plant respiration removes the
oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere to such an extent
as to be positively injurious when kept in living and sleeping
rooms. They are also accused of giving off carbon dioxide to
the same medium and thus rendering it deleterious when
breathed. The carefully conducted experiments of Pettenkofer,
however, have shown beyond all dispute, that the amount of
oxygen absorbed from the air and the percentage of carbon
dioxide exhaled as the result of plant breathing are too small
to exert any appreciable effect. At all events, Pettenkofer’s
investigations indicate conclusively that no ill effects to the
human race can be traced to the cultivation of plants and flow-
ers indoors. It it strongly to be hoped that this statement will
be given the widest publicity and also that it will be generally
accepted. There are many lovers of growing house-plants and
flowers, especially among women, but a not inconsiderable per-
centage of them do not cultivate these helpful and ornamental
objects, owing to the unwarranted belief already mentioned that
they are prejudicial to health.

It is an interesting and important fact that quite apart from
the organic function of respiration, which proceeds uninter-
ruptedly, and the harmlessness of which has been demonstrated,
growing plants give off oxygen to the surrounding air in an

GROWING PLANTS AS HEALTH-GIVING AGENTS 67

amount sufficient to improve this medium by increasing its
oxidizing properties. The sanitary advantage thus offered is
not appreciated to an extent commensurate with its significance.
The writer’s experiments, conducted long since (and later con-
firmed by French observers), showed conclusively that flower-
ing plants as well as all odoriferous foliage, e.g., pine trees,
possess the peculiar power to convert the oxygen of the air into
ozone. The far-reaching importance of this fact can be only
grasped when it is recollected that it is the ozone contained in
the air which oxidizes, or in other words burns up, the various
impurities to be found in this life-giving medium. If this be
correct no argument is needed to prove the high sanitary value
of blooming and odoriferous plants, especially when grown
indoors.

It must not be forgotten that the companionship afforded by
growing plants and flowers in living rooms and close proximity
to the home is soon highly appreciated by those who take up
floriculture, hence here we find another excellent reason why
these objects of beauty and social instincts should not be neg-
lected. Unquestionably, the greater our intimacy with the hab-
its, classification, modes of fertilization and functions of plants
and flowers the greater will be our love for them and also our
sense of appreciation of their hygienic and esthetic values.

There is another phase of the physiology of growing plants
and trees which indicates clearly that they exert a beneficent
effect upon the salubrity of the surrounding air. I refer to the
function of transpiration, or the evaporation of moisture from
their leaf surfaces. The actual amount of water thus returned
to the atmosphere is far in excess of what persons versed in
vegetable physiology had supposed, when they came to note the
actual results of carefully conducted experiments by the writer
and others. It has also been shown that soft, and thin-leaved
plants show the most active rate of transpiration, and such as
possess foliage of this sort should be selected so far as practical
in making a choice for indoor cultivation. It has been computed
that the Washington Elm at Cambridge, Mass., with its 200,000
square feet of leaf surfaces in twelve hours of clear weather
transpires not less than seven and three fourths tons of vapor.
Experiment clearly indicates that this function is a potent
factor in maintaining a proper degree of moisture in the air,
when plants are grown indoors. Verily, to plants may be as-
signed honorable rank as natural and efficient atomizers, mak-
ing their influence everywhere felt beyond question.

2 Vide “ House-Plants as Sanitary Agents,” by the writer, p. 93.

68 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

In this connection it should be borne in mind that the atmos-
phere of our artificially heated homes—and this is especially
true of those all too numerous houses warmed by dry-air fur-
naces—is decidedly lacking in moisture. House-plants, rightly
utilized, fulfil an important hygienic indication by adding mois-
ture, and that freely, to these unwholesomely dry, usually over-
heated, and insanitary homes.

There can be no doubt that the public is taking more and
more seriously, and rightly so, sanitary measures of all kinds.
Certain deeply-rooted prejudices which are without foundation,
however, can only be eradiated by time and oft-repeated demon-
stration. Perhaps one of the erroneous popular notions most
tenaciously adhered to has been that house-plants are preju-
dicial to health, especially when grown in sleeping rooms, be-
cause of the ancient and fixed belief that they give off carbon
dioxide during the night, rendering the bedroom unfit for
breathing purposes during sleep. This notion has been suc-
cessfully exploded, and, on the other hand, it has been clearly
shown that this substance is constantly exhaled, that is to say
by day as well as by night (plant-breathing), but in amount too
minute to affect human health unfavorably. In view of the
foregoing facts, growing house-plants and flowers which have
considerable hygienic value owing to other functions, previously
discussed, may be freely cultivated indoors, including bed-
chambers. Indeed among the numerous forms of diversion at
our command, the practise of floriculture, which is neither diffi-
cult nor costly, should be held to be one of the foremost.

Here brief reference to two climatic influences of forest
growth may be made. In the first place, trees possessing odor-
ous foliage or flowers, especially pine grove forests, as was
pointed out above in connection with plants grown indoors, in-
crease the ozone or normal purifying agent of the external air.
Again from facts developed as the result of experimentation,
there can be little doubt but that forests tend to augment and
maintain an equal degree of atmospheric humidity in their
- vicinity and in so far as this influence extends must they like-
wise tend to abridge the diurnal range of temperature—a mat-
ter of greater importance to the race than seasonal variations
of temperature.

It has been well said by a recent writer, that a home which
does not reflect the profusion of the outdoor season in the form
of flowers in summer, is ‘‘as devoid of character and charm as
aman without a necktie.” For this purpose both cultivated and

GROWING PLANTS AS HEALTH-GIVING AGENTS 69

wild flowers in vases solve the problem. But if the desired ob-
ject is to do something in the world to make men better,
healthier and fitter for the duties of this life, we should advo-
cate the cultivation of house-plants so that the people could
enjoy their sanitary advantages as well as their beauty and
delightful companionship. The thorough and searching inves-
tigations of the recent past have yielded results which should
for all time afford pleasure and material benefits to all lovers of
growing plants and flowers.

Moreover, association with these living objects develops an
affinity which often results in genuine friendship. Indeed, con-
tact with elemental nature has come to be recognized as a social-
izing and relaxing force of much importance. It will, however,
require our incessant efforts at diffusion of a knowledge of this
fact before it will be generally utilized or acted upon by the
masses. It is high time to abandon the view so long dominant
that an antagonism due to certain plant functions exists between
the animal and vegetable kingdoms. It is equally in order to
spread the gospel of health as it relates to the notable sanitary
influences of growing vegetation, both indoors and out-of-doors
and thereby encourage re-forestation and the cultivation of
house-plants.

The only possible objection to growing house-plants is to be
found in the heavy sweet odors given off by a few species, ¢.g.,
irises and roses. These may give rise to headaches and other
unpleasant symptoms in certain persons, but it is not necessary
to include such examples in the selection of a group of plants
for indoor cultivation.

Those who know what hygienic measures of this sort can
mean to a community should carry the message to others who
are less fortunate. The result of such a propaganda, we may be
assured, would be an improved general state of health and a
greater measure of human happiness. It is really inspiring
to see the enthusiasm with which the men on whom the well-
being of the race largely depends endeavor to make the fruits
of their unselfish labors available by the dissemination of the
needed information for health and happiness building. In
growing plants and flowers, we have hygienic agents in such
form as that their practical use need in no sense be circum-
scribed. They can be cultivated by rich and poor alike and
hence floriculture should reach even the remote and obscure
quarters of the earth. It would be an excellent and certain way
of making home life everywhere increasingly more beautiful —
and healthful.

70 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE MICROSCOPIC IDENTIFICATION OF
COMMERCIAL FUR HAIRS

By Dr. LEON AUGUSTUS HAUSMAN
(From the Zoological Laboratory, Cornell University)

HE use of the furry pelts of animals as articles of clothing
ce is of very ancient origin, and probably contemporaneous
with the beginnings of the manufacture of flint artifacts and
war clubs. Its use as a decoration for the body, began pre-
sumably, somewhat later. The oriental peoples, as early as
2000 B.c. were using furs, not only as a protection against cold,
but also as articles of luxury, and Herodotus mentions their use
by other ancient peoples. Furs were much prized by the
Romans, particularly during the later days of the empire, and
the Saracens also made extensive use of them. It was from this
latter source that the Crusaders first introduced furs into
Europe, where they met with immediate favor, particularly
among the nobles and clergy, where they were used in cere-
monial regalia. The popularity of furs early rose to such a
pitch that, in England and France, sumptuary edicts were is-
sued against their unrestricted use, which did little, however,
to check the increasing demand. It was to meet this demand
that those hardy pioneers and explorers, the trappers and fur
traders, penetrated far into the wildnernesses of the then un-
known northern portions of North America, and established
there the trading stations which later came to play such impor-
tant roles in the spread of the white man in America.

The use of furs as necessary articles of clothing as well as
for ornamental purposes, is as great to-day as ever, and indeed
during the past several years seems to have increased the
severity of its demands. Certain mammals are being rapidly
reduced in numbers, if not threatened with extinction; and |
certain furs are becoming rare and consequently expensive.
Hence there arises the necessity for some methods whereby the
species from which any given fur was obtained can be indubi-
tably determined. For it is possible to remodel and rename
furs, that is, so to clip, dye and pull them, that their original
appearance is altered to such an extent that they may be sold
under names not their own. Furs so remodelled may be sold

IDENTIFICATION OF COMMERCIAL FUR HAIRS 71

under the names of furs much superior in wearing quality or
in warmth.

Thus the pelts of animals from warmer zones such as the
woodchuck (marmot), opossum, Australian opossum, raccoon,
weasel, Tartar pony, Manchurian dog, and certain monkeys are
worked up by fur dressers into articles but little resembling
their originals and sold under other names, usually under the
names of animals of northern latitudes. Such furs are inferior
to those from colder climates in suppleness and durability of
leather, denseness and silkiness of under, or fur-hair, fullness
of over- or protective hair, and because dyed, brittle and less
durable in general. One of the most durable of all furs is that
of the sea otter (Latax lutris). Considering this to be repre-
sented by 100, the relative durability of some common furs,
when used with the fur outside (not for linings), is as follows :1

Species Durability (Otter = 100)
TS (BCAave ram bhare ces :c terion Pe eee ee teers toe leye. alse 90
22 bear i blacks Or Drowns sce eeieke wee one ele 94
Se ONIN CHa. ere eke ars let PEN ie) sersl sb) laure 15
As SHY IMIN GML ess, oer orl ocs ler aero saa ane sie dene otens 25
5A BOX SMab Ural sic ceepdewle thal hehe toney ek enclsronshetei evs 40
Gi WOx Gye Miariicisenelaicpchae: a HeRSIRS, shctal iota reeds 20-25
he GOGH Em eee cry nal Gear tay ane Teer encase Mei pavee 15
So Hare aae an eicters clone eee ae eee aie a saves 05
9: Kolimalg oti iat. & oe. aperepacre pore ee tei of bec inves ah ik, 25
HO, Leopard teskante ss Mes eo depen. & 2 tia se bate 75
a RB) Oso OPS AO Ge co A 5 6 OCB 6 Gn io ERSICE RCRA LEP aoe 25
U2 UMartenw(S Un strani tke orersickons oie o oreleulenske 70
TS Miike, mbupale cers anita an S © « cRuareraa eee 70
4, Minis. Gee, (aca eal ends Chris ears, d weds 35
452 Mole actod 2 55 eee rotons 4 6 eidthet wi 07
TGs Di eRAE OTe ee eis as SP ay cles wool oleccttay 2 45
17. Nutria (Coypu rat), plucked ............. 25
ES 5) OFGEP (SCA eisit ses eV a ee Ee es eed ones 100
19. Otter, inlandlss: tan Seema oiosd ts eideets see 100
ZO. CODOSSBIN a sre acy esk ciate M Maes oi/2) So's eis: Glen pose 37
OLS Rabpiv: .Laa thee cinerees eeieeeet ake eas oa SD bake 05
22- hACCOONs NALUFS Ie wee eae clo a oe 65
23> RACCOON, (A YCR te eye eats See tie aisle ales 50
24, Savile: a syss tap eeapeer sete ae ioeisre ule eros cakes 60
Bi SOak, NAT) i eer AR RARE on cia ict s bostals 80
265 Sealy fur 2) pur. poevev re ae ee SEALE civ Aed ates tel 80
A. SOUIEECL, SPAY te eee Ree Oe te cet eo sis 20-25
Ber Wolf: te fis 0, Gere ie aay. oy CL) & 50
ZO WOlVETENEGd eein are hehe Roe eae ah hesctod 100

1 Modified, from Peterson, “The Fur Trade and Fur Bearing Ani- -
mals,” Buffalo, 1914.

72 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

The misnaming of furs offered for sale in England reached,
several years ago, such magnitude that the London Chamber
of Commerce gave notice that misleading names were not to be
employed, and that offenders were liable to prosecution. More
definite legislation than now exists ought also to be had in this
country. The following table? lists some of the best known
furs, and their usual misnomers.

Species Altered and Sold as
1.) Mer iean IRADIC ee ane eae, a ale eae ele Russian sable
PE TUCHs AVR So sich CIM ooe tal shane cliche Cyto: a teareuen events Sable
Bi GORE AG OE ie cee eee chee chs alin a/a'ieisa al ete ete Bear, of various kinds
ZUNE Both cBiNCo br 6 WIR 8 2) Re YE SAE Sable or fox
LN rE QUANG RAI ARO) MATE LE CAH Lamb
G))\Woodchuck, (marmot) idyed |. )\\icjc/as abide sie Mink, sable, skunk
MUNIN. OVO eietesteieustense dene toys s\n etc, cre ume da lomensce tas Sable
8. Muskrat (musquash), dyed ................ Mink, sable
9. Muskrat (musquash), pulled and dyed...... Seal, electric seal,
Hudson Bay Seal, Red
River seal
10. Nutria (Coypu rat), pulled and dyed........ Seal, electric seal,
Hudson Bay seal, Red
River seal
11. Nutria (Coypu rat), pulled, naturall....:.... Beaver, otter
12. Opossum, sheared and dyed ................ Beaver
id. (Otter, PULed aM VEVOC. |\sc.c's cele smcbor se catae Seal of various kinds.
DA ERG, AV ners aietc Ue Wilells dlc's 4's win /aellel sini sie Sane Sable
oy Rabat, sheared (and ayed)s .).!)5))/ is) .telawietate Seal, electric seal,
Hudson Bay seal, Red
River seal, musquash
MPI §4 24 0) oF ANG 00h F< RLS eae 4 oe a orb) Ermine
CS VAD DIG WELCH VOR iawetsie le elistove lanes tenererarase tecenetere Chinchilla
18. Kangaroo (wallaby), various species, dyed...Skunk (marten)
NO CHED Are VNTR Ee EUR ease a's (a a ate ce tare re shenanene ts Fox
PAIGE 082 ee i <6 MAEDA alg 8 A tN ee eo SLE Leopard

Up to the present time no very dependable series of criteria
for the indubitable identification of mammal hairs was to be
had. In a recent paper on the microscopic structure of mam-
malian hair® the author has pointed out that the constant char-
acteristics of certain microscopic elements in the structure of
the hair shaft are significant from several zoological viewpoints.
That the results of the application of these criteria for the
identification of commercial fur hairs may be of practical value

2 Modified, from Jones, “ Fur Farming in Canada” (Canada Commis-
sion of Conservation), Ottawa, 1914.

3 Hausman, L. A., “A Micrological Investigation of the Definitive
Hair Structure of the Mammalia, with Especial Reference to the Mono-
tremata” (in press).

IDENTIFICATION OF COMMERCIAL FUR HAIRS 73

to the general public as well, it is the object of this paper to
point out.

In order to appreciate the nature of the microscopic ele-
ments of the hair structure used in identification, it will be help-
ful to pass briefly in review the structure of the typical mam-
malian hair. Hairs arise from the bases of relatively deep pits
in the epidermis, or outer layer of the skin, known as follicles,
and push upward, being added to from the base, in a rod-like
growth, of circular or elliptical cross section, and are composed
of four elements (Fig. 1): (1) the medulla (M), or pith, con-
sisting of many superimposed cells or chambers, which may be
either separate or massed, (2) the cortex (CO), or shell, sur-
rounding the medulla, of tough, horny, homogeneous texture
and hyaline appearance, (3) the pigment granules (P), to
which the color of the hair is primarily due, scattered about
within the corticular substance, and (4) the cuticle (CU), or
outermost integument of the hair shaft, lying upon the cortex
and composed of plate-like scales, imbricated somewhat like the
shingles on a roof. It is the form and interrelationships of
these various structural elements, together with the diameter of
the hair shaft, which form the series of determinative criteria
to which reference has been made.

Medullas occur in four distinct forms: (1) the discontinuous
medulla, as in the hair of the duck bill, or platypus, Fig. 27;
(2) the continuous medulla, as in the hair of the red fox, Fig.
8; (3) the interrupted medulla, as in the hair of the hair seal,
Fig. 13, which is a type intermediate between the first two; and
(4) the fragmental medulla, as in the hair of the European
otter, Fig. 11. It will be noted, furthermore, that the hair of
some species lacks the medulla altogether.

The cortex, since it is usually of homogeneous structure,
shows few or no compositional characteristics, and when used
in description is merely measured as to thickness between the
cuticle and medulla.

The pigment granules when present, are usually of char-
acteristic form and distribution, and can often be used for one
of the criteria for identification.

The elements, however, which presents the most readily
usable and definite characteristics, are the scales of the cuticle.
They fall into two great formal groups: (1) the imbricate
interrupted type, those which lie singly imbricated about the
hair shaft, like shingles on a roof, as in the hair of the Coypu .
rat, Fig. 18; and (2) the imbricate coronal type, those which

IDENTIFICATION OF COMMERCIAL FUR HAIRS 75

encircle the hair shaft as continuous bands, as in the hair of the
ermine, Fig. 6. Of these two types there are a multitude of
intricate variations.

The hair covering of most mammals consists of two kinds
of hair; a soft, thick, under hair, called the fur hair, and a
longer, stouter hair, which overlies the fur hair, termed the
protective hair. In commerce the names under hair and over
hair are usually employed. Microscopic examination of the
structures used for identification may be made, as is sometimes
necessary, of both these kinds of hair. It is usually sufficient,
however, to subject only the fur hair to examination.

The preparation of hair for ordinary examination is not
laborious. Several hair shafts are taken, and washed in a solu-
tion composed of equal parts of 95 per cent. alcohol and ether,
to remove any oily matter from their surfaces. They are then
transferred to a clean glass slide; covered with a cover glass,
and allowed to stand in a current of warm air until thoroughly
dry. Examination can now be made directly, using the 8x
ocular and the 16 mm. and 4mm. objectives. This simple treat-
Fig. 1. IDEAL GENERALIZED MAMMAL HAIR, TO SHOW THE STRUCTURE. OU, cuticle;

CO, cortex; M, medulla; P, pigment granules.
Fic, 2. TRANSVERSE SECTION THROUGH TWO HAIR SHAFTS FROM THE DUCK BILL, OR
Platypus. CU, cuticle; CO, cortex; M, medulla; P, pigment granules.
ORDER FHRH (THE CARNIVORA)

Fic. 3. Badger (Tazidea americana), 57.

Fic. 4. Black bear (Ursinus americanus), various varieties of, 27.
European brown bear (Ursus arctos).

Fie. 5. Civet (Arctogalidia fusca), 21.
Domestic cat (Felis catus).
Wild cat (several species).

Wie. 6. Ermine (Putcrius erminea), 17.
Fic. 7. Fitch (Mustela putorius), 18.
Fic. 8. Red fox (Vulpes pennsylvanicus), with its various varieties, 19.

Genet (Viverra genetta).
Kolinsky (see Siberian mink),
Leopard (felis pardus).
Fic. 9. Canada lynx (Lynz canadensis), 19,
Marten (see skunk).
Pine marten (Mustela martes).
Stone marten (Mustela foina).
Ficg.10. Mink (Putorius vison), with its various varieties, 11.
Siberian mink (Mustela sibirica).
American otter (Lutra canadensis).
Fig. 11. European otter (Lutra vulgaris), 10.
Sea otter (Latagr lutris).
Fic. 12. Raccoon (Procyon lotor), 20.
American sable (Mustela americana).
Russian sable (Mustela zibellina).
Fur seal (Callhorinus ursinus), and other species.
Ficg.13. Hair seal (Otaria jubata), 105. Sea lions of the genera Eumentopias, and
Zalophus are also used.
Fig. 14. Skunk (Mephitis mephitica), 26.
Fic.15. Wolverene (Gulo luscus), 25.

76

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

ORDER GLIRES (THN RODENTS)

American beaver (Castor canadensis), 18.

European beaver (Castor fiver).

Chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera), 16.

Coypu rat, or nutria (Myocastor coypus), 11.

Cony (see rabbit).

Hare (Lepus americanus virginianus) and other species.
Marmot (see woodchuck).

Nutria (see Coypu rat).

IDENTIFICATION OF COMMERCIAL FUR HAIRS i

ment answers very well for those hairs whose structural ele-
ments are large and prominent, such as those of the European
otter, Fig. 11, and of the American beaver, Fig. 16. In other
cases the hairs must be washed in the ether-alcohol as before,
and then dipped with forceps into a 95 per cent. alcoholic solu-
tion of gentian violet, methyl blue, methyl violet, Bismarck
brown, or safranin, of a degree of color depth which must be
empirically determined for the best results with each different
species of hair. This treatment renders clear the outlines of
the individual scales. However, even this manipulation fails to
reveal the contour of the scales of certain hairs, and various
other methods devised by the writer, too lengthy for description
here, must be called into service. Treatment with caustics, such
as caustic soda or potash; or with acids, such as nitric or hydro-
chloric, which have sometimes been recommended, distorts the
scales and thereby renders them valueless for delicate deter-
minative purposes.

The treatments used to render the cuticular scales visible,
obscure the medulla, hence other methods are necessary to
bring into prominence this element of the hair structure. The
simplest and most generally useful of these is to mount the hair
on a slide in some one of the light oils used in micrological work,
such as oil of cloves, oil of bergamont, oil of cedar, etc., after
having washed the hair, as before, in the ether-alcohol solution.
With some few hairs it is satisfactory to use clear water as the
mounting medium. The methods used to bring the medulla into

Fie. 19. American gray squirrel (Sciwrus carolinensis), 18.
Siberian gray squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris).

Fie. 20. Rabbit (Lepus nutalli malurus), and other species, 17.

Fig. 21. Woodchuck (Arctomys monaz), 22.

Fic. 22: Muskrat (Fiber zibethecus), 17.

ORDER UNGULATA (THE HOOFED MAMMALS)

Domestic goat (Capra hircus).
Pony, or domestic horse.
Astrachan (Ovis aries), and its varieties.

ORDER INSECTIVORA (THE MOLES, SHREWS, ETC.) .

Fic. 23. European mole (Talpa europea), 17.
Fic. 24. American mole (Scalops aquaticus), 17.

ORDER MARSUPIALIA (THE POUCHED MAMMALS)

Fic. 25. Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), 22.

Fic. 26. Opossum (Didelphys virginiana), 37.
Rock wallaby (Petrogala pencillata).
Yellow wallaby (Petrogale canthopus).

ORDER MONOTREMATA (THE EGG-LAYING MAMMALS)

Fic. 27. Duck bill, or platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), 8.

78 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

clear visibility are also useful for rendering plain the pig-
ment granules.

For the measurements of the diameter of the hair shaft, the
ocular micrometer is perhaps the most satisfactory. Since, in
any given tuft of hairs, there is considerable variation in the
diameters of the individual shafts, the average of many meas-
urements should be taken.

It was sometimes, though fortunately not frequently, found
necessary to prepare transverse sections of the hair shafts, to
determine more fully the contour of the medulla. Fig. 2 shows
two shafts of the fur hair of the duck bill, or platypus, sec-
tioned in this way.

In the following classified list are enumerated those mam-
mals whose pelages are the most extensively used in the fur
trade. The numbers against some of these, which are the most
common, are the numbers of the figures wherein is shown the
microscopic appearance of the fur hair. In each figure two
hair shafts are depicted, one treated to show the cuticular
scales; the other to show the medulla. The hair shafts are not
drawn to scale; where there is so great variation in diameters
this is not practicable. Hence, following the name of each
species whose hair is figured, appears the average diameter of
the shafts of the fur hairs, expressed in micra.*

4 One micron 1/1,000 of a millimeter, or circa 1/254,000 inch.

DEFLECTION OF LIGHT BY GRAVITATION 79

THE REFLECTION OF LIGHT BY GRAVITA-
TION AND THE EINSTEIN THEORY OF
RELATIVITY’

By SIR JOSEPH THOMPSON,
PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY IN THE CHAIR.

Sir FRANK Dyson, The Astronomer Royal:

The purpose of the expedition was to determine whether
any displacement is caused to a ray of light by the gravitational
field of the sun, and, if so, the amount of the displacement. Ein-
stein’s theory predicted a displacement varying inversely as the
distance of the ray from the sun’s center, amounting to 1”.75
for a star seen just grazing the sun. His theory or law of
gravitation had already explained the movement of the peri-
helion of Mercury—long an outstanding problem for dynamical
astronomy—and it was desirable to apply a further test to it.
Many people considered it quite likely that, even if Einstein’s
conclusion was not confirmed, we should get half his computed
defiection for a beam—this other result being the deflection of
a particle moving past the sun with the velocity of light.

The effect of the predicted gravitational bending of the ray
of light is to throw the star away from the sun. In measuring
the positions of the stars on a photograph to test this displace-
ment, difficulties at once arise about the scale of the photograph.
The determination of the scale depends largely upon the outer
stars on the plate, while the Einstein effect causes its largest
discrepancy on the inner stars nearer the sun, so that it is quite
possible to discriminate between the two causes which affect the
star’s position.

Previous eclipse photographs are generally unsuitable for
evidence bearing on the point, as they are either on too large
a scale showing too few stars on the plate or else on too small a
scale to provide the delicate test with sufficient accuracy. The
plates secured at Sfax in 1905 with one of the astrographic
objectives used for the International Carte du Ciel seemed of
suitable scale. Examination of them failed to give a definite
result, but showed that this instrument was well suited to our

1 From the report in The Observatory, of the Joint Eclipse Meeting of
the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, November 6, 1919.

80 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

problem. A study of the conditions of the 1919 eclipse showed
that the sun would be very favorably placed among a group of
bright stars—in fact, it would be in the most favorable possible
position. A study of the conditions at various points on the
path of the eclipse, in which Mr. Hinks helped us, pointed to
Sobral, in Brazil, and Principe, an island off the West Coast of
Africa, as the most favorable stations, and the eclipse commit-
tee decided to send out expeditions to these two places if the
war conditions allowed. Professor Turner, of the Oxford Uni-
versity Observatory, most kindly loaned the object-glass of the
Oxford astrographic telescope, and the arrangements for
mounting this and the Greenwich objective were pushed for-
ward at Greenwich as hard as the reduced staff permitted.
Father Cortie further suggested the use of a 4-inch lens of 19 ft.
focal length belonging to the Royal Irish Academy. The instru-
ments were assembled at Greenwich largely under Mr. David-
son’s supervision, and all was ready in time for the observers to
start from England in March.

The Greenwich party, Dr. Crommelin and Mr. Davidson
reached Brazil in ample time to prepare for the eclipse, and the
usual preliminary focussing by photographing stellar fields was
carried out. The day of the eclipse opened cloudy, but cleared
later, and the observations were carried out with almost com-
plete success. With the astrographic telescope Mr. Davidson
secured 15 out of 18 photographs showing the required stellar
images. Totality lasted 6 minutes, and the average exposure of
the plates was 5 to 6 seconds. Dr. Crommelin with the other
lens had 7 successful plates out of 8. The unsuccessful plates
were spoiled for this purpose by clouds, but show the remark-
able prominence very well.

When the plates were developed the astrographic images
were found to be out of focus. This is attributed to the effect
of the sun’s heat on the coelostat mirror. The images were
fuzzy and quite different from those on the check-plates secured
at night before and after the eclipse. Fortunately the mirror
which fed the 4-inch lens was not affected, and the star-images
secured with this lens were good and similar to those got by the
night-plates. The observers stayed on in Brazil until July to
secure the field in the night sky at the altitude of the eclipse
epoch and under identical instrumental conditions.

The plates were measured at Greenwich immediately after
the observers’ return. Each plate was measured twice over by
Messrs. Davidson and Furner, and I am satisfied that such
faults as lie in the results are in the plates themselves and not

DEFLECTION OF LIGHT BY GRAVITATION Sl

in the measures. The figures obtained may be briefly sum-
marized as follows: The astrographic plates gave 0”.97 for the
displacement at the limb when the scale-value was determined
from the plates themselves, and 1”.40 when the scale-value was
assumed from the check-plates. But the much better plates
gave for the displacement at the limb 1”.98, Einstein’s pre-
dicted value being 1”.75. Further, for these plates the agree-
ment between individual stars was all that could be expected.
-The following table gives the deflections observed compared
with those predicted by Einstein’s theory:

Displacement in R.A. | Displacement in Dec

No. of Star ————

Observed Calculated Observed Calculated

_ CT eee: 0 A — 0.19 — 0.22 L0G +0.02

IY a b, DAU a ore eee ena ee — 0.29 = (0) 5531! — (0.46 — 0.43

NM re eA oh es SR ee — O71! — 0.10 + 0.83 + ().74

3) co hae eee CRO Re ewe Once 40 — 0.20 = (0) + 1.00 + 0.87

Oieeeres ie rare ies shes Gara ola ayadeente — 0.10 + (0.04 + 0.57 + ().40

OES Monet iv ial cccpeland, Faerie aoe wrt — (0.08 + 0.09 + 0.35 + 0.32

YR 4 co eee eh ORE Ee eee + 0.95 + 0.85 — 0.27 — (0.09

After a careful study of the plates I am prepared to say that
there can be no doubt that they confirm Einstein’s prediction.
A very definite result has been obtained that light is deflected in
accordance with Einstein’s law of gravitation.

Dr. A. C. CROMMELIN, Assistant Astronomer Royal:

I have not much to add to what the Astronomer Royal has
said, but I should like to say what a great debt we owe to the
Brazilian Government for the immense help they gave us. Dr.
Morize, the Brazilian national astronomer, gave all possible
assistance; he had made a preliminary visit to Sobral a month
before, when he made arrangements for our accommodation
and also for supplying us with all the labor that we required—
porters, bricklayers and carpenters were all freely put at our
service. Members of Dr. Morize’s staff helped by supplying us
with chronometer errors and meteorological data. We were
much indebted to Col. Vicente Saboya, the deputy for Sobral,
who put his house at our disposal, with a permanent water-
supply—no small boon in a time of drought, and of great im-
portance in the photographic work. Dr. Locadio Aranjo, our
interpreter, gave us invaluable help at every point, clearly ex-
plaining to the workmen our complicated demands, and calling
the seconds for us at the eclipse. We were also indebted to the
Booth Steamship Company for much help in dealing with our

VOL. x.—6.

82 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

heavy baggage. They made arrangements with the local com-
panies to forward it free of charge from Para to Camocim and
thence to Sobral.

We should also thank the Sobral municipal authorities, who
allowed us to encamp on the race-course and kept the public
outside during the eclipse.

With regard to the bad focus of the plates taken with the
astrographic during totality, we can only ascribe this to a
change of curvature of the ccelostat mirror, due to the sun’s
heat; for the focus was good on the stars two days before the
eclipse and again on the check-plates taken during July. The
small coelostat used with the 4-inch lens did not suffer from
deformation, the images of stars during totality being of the
same character as those on the check-plates; this increased the
weight of the determination with that instrument. With re-
gard to the July plates, we found that exposure was possible up
te 25 minutes before sunrise, when the sky was of about the
same brightness as during totality. 3915° was the greatest
altitude of the field on the check-plates, as compared with 44°
at the eclipse.

PROFESSOR A. S. EDDINGTON, Royal Observatory:

Mr. Cottingham and I left the other observers at Madeira
and arrived at Principe on April 23. We were most kindly re-
ceived at Principe by Sr. Carneiro. He also supplied us with
all the iabor and materials we needed, and we established our
station at Sundy, the headquarters of his plantation, on the
northwest side of the island. The island of Principe is about
10 miles long by 4 miles wide. We soon realized that the pros-
pects of a clear sky at the end of May were not very good. Not
even a heavy thunderstorm on the morning of the eclipse, three
weeks after the end of the wet season, saved the situation.
The sky was completely cloudy at first contact, but about half
an hour before totality we began to see glimpses of the sun’s
crescent through the clouds. We carried out our program ex-
actly as arranged, and the sky must have been a little clearer
towards the end of totality. Of the 16 plates taken during the
five minutes of totality the first 10 showed no stars at all; of the
later plates two showed five stars each, from which a result
could be obtained. Comparing them with the check-plates
secured at Oxford before we went out, we obtained as the final
result from the two plates for the value of the displacement at
the limb 1”.6 + 0”.3. The p.e. was determined from the resi-
duals of individual stars. This result supports the figures ob-
tained at Sobral.

DEFLECTION OF LIGHT BY GRAVITATION 85

There was one important difference in our data—we were
unable to stay to take check-photographs of the field. As our
eclipse took place in the afternoon, we should have had to wait
some months longer than the Sobral observers to get the com-
parison-plates under the same conditions. We, however, took
another field of stars for a check and compared our photographs
with the Oxford plates of the same field to see whether a similar
reduction gave evidence of any displacement corresponding to
that found on the eclipse-plates. We got a very small value for
the displacement on these check-plates, leading to the conclusion
that the larger quantities found on the eclipse-plates could only
be due to the presence of the sun in the field. We also used
these check-plates to determine the difference of scale of the
photographs at Oxford and Principe, and used that scale for
working up the eclipse-plates. This was a great help in mak-
ing the most of a small amount of material. <A difference might
have arisen for reasons of temperature changes; but the tem-
perature at Principe is very uniform day and night—in fact,
there was not 4° difference during the whole time we were at
Principe, and we were there both for the hot and the cold sea-
son. Again, in one way we were helped by the clouds that at
the time seemed so serious an obstacle; the sun’s rays could not
seriously affect the mirror by heating it, as seems to have hap-
pened at Sobral.

I will pass now to a few words on the meaning of the result.
It points to the larger of the two possible values of the deflec-
tion. The simplest interpretation of the bending of the ray is
to consider it as an effect of the weight of light. We know that
momentum is carried along on the path of a beam of light.
Gravity in acting creates momentum in a direction different to
that of the path of the ray and so causes it to bend. For the
half-effect we have to assume that gravity obeys Newton’s law;
for the full effect which has been obtained we must assume that
gravity obeys the new law proposed by Einstein. This is one of
the most crucial tests between Newton’s law and the proposed
new law. Einstein’s law had already indicated a perturbation,
causing the orbit of Mercury to revolve. That confirms it for
relatively small velocities. Going to the limit, where the speed
is that of light, the perturbation is increased in such a way as
to double the curvature of the path, and this is now confirmed.

This effect may be taken as proving Einstein’s law rather
than his theory. It is not affected by the failure to detect the
displacement of Fraunhofer lines on the sun. If this latter
failure is confirmed it will not affect Einstein’s law of gravita-

S4 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

tion, but it will affect the views on which the law was arrived
at. The law is right, though the fundamental ideas underlying
it may yet be questioned.

The difference of the two laws may be expressed analytically
as follows: Any particle or light-pulse moves so that the integral
of ds between two points of its path (in four dimensions) is
stationary where

ds* = — (1 — 2m/r) “dr —rde& + (1 — 2m/r) dt (Einstein’s law).
asa — dy — rd? + (1— 2m/r) dt (Newton’s law).

These expressions are in polar coordinates for a particle of
gravitational mass m. I think the second expression may be
accepted as corresponding to Newton’s law—at any rate, it
gives no motion of perihelion of Mercury and the half-deflection
of light. What we have established is the necessity for the fac-
tor multiplying d?°.

One further point must be touched upon. Are we to at-
tribute the displacement to the gravitational field and not to
refracting matter round the sun? The refractive index re-
quired to produce the result at a distance of 15’ from the sun
would be that given by gases at a pressure of 1/60 to 1/200 of
an atmosphere. This is of too great a density considering the
depth through which the light would have to pass.

SIR JOSEPH THOMSON, President of the Royal Society:

I now call for discussion on this momentous communication.
If the results obtained had been only that light was affected by
gravitation, it would have been of the greatest importance.
Newton did, in fact, suggest this very point in the first query in
his “‘ Optics,”’ and his suggestion would presumably have led to
the half-value. But this result is not an isolated one; it is part
of a whole continent of scientific ideas affecting the most funda-
mental concepts of physics. It is difficult for the audience to
weigh fully the meaning of the figures that have been put before
us, but the Astronomer Royal and Professor Eddington have
studied the material carefully, and they regard the evidence as
decisively in favor of the larger value for the displacement.
This is the most important result obtained in connection with the
theory of gravitation since Newton’s day, and it is fitting that it
should be announced at a meeting of the society so closely con-
nected with him.

The difference between the laws of gravitation of Einstein
and Newton come only in special cases. The real interest of |

DEFLECTION OF LIGHT BY GRAVITATION 85

Einstein’s theory lies not so much in his results as in the method
by which he gets them. If his theory is right, it makes us take
an entirely new view of gravitation. If it is sustained that Ein-
stein’s reasoning holds good—and it has survived two very
severe tests in connection with the perihelion of Mercury and
the present eclipse—then it is the result of one of the highest
achievements of human thought. The weak point in the theory
is the great difficulty in expressing it. It would seem that no
one can understand the new law of gravitation without a
thorough knowledge of the theory of invariants and of the
calculus of variations.

One other point of physical interest arises from this discus-
sion. Light is deflected in passing near large bodies of matter.
This involves alterations in the electric and magnetic field.
This, again, implies the existence of electric and magnetic forces
outside matter—forces at present unknown, though some idea
of their nature may be got from the results of this expedition.

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THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 87

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION '!

By Professor JAMES HENRY BREASTED

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

LECTURE TWO

THE EARLIEST CIVILIZATION AND ITS TRANSITION TO EUROPE

We have seen how the Stone Age hunters of the Nile grad-
ually gained agriculture, domestic animals, metal, writing and
industries, and leaving behind the men of the Mediterranean
world elsewhere, in the thousand years between 4000 and 3000
B.C. transformed their northeast African game preserve into the
first great state, regulated and controlled by a highly organized
administration. This progress and especially its culmination in
the thirtieth century B.C. is graphically visualized in the dia-
gram in Fig. 65.

No. 1 at the extreme left end represents the pit grave, the
only type of burial known until nearly 4000 B.c., which we saw
in the first discussion. Surmounted by a low mound of sand,
with perhaps a circle of stones around it, this earliest burial
was the germ of the pyramid of stone masonry. We can trace
the development from stage to stage—a development slow and
gradual as civilization arose between 4000 and 3000 B.c., but
quickening with surprising swiftness after passing 3000, that
is during the thirtieth century, between 3000 and 2900 B.c.
Hardly more than a generation before this thirtieth century
the first example of hewn stone masonry was laid, and in the
generation after this thirtieth century the Great Pyramid of
Gizeh was.built. With amazingly accelerated development the
Egyptian passed from the earliest example of stone masonry
just before 3000 B.c. to the Great Pyramid just after 2900.
The great-grandfathers built the first stone masonry wall a
generation or so before 3000 B.c., and the great-grandsons
erected the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, within a generation after
2900. It will be seen that this development falls chiefly in the
century between 3000 and 2900 B.c., that is the thirtieth cen-

1 Delivered before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington,
D. C., April 28 and 29, 1910, as the seventh series of lectures on the Wil-’
liam Ellery Hale Foundation.

88 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 66. TrrrRAcED ToMB StrrucrurE OF PHARAOH ZOSER AT SAKKARA, EGYPT.
The oldest known superstructure of stone,—built by the architect Imhotep (30th
century B.C.).

tury B.C., which for this reason occupies more space in the
diagram than the thousand years which precede it. No cen-
tury in the history of man, except the nineteenth century of our
era, has witnessed as rapid an expansion of man’s control of
material forces as the thirtieth century B.C.

It is therefore of great interest to contemplate the most
revolutionary monument of that revolutionary century, the
earliest stone building in existence (Fig. 66). This monument
marks definitely the transition from sun-dried brick to stone
masonry. It was erected as the tomb of King Zoser of the
Third Dynasty, by his chief physician and architect Imhotep.
This great man, the first builder of monumental architecture
in stone, is little known, his fame having been rather ground-
lessly shifted to King Solomon by our friends, the modern Free
Masons. Nevertheless we should not forget that he was the
first builder to put up a great superstructure of stone 200 feet
high, which still survives as the earliest stone building in
existence. Imhotep’s fame as a physician has eclipsed his repu-
tation as an architect. He became the Asclepias of the Greeks,
the AXsculapius of the Romans, and thus passed into the great
company of the ancient gods.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 89

The vast cemetery buildings which followed Imhotep’s in-
troduction of stone masonry superstructures reveal to us the
first great civilized age of human history, an age to which these
structures have given their name, so that it is commonly called
the Pyramid Age. It lasted nearly 500 years from a little after
3000 to a little after 2500 B.c. The monuments and cemetery
buildings of Gizeh are the monumental expression of the capac-
ity of the first great state in human history.

They suggest a vista never to be forgotten. Out along the
desert margin (Fig. 67) is many a grave of the prehistoric
Egyptian peasant. The low sand or gravel heap, which once
marked it, is the lineal ancestor of the vast monuments of Gizeh,
the most tremendous feat of engineering ever achieved by
ancient man. What a development is here! Not merely a
development in the mechanical arts, which beginning with the
sand heap have at last achieved the pyramid, but also a develop-
ment in the organization of government and society, which
slowly advancing in the thousand years or more which lie be-
tween the sand heap and the pyramid, has gradually passed
from the feeble initiative and limited powers of the individual
to the elaborate capacities of a highly organized state, so effi-
cient that it is able with unerring precision to concentrate all

Fic. 67. THe CEMETERY OF GIZEH SEEN FROM AN AEROPLANE, These pyramids
are the tombs of the kings and royal ladies of the Fourth Dynasty (about 2900 to
2750 B.c.). They are surrounded by the massive rectangular masonry tombs: or
“mastabas * of the nobles and officials of the same period. (Copyright by Moussault,
Nz X=)

90 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

its vast resources of wealth and labor and mechanical skill upon
one supreme achievement never later to be surpassed.

The Great Pyramid of Gizeh (Fig. 68) is the most impres-
sive surviving witness to the final emergence of organized man
from prehistoric chaos and local conflict, for it discloses him to
us as he comes for the first time completely under the power of
a far-reaching and comprehensive centralization effected by
one all-controlling sovereign hand. Not the least remarkable
aspect of this State is the sovereign’s confidence in its efficiency.
Here is a tomb containing 2,300,000 blocks of limestone, each
weighing about two and a half tons, the assembling and erection
of which in this building required the labor of one hundred

Ric. 68. THE Grear PYRAMID OF GIZEH, THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH KHUFU
(CHEOPS), BUILT IN THE TWENTY-NINTH CENTURY B.C. It is the largest stone super-
structure ever erected whether in ancient or (except recently) in modern times.

thousand men for some twenty years. Consider the daring
imagination which could look out over this plateau, when it
stood bare and empty, before its occupation by this building,
and measuring off a square containing thirteen acres dared to
begin covering it with a pile of stone masonry nearly 500 feet
high. What must have been the mental quality of a man whose
great-grandfathers had put together the first piece of stone
masonry, and whose grandfathers had put up the first stone

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 91

superstructure—what must have been the mental quality of a
ruler who dared to plan and undertake a tomb of such colossal
proportions that no such structure ever later attempted has ap-
proached it in size or in quality of workmanship! Such con-
siderations give us an impressive measure of the Pharaoh’s con-
fidence in the efficiency of his administrative machine.

He must likewise have had great confidence in the ability of
his builders to meet the difficult problems which at once con-
fronted them as they mounted the Gizeh plateau and began lay-
ing out the ground plan of the vast royal tomb which they were
called upon to erect. One finds it difficult to imagine the feel-
ings of these earliest architects, the great-grandsons of the men
who had laid the first stone masonry, as they paced off the pre-
liminary plan and found an elevation in the surface of the
desert which prevented. them from sighting diagonally from
corner to corner and applying directly a weli-known old Egyp-
tian method of erecting an accurate perpendicular by means of
measuring off a hypotenuse.

It is evident, however, that the Egyptian engineers early
learned to carry a straight line over elevations of the earth’s
surface, or a plane around the bends of the Nile. In his en-
deavor to record the varying Nile levels in all latitudes the
Egyptian engineer was confronted by nice problems in survey-
ing even more exacting than those which he met in the Great
Pyramid. A study of the surviving nilometers has disclosed
the fact?’ that their zero points, always well below lowest water,
are all in one plane. This plane inclines as does the flood slope,
from south to north. The Pharaoh’s engineers succeeded in
carrying the line in the same sloping plane, around innumerable
bends in the river for some seven hundred miles from the sea
to the First Cataract. It is not surprising in view of the diffi-
culty of the feat, accomplished as it necessarily was with primi-
tive instruments about which we know nothing—it is not sur-
prising under these circumstances, that although they kept their
line in one plane, they did not succeed in establishing the slope
of their line exactly parallel with the flood slope. Later, how-
ever, when they extended this line up river they succeeded
in carrying it very closely parallel with the flood slope for some
two hundred miles further southward to the Second Cataract.

The builders of the Great Pyramid were therefore already
in possession of the methods which enabled the Pharaoh’s engi-
neers to lay out a seven-hundred mile line of nilometers in one
plane. The sockets cut into the limestone surface of the desert

25. Borchardt, ‘‘ Nilmesser und Nilstandsmarken.”

92 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 69. RECTANGULAR Sockrer cur IN THE NATIVE ROCK UNDERLYING THE
Grear PyraAMip. In this socket the northeast corner-stone of the building was laid;
it was carried off by the Moslems.

plateau in which the cornerstones of the Great Pyramid were
laid, still survive (Fig. 69), though the cornerstones themselves
have been quarried out by Moslem vandals. These sockets en-
abled Petrie to establish the length of the sides as 755 feet. The
maximum error he found to be .63 of an inch, that is less than
one fourteen-thousandth of the total length of the side. The
error of angle at the corners he found to be 12” of a degree, that
is one twenty-seven-thousandth of the right angle which the
architect had laid out at the corner.

It is not a little interesting to follow the methods by which
an agricultural people in a few generations developed the power
to manipulate such vast masses of architectural materials as
the Pharaoh’s architects were then called upon to rear nearly
500 feet above this ground plan. The ruins of other pyramids
and a pyramid left in an unfinished state at Gizeh have revealed
much of the process of construction. Sun-dried brick ramps
which were built higher as the pyramid rose, furnished an in-
clined plane up which the stone blocks were dragged by main
strength on wooden sledges. Just how each block was shifted
from the sledge to its particular place in the structure is still

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 95

uncertain ; for the description of the device for this purpose left
us by Herodotus is not clear. The indications now are that the
pulley-block was already available, but it is unlikely that its
ability to multiply power was understood. After the comple-
tion of the building the ramps were taken down (Fig. 70).

The most remarkable feat of engineering involved in the
erection of the Great Pyramid is probably the construction
chambers rising in a series over the sepulcher chamber (Fig.
71). We have here a series of five roofs, the lowest built of
granite blocks about twenty-seven feet long, six feet high and
over four feet thick. They weigh some fifty-four tons each.
After being quarried at the First Cataract these heavy blocks
were brought six hundred miles down the river, dragged up to
the plateau and then up the brick ramps to a level perhaps two
hundred feet above the pavement, where they were so laid that
they might protect the burial chamber from being crushed in by
the weight of more than two hundred vertical feet of masonry
rising aboveit. The principle which the pyramid engineers seem
to have had in mind, was a mistaken one. They seem to have
thought that if the topmost granite roof gave way, it was a good
thing to have another ready just below it. The series of granite
roofs is therefore of purely contingent value. They are crowned
however, by a wiser construction of enormous limestone beams,
an arch in principle but in appearance a peak roof. These vast

Wie. 70. UNFINISHED PYRAMID AT GIZEH, SHOWING SUN-DRIED Brick RAMPS FoR
CARRYING UP BUILDING MaArrertIAn. (Restored after Hoelscher.)

94 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

WGQv
. Vertical Section’ looking Norv,
U7 co cs hide /- ~ as of Kings Chamber, and
1, Looking West. of Kings (hamber, . : } Howard Vyses Chambers of constrno
and Howard Vises ers of construction” — 7 | NX . YP Single shade lines, shar lime elem

Pic. 71. SmPULCHRE CHAMBER IN THE GREAT PyRAMID OF GizeEH. Showing
five precautionary construction chambers above it intended to earry the vast burden
of the overlying masonry.

beams of limestone receive the colossal burden on their peak,
and by their sideward thrust transfer it to the core masonry of
the pyramid on each side of the sepulcher chamber, and thus
save the roof of the latter from being crushed in. The effective-
ness of the structure is strikingly brought out by the fact that
although the beams of the horizontal granite roof immediately
over the burial chamber have been broken short off entirely
across the chamber by an ancient earthquake, nevertheless the
contiguous ends of the beams on each side of the fracture have
hardly settled perceptibly.

The ponderous mechanics of which the pyramid engineers
were master is impressively illustrated by the enormous mass of
stone chips produced by the army of stone-cutters who wrought
2,300,000 two-and-a-half ton blocks of limestone for the pyra-
mid masonry. The accumulation of this rubbish had to be dis-
posed of, and the foremen had it carried to the edge of the
plateau and shot over the face of the cliff where it still lies at
the angle of rest. It is equal in bulk to about half of the mass
of the pyramid itself.?°

°6 The best survey of the Great Pyramid has been furnished by Petrie,

“The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh,” to which the above discussion is
much indebted.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 95

The industrial ability of the Nile-dwellers, which we found
advancing so rapidly in the Early Dynasties, had in no way
lagged behind the extraordinary engineering capacity which we
have just been noticing. The skilful craftsmanship displayed
in the cutting of the blocks for the Great Pyramid was certainly
not to be expected from men whose great-grandfathers had laid
the first stone masonry. The rough core masonry forming the
present exterior of the building (Fig. 68) was originally
sheathed in a magnificent cuirass of casing masonry extending
from summit to base. Only a few blocks of this casing still sur-
vive along the base on the north side of the pyramid (Fig. 72).
They were quarried away as building material by the Moslem
builders of Cairo, especially from the fourteenth century A.D.
In such finished masonry Petrie found joints displaying a con-
tact of one five-hundredth of an inch, and joints of this kind are
sometimes ten or twelve feet long. As Petrie has well said, we
find here an accuracy like that of the manufacturing optician
applied on a scale of acres.

The sovereign control of refractory materials by these con-
summate craftsmen at the beginning of the Pyramid Age is well
illustrated by the new means of drilling which they had devised
and the skill with which they applied it. The crank-drill of the
Early Dynasties (Fig. 56) with a cutting edge of stone, which

Fic. 72. BLocks OF CASING MASONRY OF THE LOWEST COURSE STILL IN POSI-
TION ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. (Photograph by L. Dow
Covington. )

96 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 73. UNFINISHED GRANITE VASE WITH THE BOTTOM OF THE CORE LEFT BY
THD TUBULAR DRILL VISIBLE AT THE BASE OF THE Born. (In the Field Museum of
Natural History, Chicago.)

Fic. 74. CORE BROKEN OUT OF A HOLE MADE BY A TUBULAR DRILL AS SHOWN IN THE
PRECEDING Ficurre. (From a photograph by Petrie.)

involved cutting out the entire mass of material included within
its cylindrical bore, had been superseded by a tubular driil, pre-
sumably of copper reinforced by some cutting powder. It
economized labor by boring around an interior core, which could
later be broken away with a single blow (Figs. 73 and 74).
This hollow tubular drill is a device which has been reinvented
in our own time. The highly developed industries growing out
of this ingenuity and skill in craftsmanship are elaborately dis-
played in colored relief sculptures in the masonry tombs of the
nobles of the period at Gizeh (Fig. 67) and elsewhere in the
great cemeteries of the Pyramid Age. Perhaps nothing better
exemplifies the attainments which made Egypt the mother of
arts than the sumptuous work of the lapidary and goldsmith
(Fig. 75), which was already on its way to reach a supreme
level of attainment never surpassed and rarely equaled in mod-
ern times.

The pyramid cemeteries likewise reveal to us the remark-
able progress of this earliest highly cultivated age in archi-
tecture. In the development of fundamental architectural

Fic. 75. GOLDSMITH’S WORKSHOP IN THE PyrRAMID AGE. Upper row: At left
chief goldsmith weighs out costly stones and a scribe records the weights; next six
men with blow-pipes are blowing a fire in a small clay furnace; next a workman pours
out paste; at right end four men are beating gold leaf. Middle row: Pieces of
finished jewelry. Lower row: Workmen seated at low benches are putting together
and engraving pieces of jewelry. Several of these men are dwarfs.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 97

forms the so-called Second Pyramid of Gizeh (Fig. 76), built by
Khafre (Greek Chefren, Fig. 77), displays some remarkable ad-
vances, especially in the buildings connected with it. The un-
precedented exaltation of the Pharaoh’s power and station was
converting his tomb into a great architectural complex where
the ancient and originally simple practices for the maintenance
of the dead were carried on with a sumptuous magnificence
which required a fitting architectural setting. The food, drink
and clothing once regularly presented to the dead by merely

Fic. 76. SECOND PYRAMID OF GIZEH, BUILT BY KING KHAFRE IN THE 297TH
CENTURY B.C. A bonnet of casing masonry is still preserved at the summit: below
on the left we discern the ruins of the pyramid-temple described in the text and
shown in Fig. 79. (By Underwood & Underwood, Copyright.) ’

setting it down before the simple tomb, now required a large
and splendid building erected on the east side of the pyramid
facing the royal city in the valley below. This building had
thus become a mortuary temple, which we call a pyramid
temple. Here ministered an endowed priesthood whose sole
duty it was to maintain the offerings for the royal dead in the
temple. They lived in the royal city below, and a long gallery,
built of stone masonry a quarter of a mile in length, furnished
them a convenient corridor, by means of which they could reach
the temple above (Fig. 78). Giving access to this long cor-

VOL. X —7.

98 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 77. Diorrre PorTraAir or KING KUArRE, BUILDER OF THE SECOND PYRAMID OF
GIZEH (29TH CENTURY B.C.)

ridor there was at the lower or townward end, a monumental
portal building, which seems to have served also as an addi-
tional and more conveniently accessible mortuary temple. It
has therefore been appropriately termed by Reisner the “ valley
temple.” All these parts making up the new and extensive
pyramid complex may be easily recognized in Fig. 78.

In the development and design of these accessory structures
the pyramid builders were confronted by fundamental problems

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 99

of monumental architecture, in the solution of which they made
great advances. Chief among these problems was that of
carrying the roof over the void, and likewise the lighting of a
hall with very thick side walls. To carry the roof over the void
the Gizeh architects introduced into the hall a series of
massive rectangular piers, each pier a monolithic block of
polished granite (Fig. 80), brought from the First Cataract.
The problem of lighting such a hall was met by raising higher
than the roof on either side a middle section of the roof sym-
metrically placed along the axis of the building. The difference
in level between this higher central portion of the roof and the
lower portions on each side was occupied by light chutes, which
furnished light to the hall through the roof (Fig. 79). The
pyramid architects had thus produced an incipient nave roofed
by a clerestory, with openings for light which were the ances-
tors of clerestory windows, and the fundamental elements of
the basilica and its child the Christian basilica cathedral were
therefore devised by the early Egyptian builders of the twenty-
ninth century B.C.

Within three generations and not much more than a century
after the erection of Khafre’s splendid hall at Gizeh, the royal
architects of Egypt were looking back upon the Gizeh buildings
as crude and archaic. At Abusir, a few miles up the margin
of the desert south of Gizeh, they were erecting for the Phar-
aohs of the Fifth Dynasty (2750 to 2625 B.c.) a wonderful

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Iie. 78. RESTORATION OF THER GIZEH CEMETERY. (After Hoelscher.) The
Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) is on the right, from the summit of which the
view in Fig 76 was taken; and the Second Pyramid of Khafre is on the left, with its
temple and causeway or covered corridor connecting the temple above with the royal
city below. Beside the “‘ valley temple” giving access to the corridor is the Great
Sphinx, a portrait of Khafre.

100 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

lic. 79. INCIPIENT CLERESTORY IN TEE HALL OF TEE VALLEY TEMPLE OF
KHAFRE AT GIZEH BUILT IN THE 297TH CHNTURY B.c. The narrow light-chuta@s
occupying the difference in level between a higher roof over the nave and a lower
roof beside it are the lineal ancestors of the clerestory windows of European archi-
tecture. The oblique light which they admit is seen in Fig. 80.

series of tombs (Fig. 81) displaying remarkable progress in
architecture. The Abusir pyramids themselves were to be sure
much smaller and less imposing than those of Gizeh, but the
pyramid temples at Abusir gave the Fifth Dynasty architects
opportunities not presented by the pyramid form which was a
matter already settled. In place of the bare rectangular Gizeh
piers of a century earlier the Abusir architects designed a
series of supports (Fig. 82) each representing a conventional-
ized palm tree, the trunk of which formed the shaft of a
column, the capital being the graceful crown of foliage sur-
mounting the whole. Thus emerged at the hands of Egyptian
architects in the middle of the twenty-eighth century B.c. the
earliest known columns and the first colonnades (Fig. 83).
These earliest colonnades are notable not only as such, but
also because they are the earliest outstanding examples of the
Egyptian use of decorative motives taken from the vegetable

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 101

world. It showed the way for the development of the rich
fund of decorative beauty which the architects and artists of
western Asia and Europe, following Egypt, afterward discov-
ered in vegetable forms, as they brought forth such things as
the Corinthian column or the sumptuous carving of the Gothic
cathedrals. Moving along the same line the Abusir architects
also devised charming columns by the use of the lotus and
papyrus, of which the latter became very common.

It is impossible within the limits of this brief sketch to dis-
cuss the social and governmental development which went on
parallel with the amazingly rapid mechanical, industrial, artis-
tic and architectural advance at which we have been glancing.

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lig. 80. RESTORATION OF CLERESTORY HALL IN THE VALLEY TEMPLE OF KHAFRE
AT GIzbH. (After Hoelscher.) This is the hall seen beside the Great Sphinx at the
foot of the long corridor in Fig. 78. A double row of the rectangular piers seen here
supports a roof higher than that on either side of it and thus forms a real nave.
The oblique light comes through the light-chutes, or incipient clerestory windows, as
shown in Fig. 79.

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THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 108

As we recall the Nile valley of the Pleistocene Age, we are
conscious of the marvelous transition through which it has
passed. We of America are especially fitted to visualize and
to understand the wonderful transformation of a wilderness
into a land of splendid cities. But the men whose powers of
achievement planted great and prosperous cities along the once
lonely trails of our own broad land, received art, architecture,
industry, commerce and social and governmental traditions as
an inheritance from earlier times. There was an age, however,
when the development from barbarism to civilization with all
its impressive outward manifestations in art and architecture
had to be accomplished for the first time. That happened along
the Nile, and it seems therefore like a magical transition, as we
see the trail of the Stone Age hunter leading up from the river
through the jungle marsh, transformed into an avenue of sculp-
tured sphinxes and tall obelisks; while in the background where
once the trail terminated at the hunter’s group of wattle huts
peeping through the reeds, there rises a stately city adorned
with imposing temples and monuments of stone.

The prehistoric hunter whose self-expression was quite con-
tent to ply the flint graving tool in carving symmetrical lines
of game beasts along the ivory handle of a flint dagger has been
transformed by fifty generations of social evolution into a royal
architect, able to transmute his visions of a great state into
architectural forms of dignity and splendor, launching great
bodies of organized craftsmen upon the quarries of the Nile
cliffs, and summoning thence stately and rhythmic colonnades,
imposing temples and a vast rampart of pyramids, the great-
est tombs ever erected by the hand of man. We must regard
these things, therefore, as the outward and monumental expres-
sion of man’s social and governmental advance, with which we
must also remember his unfolding inner life had kept even
pace. The quickened imagination which finds expression in
noble architectural forms is to a large extent a product of social
development, of an imposing vision of the kingship and of the
state, as well as of the exalted station of the gods who guide
the state. These were new forces unknown to the life of the
primitive hunters who elsewhere outside of the Egypto-Baby-
lonian group, still continued to live by the chase throughout
most of the world, or had here and there, within reach of influ-
ences from the Egypto-Babylonian group, made a beginning
in agriculture and cattle-breeding.

In view of the tiny city-kingdoms, disunited and fighting
among themselves, which at this time were the only organized

104 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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ig. 82, MONOLITHIC GRANITE COLUMNS AS FOUND BY BOoRCHARDT IN THR TEMPLE OF
SAHURE AT ABUSIR. (Compare Fig. 81.)

states in Babylonia, it is evident that the first great civilized
nation of highly cultivated life had come into being on the Nile.
Such a fabric of civilized life developed by a great community
of several million souls could not exist for five hundred years
without exerting a profound influence in the adjacent Mediter-
ranean upon which it looked out and likewise in neighboring
Asia which began at the eastern delta gates. The evidences
for early Egyptian influences moving across the Mediterranean

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Fic. 838. RESTORATION OF THE COLONNADED COURT OF THE PYRAMID TEMPLE OF
SAnuRB. (After Borchardt.) From the columns found as shown in Fig. 82 it was
not difficult to restore the court as it was left by the architects. This court is the
oldest colonnaded structure now known in the history of architecture, having been
erected not long after the middle of the 28th century B.c. It is evidently the
ancestor of the colonnaded courts of Hellevistic Europe as shown in Fig. 123.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 105

DSSS SSS SEES ES CoE SECRETE CELE LE SS CSE EE SS LCST E SOCCER
33388888889 sensssaoeae soso MSaN SISOS SSIS SST SITS

ic. 84. EARLIEST REPRESENTATION OF A SEA-GOING SHIP, FOUND AMONG THE
WALL RELIEFS IN THE PYRAMID TEMPLE OF SAHURE. (After Borchardt.) The
Pharaohs of the Third Dynasty in the 30th century b.c. were already carrying on
commerce in the Mediterranean with such ships as this, although this relief scene
was sculptured in the middle of the 2Sth century. Such vessels represent the be-

ginning of salt sea navigation.

and entering Stone Age Europe are now obvious enough. From
a study of the archaic remains of Crete Sir Arthur Evans ob-
serves: “The possibility of some actual immigration into the
island of the older Egyptian element ... can not be ex-
cluded.”** The excavation of the Abusir pyramids and temples
has revealed the ships which carried these Egyptian influences
across the eastern Mediterranean (Fig. 84). These are the
earliest known sailing ships and the earliest sea-going craft of
which we know the form and rig. When the Mediterranean
peoples, like the Phcenicians, afterward likewise took to the sea,
their ships (Fig. 116) were reproductions of these Egyptian
vessels. It is therefore evident that the Egyptian sailing ships
which crossed the Mediterranean at the beginning of the Pyr-
amid Age as early as the thirtieth century B.C. were not only
the first sea-going ships devised by man, but were likewise the
ancestors of all salt-water craft of the early world, and hence
of the modern world also. The native shipping of East Indian
waters to this day exhibits details and characteristics which
are of unmistakable ancient Egyptian origin.

(To be continued.)
27“ New Archeological Lights on the Origins of Civilization in

Europe,” presidential address before the British Association, 1916, re-
printed Annual Rep. Smithsonian Inst., 1917, p. 441.

106

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE ST. LOUIS MEETING OF
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIA-
THON JEON Re TMEUH AO)=
VANCEMENT OF
SCIENCE
THE American Association for
the Advancement of Science will
hold its seventy-second stated meet-
ing at St. Louis during the week
beginning on Monday, December
29. It will be the eighteenth of the
convocation-week meetings of the
national scientific societies. Meet-
ines of the council, and all sessions
of the association and of the affili-
ated societies will be held in the
Soldan High School. Hotel Statler
will be the general headquarters.
The local executive committee con-
sists of George T. Moore, Alexander
S. Langsdorf, Augustus G. Pohl-

man, John W. Withers and John M.
Wulfing.

The opening general session of
the association will be held on Mon-
day night, in the Assembly Room
of the Soldan High School. Dr.
Simon Flexner, director of the
laboratories of the Rockefeller In-
stitute for Medical Research, will

preside. General announcements
concerning the meeting will be
made, the revised constitution of

the associaion will be presented for
vote and the retiring president, Pro-
fessor John Merle Coulter, of the
University of Chicago, will deliver
his address on “ The Evolution of
Botanical Research.” The meeting
will be followed by an informal re-
ception to members of the Amer-
ican Association and of affiliated
societies.

THH SOLDEN HIGH SCHOOL,

MWeadquarters for the St. Louis Meeting of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

107

MAIN ENTRANCE OF

THE

The addresses of the retiring vice-
presidents of the sections, to be de-
livered throughout the week are as
follows:

Section A.—George D._ Birkhoff.

“Recent advances in dynamics.”
Section B.—Gordon F. Hull.

“Some aspects of physics in war

and peace.”

Section C.—Alexander Smith.

“Chemistry as it is taught.”

Section D.—Ira N. Hollis. ‘ Indus-
trial problems of the United
States.”

Section EH.—David White. ‘“ Geol-
ogy as taught in the United
States.”

Section F’.—William Patten. ‘“‘ The
message of the biologist.”

Section G.—Albert F. Blakeslee.
“ Sexuality in the mucors.”

Section H.—Ales Hrdlicka. ‘ The
relations of psychology and an-
thropology.”

Section I.—John Barrett. “ New
after-the-war phases of practical
Pan-Americanism.”

Section K.—F. S. Lee. “The un.
tilled fields of public health.”

Section L.—Stuart <A. Courtis.
“The part played by heredity and
maturity as factors conditioning
the effects of training.”

Section M.—Henry P. Armsby.
“The organization of research.”

MiIssourt BOTANICAL

GARDEN FROM THE INTERIOR.

On Tuesday night, December 30,
Dr. Simon Flexner, president of the
association, will deliver a popular
lecture, complimentary to the mem-
bers of the association and affiliated
societies and to the general public.

The American Association has
met twice before in St. Louis, in
1878 and 1903, the latter being the
second of the convocation-week
meetings following the inaugura-
tion of the plan the year before at
Washington. During the forty-one
years that have elapsed since the
first St. Louis meeting, there has
been a westward movement of scien-
tific institutions and scientific men,
so that the center of our scientific
population is tending to approach.
the general center of population
which is now in Indiana, but which
is moving in the direction of St.
Louis.

The educational and scientific in-
stitutions of the city—exceeded in
size only by New York, Philadel-
phia and Chicago—are commensu-
rate with its commercial position.
Washington University with its

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

MAIN CONSERVATORIES OF THE Missourt BoTANICAL GARDEN LOOKING ACROSS THE

ROSE

great medical school has long been
one of the strongest non-state-sup-
perted institutions west of the At-
lantic seaboard, and has guarantees
for future development. St. Louis
University is a leading Catholic in-
stitution. The public-school system
has maintained the position given
to it on the days when William T.
Harris was superintendent. An

Academy of Science was organized |

in 1856. The Missouri Botanical
Garden, established by Henry Shaw,
is one of our chief centers for re-
search in botany. The St. Louis
Exposition of 1904 and its Inter-
national Congress of Arts and Sci-
ences gave the city a historical posi-
tion in scientific cooperation among
the nations.

NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIE-
TIES MEETING AT ST.
LOUIS

THE American Association has
established a general convocation-
week meetings once in four years,
held successively in Washington,

GARDEN,

Chicago and New York. One of
these meetings will occur next year
'in Chicago, and it is hoped that at
that time all the national scientific
sccieties will join together in a
meeting that will give impressive
evidence of the members and influ-
ence of scientific men. In the in-
tervening years many of the scien-
tific societies prefer to hold sepa-
rate meetings. Thus this year the
geologists, psychologists and an-
thropologists meet in Boston, the
‘American Society of Naturalists at
Princeton, the Federation of Bio-
logical Societies, which had planned
to meet in Toronto has been com-
pelled unexpectedly to change to
Cincinnati, the American Associa-
tion of University Professors will
imees with the political science and
historical associations in Cleveland.
The list of national scientific socie-
ties meeting at St. Louis is so long
that we can only record their names
‘and their officers, which are as
follows:

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

Mathematical Association of
America.—(Missouri Section.) De-
cember 29. President, H. HE.
Slaught; Secretary, Professor Paul
R. Rider, Washington University,
St. Louis, Mo.

American Mathematical Society.
—(Chicago and Southwestern Sec-
tions.) December 30 and 31. Joint
session with Section A on Decem-
ber 30. Acting Secretary, Dr.
Arnold Dresden, 2114 Vilas St.,
Madison, Wis.

American Federation of Teachers
of the Mathematical and the Nat-
ural Sciences.—Secretary, Dr. Wil-
liam A. Hedrick, Central High
School, Washington, D. C.

American Meteorological Society.
—December 29 to 31; joint meetings
with Sections B and E on dates to
be announced. Secretary, Dr.
Charles F. Brooks, U. S. Weather
Bureau, Washington, D. C.

American Physical Society.—De-
cember 30 to January 1, in joint
session with Section B, President, J.
S. Ames. Secretary, Dr. Dayton C.
Miller, Case School of Applied Sci-
ence, Cleveland, Ohio.

Society for the Promotion of En-
gineering Education. — President,
Arthur M. Greene, Jr. Secretary, |

CENTRAL

PANEL OF THE

109

Professor Frederic L. Bishop, Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
ae

Optical Society of America.—Jan-
uary 2. President, F. E. Wright.
Secretary, Dr. P. G. Nutting, West-
inghouse Research Laboratory, East
Pittsburgh, Pa.

Association of American Geog-
raphers.—December 30 to January
1. President and Acting Secretary,
Dr. Charles R. Dryer, Oak Knoll,
Fort Wayne, Ind.

National Council of Geography
Teachers.—December 29 and _ 30.
President, Albert P. Brigham. Sec-
retary, Professor George J. Miller,
State Normal - School, Mankato,
Minn.

American Society of Zoologists—
December 29 to 31, in joint session
with Section F. Joint session with
Ecological Society of America on
Tuesday afternoon, December 30.
Zoologists’ dinner, with address of
Vice-president of Section F and
moving picture films of Barbadoes-
Antigua Expedition by C. C. Nut-
ting, on Wednesday night, Decem-
ber: 31. President, C. M: Child.
Secretary, Dr. W. C. Allee, Lake
Forest College, Lake Forest, Ill.

Entomological Society of Amer-

ITALIAN GARDEN.

110

ica.—December 29 and 30. Presi-
dent, J. G. Needham. Secretary,
Dr. J. M. Aldrich, U. S. National
Museum, Washington, D. C.
American Association of Economic

Entomologists.— December 31 _ to
Jeimbenay 2 President, W. C.
O’Kane. Secretary, Albert F. Bur-

gess, Gipsy Moth Parasite Labora-
tory, Melrose Highlands, Mass.
Botanical Society of America.—
December 30 to January 1, with
joint sessions as follows: Tuesday,
December 30, Section G; Wednes-
day, December 31, American So-
ciety for Horticultural Science;
Thursday, January 1, 10 A.m., Eco-
logical Society of America, 2 P.M.,
American Phytopathological So-
ciety. On Wednesday night, De-
cember 31, will be the annual dinner
for all botanists, followed by presi-
dential address. President, J. C.
Arthur. Secretary, Professor J. R.
Schramm, N. Y. State College of
Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y.
American Phytopathological So-
ciety.—President, C. L. Shear. Sec-
retary, Dr. G. R. Lyman, U. S. De-

partment of Agriculture, Washing-
ino, JD)s (Ge
American Society for Horticul-

tural Science.——December 29 to 31.
President, J. W. Crow. Secretary,
Professor C. P. Close, College Park,
Md.

Association of Official Seed An-
alysts.—Will meet on Monday and

Tuesday, December 29 and_ 30.
President, H. D. Hughes. Secre-
tary, R. C. Dahlberg, University

Farm, St. Paul, Minn.

Ecological Society of America.—
December 30 to January 1, with
joint session with the American So-
ciety of Zoologists on Tuesday, De-
cember 30, and with Botanical So-
ciety of America on Thursday, Jan-

wey Al President, Barrington
Moore. Secretary, Dr. Forrest
Shreve, Desert Botanical Labora-

tory, Tuscon, Arizona.

American Pomological Society.—
December 30 to January 1. Presi-
dent, L. H. Bailey. Secretary, Pro-
fessor Edward R. Lake, Hotel St.
Nicholas, Albany, Ga.

American Microscopical Society.
—December 30, for luncheon and

A e
executive committee and on Wed-|

nesday, December 31, for business

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

afternoon session. President, L. E.
Griffin. Secretary, Professor Paul
S. Welch, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, Mich.

American Nature-Study Society.
—December 30. President, L. H.
Bailey. Secretary, Dr. Anna Bots-
ford Comstock, Cornell University,
Ithaca, N. Y-

Wilson Ornithological Club.—De-
cember 29 and_ 30. President,
Myron H. Swenk. Secretary, Pro-
fessor Albert F. Gainer, 924 Broad-
way, Nashville, Tenn.

American Metric Association.—
December 29 and 30. President,
George F. Kunz. Secretary, How-
ard Richards, Jr., 156 5th Avenue,
New York, N. Y.

Society for the Promotion of
Agricultural Science. — Secretary,
Dr. C. P. Gillette, Colorado Agricul-
tural College, Fort Collins, Colo.

Society of Sigma Xi.—President,
Julius Stieglitz. Secretary, Dr.
Henry Baldwin Ward, University
of Illinois, Urbana, III.

Gamma Alpha Graduate Scien-
tific Fraternity—President, Nor-
man E. Gilbert. Secretary, Dr.
Albert H. Wright, Cornell Univer-
sity, Ithaca, N. Y-

Phi Kappa Phi.—December 31.
President, Edwin E. Sparks. Sec-
retary, Dr. L. H. Pammel, Iowa

State College, Ames, Iowa.

Gamma Sigma Delta.—Thursday,
January 1. President, C. H. Eckles.
Secretary, Dr. L. H. Pammel, Iowa
State College, Ames, Iowa.

THE ROCKEFELLER INSTI-
TUTE FOR MEDICAL
RESEARCH

ANNOUNCEMENT is made that Mr.
John D. Rockefeller has added $10,-
G00,000 to his previous endowment
of the Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research. This gift, the
largest made by Mr. Rockefeller at
one time to the institution, is to
meet rapidly growing needs in its
many lines of research and in mak-
ing new knowledge available in the
protection of the public health and

'in the improved treatment of dis-

ase and injury.

By this increase in the endow-

meeting just following Section F | ment, new lines of research will be

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

sustained in biology, chemistry and
physics, upon which medical science
so largely rests, as well as in medi-
cine itself, as will the study of many

practical problems directly relating |

to diseases in men and animals
which are already under way.

The local activities of the Rocke-
feller Institute in New

111

| Alexis Carrel, experimental surgery.
'P. A. Levene, chemistry.

York are|

chiefly carried on in the great labora-_

tories and the hospital, which stand
high on the bluff facing the East
River, between East 64th and 67th
Streets, a part of the old Schermer-
horn Farm of an earlier day.

Near Princeton, N. J., the insti-
tute has a large farm, where it
maintains a department of animal
pathology. The laboratories and
various accessory buildings here are
devoted to research on the diseases
of animals and effective methods for
their prevention and cure, as well
as to the study of the bearing of
animal diseases upon the health and
economic interests of man.

The scientific staff of the Rocke-
feller Institute numbers sixty-five,
most of them highly trained and of
large experience in the subjects to
which they are exclusively devoted.
The institute further employs 310
persons in its technical and general
service. It is to the perpetual main-
tenance of such a group of men and
women, with adequate facilities
and suitable conditions for their suc-
cessful work, for the general wel-
fare, that the gifts of Mr. Rocke-
feller to the institute are devoted.

The scientific staff consists of
members, associate members, asso-
ciates and assistants. The members
are:

Simon Flexner, pathology and bac-
teriology; director of the Labora-
tories.

Rufus Cole, medicine; director of the
Hospital; physician to the Hos-
pital.

Theobald Smith, director of the de-
partment of animal pathology.

Jacques Loeb, experimental biology.

S. J. Meltzer, physiology and phar-
macology.

Hideyo Noguchi, pathology and bac-
teriology.

PROBLEMS OF FOOD AND
NUTRITION

THE National Research Council
has formed a special committee on
Food and Nutrition Problems, com-
posed of a group of the most emi-
nent physiological chemists and nu-
trition experts of the country. The
members are: Carl Alsberg, chief,
bureau of chemistry, Department of
Agriculture; H. P. Armsby, director
of the institute of animal nutrition,
Pennsylvania State College; Isabel
Bevier, director of department of
home economics, University of I[lli-
nois; EH. B. Forbes, chief, depart-
ment of nutrition, Ohio Agricultural
Experiment Station; W. H. Jordan,
director, N. Y. Agricultural Experi-
ment Station; Graham Lusk, pro-
fessor of physiology, Cornell Uni-
versity Medical College; C. F. Lang-
worthy, chief of office of home eco-
nemics, Department of Agriculture;
E. V. McCollum, professor of bio-
chemistry, School of Public Health
and Hygiene, Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity; L. B. Mendel, professor of
physiological chemistry, Yale Uni-
versity; J. R. Murlin, professor of
physiology and director of the de-
partment of vital economics, Uni-
versity of Rochester; R. A. Pearson,
president of the Iowa State Agricul-
tural College; H. C. Sherman, pro-
fessor of food chemistry, Columbia
University; A. E. Taylor, Rush pro-
fessor of physiological chemistry,
University of Pennsylvania; and A.
F. Woods, botanist, president of
Maryland State College of Agricul-
ture.

This committee will devote its at-

tention and activities to the solution

112

of important problems connected
with the nutritional values and most
effective grouping and preparation
of foods, both for human and animal
use. Special attention will be given
to national food conditions and to
comprehensive problems involving
the coordinated services of numerous
investigators and laboratories. The
committee, with the support of the
council, is arranging to obtain funds
for the support of its researches,
and will get under way, just as soon
as possible, certain specific investiga-
tions already formulated by indi-
vidual committee members and sub-
committees. These include studies
of the comparative food values of
meat and milk and of the conditions
of production of these foods in the
United States, together with the
whole problem of animal nutrition;
the food conditions in _ hospitals,
asylums and similar institutions; the
nutritional standards of infancy and
adolescence; the formation of a na-
tional institute of nutrition; and
other problems of similarly large
and nationally important character.

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

WE record with regret the death
of Louis Valentine Pirsson, pro-
fessor of geology in the Yale Uni-
versity, and of Allan McLane Ham-
ilton, at one time professor of men-
tal diseases in the Cornell Medical
College.

THE Nobel prize for physics for
1918 has been awarded to Professor
Max Planck, of Berlin, and for 1919
to Professor Stark, of Greifswald.
The prize for chemistry for 1918
has been awarded to Professor
Fritz Haber, of Berlin——The Na-
tional Academy of Sciences has
awarded its medal for eminence in
the application of science to the
public welfare to Mr. Herbert C.
Hoover for his applications of sci-
ence in the conservation,
and distribution of food.

selection

Dr. Davin P. BARRows, professor

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

;of education and later of political

science in the University of Cali-
fornia, at one time director of edu-
cation for the Philippine Islands
and author of works on the islands,
has been elected president of the
University of California, to succeed
Dr. Benjamin Ide Wheeler.—Dr.
Frank Schlesinger, director of the
Allegheny Observatory of the Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, has been
elected director of the Yale Ob-
servatory.—Dr. Richard M. Pearce,
professor of research medicine in
the University of Pennsylvania
under the John Herr Musser Foun-
dation, has accepted the position of
director of the newly established
division of medical education of the
Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Pearce
has sailed for Europe to carry out
work in the interest of the founda-
tion.

WITH the exception of approxi-

mately $25,000,000 the will of Henry

C. Frick leaves his estate, believed
to be worth approximately $145,-
000,000, for public, charitable and
educational purposes. Mr. Frick’s
house and art collection in New
York City, which after the termina-
tion of Mrs. Frick’s life estate are
to go the public, are valued at ap-
proximately $50,000,000. An _ en-
dowment of $15,000,000 is provided
te maintain this as ‘ The Frick Col-
lection.” Pittsburgh, where much
of Mr. Frick’s wealth was acquired,
receives a tract of about 151 acres
of land in the 14th ward of that

city for a park and $2,000,000 in

trust to maintain and improve the
property. The residuary estate to
be divided into 100 shares valued at
about $500,000 each, is left in nine-
teen Princeton Uni-
versity receives thirty of these
shares, Harvard University, The
Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy, and the Educational Fund
Commission Pittsburgh, each re-
ceives ten shares.

institutions.

THE SCIENTIFIC
MONTHLY

FEBRUARY, 1920

THE TERMITODOXA, OR BIOLOGY AND
SOCIETY '’

By Professor WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER

BUSSEY INSTITUTION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

UST before the World War we seemed to be on the verge
al of startling revelations in animal behavior. “Rolf,” the
Ayrdale terrier of Mannheim, was writing affectionate letters
to Professor William Mackenzie of Genoa, and the Elberfeld
stallions were easily solving such problems in mental arith-
metic as extracting the cube root of 12,167, to the discomfiture
of certain German professors, who had never been able to
detect similar signs of intelligence in their students. The
possibilities of animal correspondence struck me as so promis-
ing that I longed to dispatch letters and questionnaires to all
the unusual insects of my acquaintance. But dismayed at the
thought of the quantity of mail that might reach me, especially
from the many insects that have been misrepresented by the
taxonomists or maltreated by the economic entomologists, I
decided to proceed with caution and to confine myself at first to
a single letter to the most wonderful of all insects, the queen of
the West African Termes bellicosus. During the autumn of
1915 my friend, Mr. George Schwab, missionary to the
Kamerun, kindly undertook to deliver my communication to a
populous termitarium of this species in his back yard in the
village of Okani Olinga. He subsequently wrote me that my
constant occupation with the ants must have blinded me to the
fact that the termitarium, unlike the formicarium, contains a
king as well as a queen, but that the bellicosus king was so
accustomed to being overlooked, even by his own offspring, that
he not only pardoned my discourtesy but condescended to

tRead at the Symposium of The American Society of Naturalists,
Princeton Meeting, Dec. 30th, 1919.

VOL. x.—8.

114 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

answer my letter. Mr. Schwab embarked for Boston in 1917.
Off the coast of Sierra Leone his steamer was shelled by a
German submarine camouflaged as a small boat in distress, but
succeeded in escaping and what would have been another
atrocity, the loss of the king’s letter, was averted. It runs as
follows:

Dear Sir: Your communication addressed to my most glori-
ously physogastric consort, was duly received. Her majesty,
being extremely busy with oviposition—she has laid an egg
every three minutes for the past four years—and fearing that
an interruption of even twenty minutes might seriously upset
the exquisitely balanced routine of the termitarium, has re-
quested me to acknowledge your expression of anxiety con-
cerning the condition of the society in which you are living
and to answer your query as to how we termites, to quote your
own words, “managed to organize a society which, if we accept
Professor Barrell’s recent estimates of geological time, based
on the decomposition of radium, has not only existed but
flourished for a period of at least a hundred million years.”

I answer your question the more gladly, because the history
of our society has long been with me a favorite topic of study.
As you know, the conditions under which I live are most con-
ducive to sustained research. I am carefully fed, have all the
leisure in the world and the royal chamber is not only kept
absolutely dark and at a constant and agreeable temperature
even during the hottest days of the Ethiopian summer, but free
from all noises except the gentle rhythmic dropping of her
majesty’s eggs and the soft footfalls of the workers on the
cement floor as they carry away the germs of future popula-
tions to the royal nurseries. And you will not wonder at my
knowledge of some of the peculiarities of your society when I
tell you that in my youth I belonged to a colony that devoured
and digested a well-selected library belonging to a learned mis-
sionary after he had himself succumbed to the appetite of one
of the fiercest tribes of the Kamerun. If I extol the splendid
solutions of sociological problems by my remote ancestors, I
refrain from suggesting that your society would do well to
imitate them too closely. This, indeed, would be impossible.
I believe, nevertheless, that you may be interested in my re-
marks, for, though larger and more versatile, you and your
fellow human beings are after all only animals like myself.

According to tradition our ancestors were descended in
early Cretaceous times from certain kind-hearted old cock-
roaches that lived in logs and fed on rotten wood and mud.

THE TERMITODOXA 115

Their progeny, the aboriginal termites, although at first con-
fined to this apparently unpromising diet, made two important
discoveries. First, they chanced to pick up a miscellaneous
assortment of Protozoa and Bacteria and adopted them as an
intestinal fauna and flora, because they were able to render
the rotten wood and mud more easily digestibie. The second
discovery, more important but quite as incidental, was nothing
less than society. Our ancestors, like other solitary insects,
originally set their offspring adrift to shift for themselves as
soon as they hatched, but it was found that the fatty dermal
secretions, or exudates of the young, were a delicious food and
that the parents could reciprocate with similar exudates as well
as with regurgitated, predigested cellulose. Thenceforth par-
ents and offspring no longer lived apart, for an elaborate ex-
change of exudates, veritable social hormones, was developed,
which, continually circulating through the community, bound
all its individuals together in one blissful, indissoluble, syn-
trophic whole, satisfied to make the comminution and digestion
of wood and mud the serious occupation of existence, but the
swapping of exudates the delight of every leisure moment. It
may be said, therefore, that our society did not arise, like yours,
from a combination of selfish predatism and parasitism but
from a cooperative mutualism, or symbiosis. In other words,
our ancestors did not start society because they thought they
loved one another, but they loved one another because they
were so sweet, and society supervened as a necessary and un-
foreseen by-product.

You will admit that no society could have embarked on its
career through the ages with more brilliant prospects. The
world was full of rotten wood and mud and no laws interfered
with distilling and imbibing the social hormones. But in the
Midcretaceous our ancestors struck a snag. Not only had all
the members of society begun to reproduce in the wildest and
most unregulated manner, but their behavior toward one
another had undergone a deterioration most shocking to behold.
The priests, pedagogues, politicians and journalists having
bored their way up to the highest strata of the society under-
took to influence or control all the activities of its members.
The priests tried to convince the people that if they would only
give up indulging in the social hormones and confine themselves
to a diet of pure mud, they would in a future life eat nothing
but rose-wood and mahogany, and the pedagogues insisted that
every young termite must thoroughly saturate himself with the .
culture and languages of the Upper Carboniferous cockroaches.

116 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Some suspected that the main value of this form of education
lay in intensifying and modulating the stridulatory powers, but
for several thousand years most termites implicitly believed
that ability to stridulate, both copiously and sonorously, was
an infallible indication of brain-power. The politicians and
the journalists—well, were it not that profanity has been con-
sidered to be very bad form in termite society since the Miocene,
I might make a few comments on their activities. Suffice it to
say that they consumed even more cellulose than the priests
and pedagogues and secreted such a quantity of buncombe and
flapdoodle that they well nigh asphyxiated the whole termi-
tarium. Meanwhile in the very foundations of the common-
wealth anarchists, syndicalists, I. W. W. and bolsheviki were
busy boring holes and filling them with dynamite, while the
remainder of society was largely composed of profiteers,
grafters, shysters, drug-fiends and criminals of all sizes inter-
spersed with beautifully graduated series of wowsers, morons,
feeble-minded, idiots and insane. [At this point the king has
introduced a rather trivial note on the word “ wowser.” This
word, he says, was first employed by the termites of Australia
but later adopted by the human inhabitants of that continent,
to designate an individual who makes a business of taking the
joy out of life, one who delights in pouring cold water into his
own and especially into other peoples’ soup. The term appears
to be onomatopeic to judge from a remark by one of our
postcretaceous philologists who asserts that ‘“‘ whenever the
wowser saw termites dancing, swearing, flirting, smoking or
over-indulging in the social hormones, he sat up on his hind
legs, looked very solemn, swelled out his abdomen and said
Wow!” ]

To such depths, my dear sir, the letter continues, had termite
society fallen in the Midcretaceous. The few sane termites
still extant were on the point of giving up social life altogether
and of returning to the solitary habits of the Paleodictyoptera,
but a king, Wuf-wuf IV., of the 529th dynasty, succeeded in
initiating those reforms which led our ancestors to complete
the most highly integrated social organization on the planet.
He has aroused the enthusiastic admiration and emulation of
every sovereign down to the present time. I can best describe
him by saying that in his serious moments he displayed the
statesmanship of a Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Solon and
Pericles rolled into one and that in his moments of relaxation
he was a delightful blend of Aristophanes, Lucian, Rabelais,
Anatole France and Bernard Shaw. This king had the happy

THE TERMITODOXA ALT.

thought to refer the problems of social reform to the biologists.
They were unfortunately few in number and difficult to find,
because each was sitting in his hole in some remote corner of
the termitarium, boring away in blissful ignorance of the de-
pravity of the society to which he belonged. In obedience to
the king’s request, however, they were finally rounded up and
persuaded to meet together annually just after the winter sols-
tice for the purpose of stridulating about the relations of biol-
ogy to society. After doing this for ten million years they
adopted a program as elegant as it was drastic for the regen-
eration of termite society, and during the remaining fifteen
million years of the Cretaceous they succeeded in putting their
plan into operation. I can give you only the baldest outline of
this extraordinary achievement.

Our ancient biological reformers started with the assump-
tion that a termite society could not be a success unless it was
constructed on the plan of a superorganism, and that such a
superorganism must necessarily conform to the fundamental
laws of the individual organism. As in the case of the indi-
vidual, its success would have to depend on the adequate solu-
tion of the three basic problems of nutrition, reproduction and
protection. It was evident, moreover, that these problems
could not be solved without a physiological division of labor
among the individuals composing the society, and this, of
course, implied the development of classes, or castes. Termite
society was therefore divided into three distinct castes, accord-
ing to the three fundamental organismal needs and functions,
the workers being primarily nutritive, the soldiers defensive
and the royal couple reproductive. Very fortunately our
earliest social ancestors had not imitated our deadly enemies,
the ants, who went crazy in the early Cretaceous on the subject
of parthenogenesis and developed a militant suffragette type
of society, but insisted on an equal representation of both sexes
in all the social activities. Our society is therefore ambisexual
throughout, so that, unlike the ants, we have male as well as
female soldiers and workers. It was early decided that these
two castes should be forbidden to grow wings or reproduce
and that the royal caste should be relieved from all the labor of
securing food and defending the termitarium in order to de-
vote all its energies to reproduction. The carrying out of this
scheme yielded at least two great advantages: first, the size of
the population could be automatically regulated to correspond
with the food-supply, and second, the production of perfect off-
spring was greatly facilitated.

118 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

During the late Cretaceous period of which I am writing
our practical geneticists, in obedience to a general demand for
a more varied diet, made two important contributions to our
social life. The plant breeders found that what was left of the
comminuted wood after its passage through the intestines of
the worker termites could be built up in the form of elaborate
sponge-like structures and utilized as gardens for the growth of
mushrooms. Cultivation was later restricted to a few selected
varieties of mushrooms which the biochemists had found to
contain vitamins that accelerated the growth of the tissues in
general and of the spermatocytes and oocytes in particular.
And for this reason only the royal caste and the young of the
other castes were permitted to feed on this delicious vegetable
food. The animal breeders of that age made a more spectacu-
lar though less useful contribution when they persuaded our
ancestors to adopt a number of singular beetles and flies and
to feed and care for them till they developed exudate organs.
Owing to the stimulating quality of their exudates these crea-
tures, the termitophiles, added much variety to the previously
somewhat monotonous social hormones. This quality, how-
ever, made it necessary to restrict the number of termitophiles
in the termitarium for the same reason that your society would
find it advisable to restrict the cattle industry if your animal
breeders had succeeded in producing breeds of cows that yielded
highballs and cocktails instead of milk.

It is, of course, one thing to have a policy and quite another
to carry it out. The anarchistic elements in our late Cretaceous
society were so numerous and so active that great difficulty was
at first experienced in putting the theories of the biological re-
formers into practise, but eventually, just before the Eocene
Tertiary, a very effective method of dealing with any termite
that attempted to depart from the standards of the most perfect
social behavior was discovered and rigorously applied. The
culprit was haled before the committee of biochemists who
carefully weighed and examined him and stamped on his ab-
domen the number of his colloidal molecules. This number was
taken to signify that his conduct had reduced his social useful-
ness to the amount of fat and proteids in his constitution. He
was then led forth into the general assembly, dismembered and
devoured by his fellows.

I describe these mores reluctantly and very briefly, because
I fear that they may shock your sensibilities, but some mention
of them is essential to an appreciation of certain developments
in our society within recent millennia. So perfectly socialized

THE TERMITODOXA Ti

have we now become that not infrequently a termite who has a
slight indisposition, such as a sore throat or a headache or has
developed some antisocial habit of thought or is merely grow-
ing old, will voluntarily resort to the committee of biochemists
and beg them to stamp him. He then walks forth with a
radiant countenance, stridulating a refrain which is strangely
like George Eliot’s ‘‘O, may I join the choir invisible!” and
forthwith becomes the fat and proteid “ Bausteine” of the
crowd that assembles on hearing the first notes of his petition.
If you regard this as an even more horrible exhibition of our
mores, because it adds suicide to murder and cannibalism, I can
only insist that you are viewing the matter from a purely
human standpoint. To the perfectly socialized termite nothing
can be more blissful or exalted than feeling the precious fats
and proteids which he has amassed with so much labor, melt-
ing, without the slightest loss of their vital values, into the
constitutions of his more vigorous and socially more efficient
fellow beings.

Now I beg you to note how satisfactory was our solution of
the many problems with which all animals that become social
are confronted. I need hardly emphasize the matter of nutri-
tion, for you would hardly contend that animals that can digest
rotten wood and mud, grow perennial crops of mushrooms on
their excrement, domesticate strange animals to serve as ani-
mated distilleries and digest not only one anothers’ bodies but
even one anothers’ secretions, have anything to learn in diete-
tics or food conservation. Our solution of the great problems
of reproduction, notably those of eugenics, is if anything, even
more admirable, for by confining reproduction to a special
caste, by feeding it and the young of the other castes on a pecu-
liarly vitaminous diet and by promptly and deftly eliminating
all abnormalities, we have been able to secure a physically and
mentally perfect race. You will appreciate the force of this
statement when I tell you that in a recent census of the 236,498
individuals comprising the entire population of my termitar-
ium, I found none that had hatched with more than the normal
number of antennal joints or even with a misplaced macro-
cheta. The only anomaly seen was one of no social signifi-
cance, a Slightly defective toenail in three workers. Rigid
eugenics combined with rigid enforcement of the regulations
requiring all antisocial, diseased and superannuated individuals
promptly to join the choir invisible, at the same time solved
the problems of ethics and hygiene, for we were thus enabled,
so to speak, to ram virtue and health back into the germ-plasm

120 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

where they belong. And since we thus compelled not only our
workers and soldiers but even our kings and queens to be born
virtuous and to continue so throughout life, the Midcretaceous
wowser caste, finding nothing to do, automatically disappeared.
The problem of social protection was solved by the creation of
a small standing army of cool-headed, courageous soldiers, to
be employed not in waging war but solely for defensive pur-
poses, and the development on the part of the soldiers and
workers of ability to construct powerful fortifications. It may
be said that the formation of the soldier caste as well as the in-
vention of our cement subway architecture—an architecture
unsurpassed in magnitude, strength and beauty, considering
the small stature of our laborers and the simple tools they
employ—was due to the repeated failures, extending over many
million years, of our politicians to form a league of nations
with our deadly enemies, the ants. After a recent review of
the army and an inspection of the fortifications of my termi-
tarium I agree with several of the kings of the present dynasty
who believed that we ought really to be very grateful to our
archenemies for their undying animosity.

Such was our society at the beginning of the Eocene, and
such with slight improvements in detail, it has remained for
the past fifty million years, living and working with perfect
smoothness, as if on carefully lubricated ball-bearings. Nor
does it, like human society, live and work for itself alone, but
with a view to the increase and maintenance of other types of
life on the planet. On our activities depend the rapid decom-
position of the dead vegetation and the rapid formation of the
vegetable mould of the tropics. We are so numerous and our
operations of such scope that we are a very important factor in
accelerating the growth of all the vegetation, not only of the
dry savannahs and pampas but even of huge rain-forests like
those of the Congo, the Amazon and the East Indies. And
when you stop to consider that the animal and human life of
the tropics absolutely depends on this vegetation you will not
take too seriously the reports of our detractors who are for-
ever calling attention to our destructive activities. One author,
I am told, asserts that certain South American nations can
never acquire any culture because the termites so quickly eat
up all their libraries, and another gives an account of a gentle-
man in India who went to bed full of whiskey and soda and
awoke in the morning stark naked, because the termites had
eaten up his pyjamas. How very unfair to dwell on the loss
of a few books and a suit of pyjamas and not even to mention

THE TERMITODOXA 121

our beneficent and untiring participation in one of the most
important bioccenoses!

You will pardon me if after this hasty sketch of our history
I am emboldened to make a few remarks about your society,
and in what I say you will, I hope, make due allowance both
for the meagerness of my sources of information and the limita-
tions of my understanding. I must confess that to me your
society wears a strangely immature and at the same time senile
aspect, the appearance, in fact, of a chimera, composed of the
parts of an infant and those of a white-haired octogenarian.
Although your species has been in existence little more than
one hundredth of the time covered by our evolution, you are
nevertheless such huge and gifted animals, that it is surprising
to find you in so imperfect a stage of socialization. And
although every individual in your society seems to crave social
integration with his fellows, it seems to be extremely difficult
to persuade him to abate one tittle of all his natural desires and
appetites, and every individual resists to the utmost any pro-
found specialization of his structure and functions such as
would seem to be demanded by the principle of the division of
labor in any perfect society. Hence all the attempts which
your society is continually making to form classes or castes are
purely superficial and such as depend on the accumulation and
transmission of property, and on vocation. And owing to
the absence of eugenics and birth-control and to your habit
of fostering all weak and inefficient individuals, there is not
even the dubious and slow-working apparatus of natural selec-
tion to provide for the organic fixation of castes through
heredity. So immature is your society in these respects that
it might be described as a lot of cave-men and cave-women play-
ing at having a perpetual pink tea or Kaffeeklatsch.

But the senile aspect of your society impresses me as even
more extraordinary, because our society—and the same is true
of that of all other social insects—is perennially youthful and
vigorous, owing to our speedy elimination of the old and infirm.
And this brings me to a matter that interests me greatly and
one on which I hope we shall have much further correspond-
ence. To be explicit, it seems that though your society has no
true caste system, it is, nevertheless, divided into what might
be called three spurious castes, the young, the mature and
the aged. These, of course, resemble our castes only in number
and in consisting of individuals of both sexes. They are pecu-
liar in being rather poorly defined, temporary portions of the
life-cycle, so that a single individual may belong to all of them

122 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

in succession, and in the fact that only one of them, comprising
the mature individuals, is of any great economic value to society
and therefore actually functions as the host of the two others,
which are, biologically speaking, parasitic. To avoid shocking
your human sensibilities, I am willing to admit that both these
castes may be worth all the care that is bestowed on them, the
young on account of their promise and the old on account of
past services. And I will even admit the considerable social
value of the young and the old as stimuli adapted to call forth
the affection of the mature individuals. But, writing as one
animal to another, I confess that I am unable to understand
why you place the control of your society so completely in the
hands of your aged caste. Your society is actually dominated
by the superannuated, by old priests, old pedagogues, old poli-
ticians and no end of old wowsers of both sexes who are forever
suppressing or regulating everything from the observance of
the Sabbath and the wearing of feathers on hats to the licking
of postage stamps and the grievances and tribulations of stray
tom-cats.

I notice that your educators, psychologists and statisticians
have much to say on human longevity, and you seem all to crave
for nothing so much as an inordinate protraction of your egos.
Psychologically, this is, of course, merely another manifesta-
tion of your fundamentally unsocial and individualistic appe-
tites. Your writers make much of your long infancy, child-
hood and adolescence as being very conducive to educability and
socialization, and this is doubtless true, but the fact seems to
be overlooked that the great lengthening of the initial phases of
your life-cycle is also attended by a grave danger, for it also
increases the dependence of the young on the adult and aged
elements of society, especially on the parents, and this means
intensifying what the Freudian psychologists call the father
and mother complexes and therefore also an increased sub-
servience to authority, a cult of the conservative, the stable and
the senile. The deplorable effects of intensifying these com-
plexes have long been only too evident in your various religious
systems and are already beginning to show in the all too ready
acceptance on the part of your society of the visionless policies
and confused and hesitating methods of administration of your
statesmen.

Unless I am much mistaken this matter of the domination
of the old in your society deserves careful investigation. Un-
fortunately very little seems to be known about senility. In
our society it can not be investigated, because we do not

THE TERMITODOXA 123

permit it to exist, and in your society it is said to be very poorly
understood, because no one is interested in it till he actually
reaches it and then he no longer has the ability or the time to
investigate it. When the social significance of this stage in
the human life-cycle comes to be more thoroughly appreciated
some of your young biologists and psychologists will make it a
subject of exhaustive investigation and will discover the secret
of its ominous and persistent domination. It will probably be
found that many of your aged are of no economic importance
whatever, and that the activities of many others may even be
mildly helpful or beneficial, but you will find, as we found in
the Midcretaceous, a small percentage, powerful and pernicious
out of all proportion to their numbers, who are directly respon-
sible for the deplorable inertia of your institutions, especially
of your churches, universities and political bodies. These old
individuals combine with a surprising physical vigor, a certain
sadistic obstinacy which consecrates itself to obstructing, cir-
cumventing, suppressing or destroying not only everything
young or new, but everything any other old individual in their
environment may suggest. The eminent physician who recom-
mended chloroform probably had this type of old man in mind.
Certain economic entomologists have advocated some more
vigorous insecticide, such as hydrocyanic acid gas. This is,
however, a matter concerning which it might be better to defer
recommendation till the physiology, psychology and ethology
of the superannuated have been more thoroughly investigated.

It has sometimes occurred to me that your social problem
may be quite insoluble—that when your troglodyte ancestors
first expanded the family and clan into society they were
already too long-lived, too ‘‘tough” and too specialized mentally
and physically ever to develop the fine adjustments demanded
by an ideal social organization. I feel certain, nevertheless,
that you could form a much better society than the present if
you could be convinced that your further progress depends on
solving the fundamental, preliminary problems of nutrition,
reproduction and social defence, which our ancestors so suc-
cessfully solved in the late Cretaceous. These problems are,
of course, extremely complicated in your society. Under nutri-
tion you would have to include raw materials and fuel, 7. e., food
for your factories and furnaces as well as food for your bodies.
Your problems of reproduction comprise not only those of your
own species but of all your domesticated animals and plants,
and your social defence problems embrace not only protection
from the enemies of your own species (military science) but

124 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

from the innumerable other organic species which attack your
domesticated animals and plants as well as your own bodies
(hygiene, parasitology, animal and plant pathology, economic
entomology). Like our ancestors you will certainly find that
these problems can be solved only by the biologists—taking the
word “biologists” in its very broadest sense, to include also
the psychologists and anthropologists—and that till they have
put their best efforts into the solution your theologians, phi-
losophers, jurists and politicians will continue to add to the
existing confusion of your social organization. It is my
opinion, therefore, that if you will only increase your biological
investigators a hundred fold, put them in positions of trust and
responsibility much more often and before they are too old, and
pay them at least as well as you are paying your plumbers and
bricklayers, you may look forward to making as much social
progress in the next three centuries as you have made since the
Pleistocene. That some such opinion may also be entertained
by some of your statesmen sometime before the end of the
present geological age, is the sincere wish of
Yours truly,

WEE-WEE, 43d Neotenic King, of the 8429th Dynasty of the
Bellicose Termites.

On reperusing this letter before deciding, after many mis-
givings, to read it to so serious a body of naturalists, I notice a
great number of inaccuracies and exaggerations, attributable,
no doubt, to his majesty’s misinterpretation of his own and
very superficial acquaintance with our society. His remarks
on old age strike me as particularly inept and offensive. He
seems not to be aware of the fact that at least a few of our old
men have almost attained to the idealism of the superannuated
termite, a fact attested by such Freudian confessions as the
following, taken from a letter recently received by one of my
colleagues from a gentleman in New Hampshire:

I do not understand how it is that an insect so small as to be invisible
is able to worry my dog and also at times sharply to bite myself. A vet.
friend of mine in Boston advised lard and kerosene for the dog. This

seemed to check them for a time, but what I need is extermination, for
I am in my eighty-fourth year.

a
bo
or

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN, II

By C. B. DAVENPORT
FORMERLY MAJOR, S. C.
AND
ALBERT G. LOVE

Wt (OO, Nuts (C5 1Wio Se ANE

14. Refractive Errors of the Kyes.—This group of defects
is numerically important, having been found in over 30 per
1,000 of the population, a total of about 90,000 men. For the
distribution, see Fig. 14. This defect is of great military im-
portance and led to rejection in more than three fourths of the
cases. It is of less importance in civil life, since most of the
errors are sufficiently correctible to permit a man to carry on
ordinary civil occupations. Of the various defects, myopia,
short-sightedness, is the commonest. The distribution of my-
opia is shown in Fig. 15. From this figure it appears that one
of the centers of heaviest incidence of errors of refraction is
New England and the Middle States. This may be in part due

ERRORS OF REFRACTION; DEFECTIVE VISION

@ 355) - e408

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BORADS

Wie. 14.

LOSS OF OR BLINDNESS IN ONE OR BOTH EYES

MYOPIA

4 BOAROS
RATIO PLA 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMP§ AND LOCAL

Fie. 15. Hie. 16:

126 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

to the great care taken by the medical examiners of New Eng-
land in regard to eye defects. It is, however, certainly very
largely due to the presence in New York City and vicinity and
in Boston of peoples with a constitutional tendency to myopia.
A similar tendency, but less marked, is found in Chicago and in
the cities of Ohio and Michigan. Refractional errors are above
all a defect of great cities, due primarily to the racial constitu-
tion of the population of those cities and secondarily to the
overstrain of the eye which comes from clerical and other close
work engaged in by a large proportion of the population of
these cities. A markedly high incidence of refractive errors is
found in those sections containing a large proportion of French-
Canadians. The ratio is high also in sections largely occupied
by Germans and Austrians.

TRACHOMA

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAlS CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS
lone lire

15. Other Eye Diseases and Defects, including Blindness in
One or Both Eyes.—While naturally only a few persons blind
in both eyes registered for military service, the number of those
blind in one eye was extraordinarily large. There were about
20,000 of them altogether. The distribution is given in Fig. 16,
which shows that the center of incidence is in the southern
states. This result has probably a combination of causes, such
as gonorrhea (which finds its greatest incidence here, and which
may blind one eye without affecting the other) and trachoma
(Fig. 17), which finds its greatest incidence in the southern
states. The extraordinarily large amount of eye defects, other
than errors of refraction, in the arid states of the west may well
be due in part to the inflammations caused by blazing sun and
by dust storms.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 12%

DEAFNESS, CONGENITAL OR ACQUIRED

801 — 1000
@ \001- 1570
RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS
Fic. 18.

16. Ear Diseases and Defects.—Defects of hearing, like all
defects of the senses, have a great military importance. In the
World War, keen hearing was often a matter of life and death,
since, if hearing were adequate, gas shells could be distinguished
from others in time to put on gas masks. Defects of hearing
have, however, less importance in civil life. The number of per-
sons with ear defects and ear diseases found in the population
was great. There were about 22,000 with otitis media, or in-
flammation of the middle ear, and about 20,000 with defective
hearing. The inflammation of the middle ear is a serious mat-
ter, since it not only frequently leaves a deafness, but often
becomes a center of infection that may cause death. It was a
prominent cause of rejection, about 75 per cent. of those with
otitis media having been rejected for all military service. The
distribution of otitis media is shown in Fig. 18. There are two
principal centers, one in the New England and Middle States,

OTIFIS MEDIA; PERFORATED EAR DRUM

El B40 — 500
Hii 601 — 7.00
= 701 —1000
@ (00: - 1766

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS
Fie. 19.

128 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

and one on the Pacific coast. The point of greatest incidence
is New York City, but other centers of recent immigrants in
Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have a great
amount of infection of the middle ear. There is a relatively
small amount of otitis media in the southern states, a fact that
is associated with the comparative immunity from this disease

VALVULAR DISEASES AND ENDOCARDITIS

E 1347_ 21.00
EB 21.01 - 2700
E aro1— 3500
fey) S501- GSS S =

RATIO PER 1000 MEN REJECTIONS, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

CARDIAC HYPERTROPHY AND DILATATION

— 1063
RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

of the negro race. As for defective hearing, distribution of
which is shown in Fig. 19, one sees that it reaches a maximum
in the New England states. There is, however, a strikingly
large amount of it west of the Rocky Mountains, and relatively
little in the southern states excepting Louisiana. This excep-
tion may be associated with the fact that the French sections to
be especially liable to defects of hearing.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 129

1. Cardio-vascular Defects.—The statistics on cardio-vascu-
lar defects in the drafted men are not altogether satisfactory
on account of the difficulty in detecting such defects under the
conditions offered during examinations at mobilization camps.
There were, however, plenty of defects found; about 5!4 per
cent. of the men examined had noteworthy defects of the valves
or blood vessels. About 10 per cent. of all defects found fall

VARIGOSE VEINS

SS SS EEE, ee
=n peat
——
s

Wi 55) - 873

RATIO PEAR 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Hie. 21.

into this category. Of valvular diseases alone over 88,000 cases
were recorded and of weak veins about 20,000 cases. Valvular
diseases are of great importance from a military standpoint,
and only about 7 per cent. of men reported having them were
accepted for general military service. Of persons with varicose
veins, about 25 per cent. were considered suitable for such serv-
ice. The distribution throughout the United States of cases of
organic diseases of the heart is illustrated in Fig. 20. Two
great centers appear, one in the northeastern section of the
country and the other along the Pacific coast. Where the dis-
ease rate is high in the southern states, it is probably to be
associated with the negro population and to some extent with its
high infection with venereal disease. Part of the high rate on
the Pacific coast is to be ascribed to the idiosyncrasies of the
examiners at Camp Lewis, who recorded as defective an undue
proportion of men with slight heart murmurs.

VOL. X.—9.

130 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

TONSILLITIS, HYPERTROPHIG

ES} oass- 1575
E3 1576 - 21.00
= 2101 — 2650
Ge 265! — 4610

AATIO PER 1000 MEN

TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Hic. 22.

The distribution of varicose veins is shown in Fig. 21. On
the whole, this condition is much commoner in the northern
states than in the southern and it is found especially in the
zone extending from Lake Michigan to the Pacific coast. This
is a region of large men belonging to tall races and it is known
that these suffer from varicose veins more than do shorter men.

18. Throat and Nose.—This highly vulnerable region of the
body was found diseased in 65,000 men, few of whom were,
however, rejected on this account. The principal trouble was
enlarged, inflamed tonsils. The distribution of this condition is
shown in Fig. 22. The condition is sometimes ascribed to se-
vere climatic conditions, sometimes to overheated houses, again

ASTHMA

E 133- 200
HH 201- 250
3 asi-— 290
EM 2901— 974

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 151

to mechanical irritations like the dust of great cities and of the
desert, and again to syphilitic infection. The significance of
variations in incidence of tonsilitis in the United States is not
clear. It is slightly commoner in cities than in rural districts.
The variations perhaps depend in part upon the idiosyncrasies
of the examiners at the different camps.

19. Respiratory Defects (Non-tubercular), especially Bron-
chitis and Asthma.—Of non-tubercular respiratory defects,
there were recorded over 10,000 cases, chiefly asthma. The dis-
tribution of asthma is shown in Fig. 23. As will be seen, its
distribution is highly irregular. It is found especially in the

EPILEPSY

aya

3 120 -
He 40) —
3 50:1-— 600
W601 - 1272

north. The entire New England states are involved and the
Pacific coast is one of high incidence of the disease. It is fairly
common in the black belt of the south. French-Canadians show
it more than others, but beyond this there is little evidence that
any special race is especially susceptible to or immune from it.

20. Nervous and Mental Defects.—To this great group there
were assigned about 6 per cent. of the defects found, giving a
rate of 33. The two commonest types were epilepsy and mental
deficiency. There were over 14,000 cases of epilepsy, giving a
rate of 5. The disease is especially prevalent in rural districs,
probably in consequence of the greater amount of inbreeding
there. The distribution of epilepsy by states is shown in Fig. 24.

152 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

MENTAL DEFICIENCY

RATIO PER 1000 - MEN REJECTIONS, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

MIG. 125:

It appears at a glance that it is commoner in the older-settled
parts of the country, New England, New York, Virginia, North
Carolina and Louisiana. The northwest is relatively free from it,
and this is no doubt due to the immigration of persons without
the defect to the west and to the outmarrying that has occurred
there. For it is well known that inbreeding of epileptic stock
increases the incidence of the defect in the population. The dis-
ease is especially common in the districts where there are many
French-Canadians. It is probably widespread among the
French as a race, which may account for the high rate in
Louisiana.

Mental deficiency was recorded in about 40,000 cases, giving
a rate of 14. This does not give a complete picture of the

TOTAL, MENTAL DISORDERS

EJ 336 — 925
HE 926 —1500
E 1501 — 2000
MB 2001 - 3792

RATIO PER 1000 MEN REJECTIONS, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 155

amount of mental deficiency of men of military age, because
still additional cases were later discovered by the method of
psychological examination. Mental deficiency, like epilepsy, is
especially common in rural districts. The map of its distribu-
tion is given in Fig. 25 and Fig. 25a, which show that it is es-
pecially common in older-settled parts of the country and there
is more of it in the southern states than in the northern. This
excess in the south is, of course, largely due to the negro race.
The comparative absence of mental deficiency in the west is
doubtless due to the fact that few mentally defective persons
have immigrated there. The commuter group contains the
lowest rate among the occupational groups, while the mountain
whites comprise the highest. One of the surprising results of
the draft examination is the large amount of mental deficiency
and backwardness among the southern Allegheny Mountains.

DEFECTIVE OR DEFICIENT TEETH; DENTAL CARIES

RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Hie. 26.

21. Teeth.—Defective teeth are noted in 37,000 men. It is
clear that only the grosser defects were recorded. The recorded
defects were indeed so gross as to lead to rejection in about 70
per cent of the cases. It is clear that the requirements for
Army life are higher than those for civil life. The distribution
of defective and deficient teeth is shown in Fig. 26. The one
great center for defective teeth is the extreme northeast, includ-
ing the New England states, New York and New Jersey. The
second center is in the northwest, including states next to the
Canadian border and those on the Pacific slope. A compara-
tive freedom from defective teeth is found in the prairie states
and those of the southwest. Defective and deficient teeth are
much commoner in cities than in rural districts, despite the bet-
ter provision for their care in the cities. This may be in part
due to conditions, but it has more probably chiefly a racial sig-
nificance. There is a large amount of defective teeth among the

134 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

colored people (despite a high natural resistance to dental caries
among full-blooded negroes) and there is probably a racial lack
of resistance in the old English stock that settled New England.
On the other hand, the sections largely occupied by Indians and
Mexicans show an exceptionally low rate of defective teeth,
while those sections largely occupied by French-Canadians show
the highest rate.

DISEASES OR DEFECTS BY STATES

@ ce2i.- soa.
RATIO PER 1000 MEN TOTAL, CAMPS AND LOCAL BOARDS

Hic. 21.

IV. COMPARISON OF INCIDENCE OF TOTAL DEFECTS IN
THE VARIOUS STATES

The distribution of total defects and diseases in the differ-
ent states is shown in Fig. 27. Also detailed ratios are set forth
in Table 1. There are two great centers of defect—one is in
the northeastern part of the United States, and the other in the
western half, including especially the states on the Pacific coast
and the two mountain states of Wyoming and Colorado. Of all
states Rhode Island leads with a defect rate of 802. This high
defect rate, like that of the other New England states, is largely
controlled by flatfoot and hernia. In the case of Rhode Island,
however, many minor defects find here the maximum or nearly
the maximum ratio. Conditions in which Rhode Island stand
first or second are: Alcoholism, obesity, neurosis, total for my-
opia and defective vision (cause not stated) , hemorrhoids, bron-

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 135

chitis, deformities of appendages and trunk, atrophy of mus-
cles of the extremities, underheight and underweight. The
reason why Rhode Island stands at or near the top in many de-
fects is largely because of the defective or non-resistant stock
which has been drawn to this, the most urban of all states—that
in which the population is most generally engaged in manufac-
turing. While one may not ascribe the defects to the occupa-
tion, it is probable that the relatively low-grade, ill-paid occupa-
tion has attracted a stock with inherent defects or suscepti-
bility to disease.

Next to Rhode Island stands Vermont with a defect rate of
764. Itissurprising in what a number of defects the small state
of Vermont leads. The reason for this is probably the presence
of a large number of French-Canadians, in whom the defect
rate it particularly high. The third state in the list is Virginia
with a defect rate of 734. This state, one of the first settled in
the country, apparently suffers in part from its age and consan-
guineous matings and in part from the nature of its colored
population. Virginia stands among the first six states in the
following defects: Speech defect, deafness, mental deficiency,
mental alienation, sinusitis (or inflammation of the cavities of
the head), enlarged tonsils, hypertrophied or dilated heart,
cardiac arrhythmia (irregularities of the heart), tachycardia
(rapid heart), total for hernia and enlarged inguinal rings,
mal-union of fractures of upper and lower extremities, hammer
toe and hallux valgus, pronated foot, pes cavus (contracted
foot) and foot deformities not specified, metatarsalgia (painful
foot), bullet or other recent wounds, and grand total for me-

DEFECTS OR DISEASES, SELECTED URBAN AND RURAL (ALL OTHER) COMMUNITIES
_ SELECTED” URBAN aria eR’ 1000 RURAL (ALL OTHERS) —

136 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

chanical defects. Many of these defects are congenital, such as
arise in a highly inbred population. Others seem to be due to
bad conditions of living, such as are associated with mental
defect. Another large number of them is due to infection with
the microorganisms of venereal disease.

At the bottom of the list stands the state with the lowest
defect rate, Kansas, in which there were 422 per 1,000, only a
little more than one half the defect rate for Rhode Island. Near
the bottom of the list stand South Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky,
and Arkansas. These are states which have received a small
amount of the more recent immigration from southeastern
Europe. They are prevailingly white agricultural states (ex-
cept certain parts of Arkansas, which has a rather high colored
rate). This list, however, serves to warn that the influence of
camp examiners has a considerable effect upon the final ratio
and it is to be kept in mind that Kansas, Nebraska, South Da-
kota men were all examined at Camp Funston, while men from
Arkansas were examined at Camp Pike. At both these camps
there is reason to believe that the physical examinations were
somewhat inferior in quality, so that the proportion of defects
recorded to defects in registrants was less than in many other
camps. This inferiority in the examiners is, however, much
more striking in the case of Pike than in the case of Funston;
and we must believe that the comparative freedom from defect
in the states lying just east of the Rocky Mountains from South
Dakota to Texas corresponds to a real physical superiority.

Since not all defects are causes for rejection, there has been
_ made a separate table, No. 3, showing the distribution of causes

of rejection by states. Here also Rhode Island stands at the top
with a ratio of 424. This implies that perhaps 40 per cent. of
the registrants examined in Rhode Island had to be rejected for
all military service. Considering the distribution of rejections
as shown in the table, it will be noted that they lie chiefly along
the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards and are relatively uncommon
in the interior of the country, particularly west of the Missis-
sippi River. The New England states, New York and Michigan
show a high rate for rejection. There is a considerable amount
in Georgia and Tennessee (both examined at Camp Gordon), a
large proportion from California and Washington, partly due to
tuberculosis in the first case and various injuries in the second,
and also in Louisiana. In the states west of Mississippi, how-
ever, we find low rejection rates, such as in Wyoming where
less than 13 per cent. of defects found were cause of rejection.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 137

Similar results were obtained in Nebraska, Kansas, Arizona,
Montana, Arkansas and North Dakota; the inhabitants of these
states are clearly a relatively physically fit lot. They represent
a selection of the most vigorous of our population. On the other
hand, the east seaboard has suffered by the loss of these fine
young men who have migrated to the west, while those who are
physically defective have more largely remained at home in the
east. Also many immigrants of physically less fit stock have
remained near the ports at which they have arrived from
Europe, while representatives of the physically better developed
races have migrated west.

For the purpose of securing populations of greater homo-
geneity, some of the larger of the forty-eight states were di-
vided into two or more sections. The defect rates for these sec-
tions are often more varied than those of the states. The
highest rate found outside of the state of Rhode Island is Sec-
tion 5 of Colorado, which is the city of Denver. This had a rate
of 800. This high total rate comprises certain large separate
rates like the following: Tuberculosis 122, defective vision 35,
hypertrophied tonsils 27, hernia 49, flat foot 184, and under-
weight 40. The lowest rate of any section is Section 1 of Kan-
sas, which includes a strip along the Arkansas River in western
Kansas. Here the rates for the diseases which we picked out in
Colorado for their great size appear relatively small: Tubercu-
losis 12, defective vision 19, hypertrophied tonsils 12, hernia 18,
flat foot 104, and underweight 1. Thus, it is seen that the rea-
son why Colorado has such a high defect rate is because of the
higher rate for tuberculosis, underweight, hypertrophied tonsils
and flat foot, all of which may be dependent on infection with
Bacillus tuberculosis, whereas the low rate for Kansas and Ne-
braska is due to the low rate in these condii:ons as well as in
some others. In the case of Rhode Island, which has even a
higher defect rate than Section 5 of Colorado, namely of 802,
the tuberculosis rate is small, 21, and the rate for flat foot is
only 117, but, on the other hand, many of the rates for the
selected defects are larger than in Colorado and there are many
others which have a high defect rate in Rhode Island. Thus,
defective vision has a rate of 57; underweight 93; mental defi-
ciency 16; valvular lesions 34; bad teeth 42; underheight 12.
Thus, the high rate in Colorado is primarily a high rate due to
the selective gathering there of persons affected with latent or
active tuberculosis, while the high defect rate in Rhode Island
is due to small size and a number of defects indicative of poor

138 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

stock and poor conditions of life. All fluctuations in defect
rates of the different sections have in this way a meaning; but
it is impossible to discuss the variations in this paper.
Consolidation of Similar Sections.——The 156 sections were
brought together into 22 groups. These fall into three series,
an agricultural series, a physiological series and a racial series.
For the different groups the ratio of defect found varies con-
siderably. Thus, in the northern agricultural groups, it is about
530, in the white agricultural group of the south, 520, in the
negro agricultural group, 500, in the eastern manufacturing
group the rate rises to 590 while the commuter group has a ratio
of less than 540. In the mining group the rate is 569, in the
sparsely settled group of the southwest it falls to 470. In the
desert group, including among others, Nevada, Arizona and
New Mexico, the rate is relatively high, 670. This is largely
because of tuberculosis, underweight and flat foot. In the mari-
time group the rate is 685; in the mountain group, 570; in the
sections occupied largely by Indians the rate is relatively low,
530; and still lower in the Mexican section, 470. The “native
whites of Scotch origin” is a name applied to a group compris-
ing two sections, with a rate of 473. Of the remaining areas in
which one race constitutes over 10 per cent., Russians have a
rate of 590; Scandinavians of 543; the Finn section a rate of
520; the French-Canadian section a rate of 684. Finally, there
are three groups of German, Scandinavians and Austrians com-
bined in various proportions in which the rates run between 510
and 540. Thus, of all the agricultural groups the rate is lowest
for the negro group. In the occupational series it is highest in
the manufacturing group. It is remarkably high in the desert
group on account of tuberculosis and throat diseases. It is low
in the groups containing a large proportion of Finns, Russians
and Scandinavians, still less in the sections containing a large
proportion of Indians and Mexicans. Too much stress must not
be laid upon the totals. Of interest, however, is the comparison
of the relative frequency of the particular diseases in each group.
The occupations play a role in the distribution of defects.
Bad postures at school, especially in the badly nourished and
rickety, account for much of the curvature of the spine, and this
is developed especially in the cities; standing in shops and
walking on pavements in tight shoes account for many of the
bad feet of city folk. Much school and clerical work tend to
induce myopia in those so disposed. Probably dust, other irri-
tants and uncleanliness of crowded quarters favor. nose, throat

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 139

and ear inflammations in those predisposed. Straining the body
by heavy work induces hernia; mill work in the south and lum-
bering in the north causes loss of upper extremities ; lumbering
and saw-mill operation cause loss of fingers and arms and rail-
roading causes injury to legs. Agriculture is associated with
good eyes, straight backs and in the south (but less in the north)
with freedom from flat foot and distorted toes. The eastern
manufacturing group is characterized by an excess of myopia,
valvular diseases of the heart, speech defect, bad teeth and un-
derweight. On the other hand this group has a small amount
of hernia and blindness of one eye. The commuter group is
characterized, like the eastern manufacturing group, by myopia,
also by an excess of otitis media; but the rate for tuberculosis
and mental defect is exceptionally low. The commuter group
represents the physically fittest of the population of the eastern
section of the country. The group containing a large propor-
tion of mining population is characterized by a fairly high rate
of venereal diseases and by much tonsillitis, but relatively few
cases of underweight.

Of the agricultural groups the negro sections are character-
ized by an abnormally high amount of venereal disease and its
sequele, such as valvular heart disease, arthritis and ankylosis,
by hemorrhoids, by poor emotional control, including tachy-
cardia, hysteria and psychasthenia, by relatively little otitis
media, deafness and defect of vision (though by much blindness
of one eye), by little diabetes, spinal curvature, cryptorchidism,
flat foot, and by many bullet and other wounds.

The Scandinavian sections are characterized by a slight
amount of venereal disease, by relative freedom from hallux
valgus and by much flat foot and by a tendency to hernia. The
German groups are characterized by neurasthenia, psychoneu-
roses, and various psychoses, but by relatively little mental defi-
ciency ; by an excess of myopia and curvature of the spine. The
French-Canadian group shows an extraordinary excess of vari-
ous important defects, such as tuberculosis, spinal curvature,
deaf mutism, mental deficiency and psychoses, refractive errors,
otitis media, defective hearing, asthma, bad teeth, hernia, defi-
cient size of chest and underheight and underweight. The sec-
tions of which the French-Canadians form a predominant factor
are among the poorest from the military standpoint.

The groups occupied largely by Indians and Mexicans are
characterized by a large amount of tuberculosis, venereal dis-
ease, and ankylosis and a low rate of valvular diseases of the
heart and deformities of the hand.

140 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

The mountain whites constitute a sub-race of the whites oc-
cupying the southern Allegheny Mountains. They are char-
acterized by an exceptionally high proportion of mental defect
and mental disease, by varicose veins, by numerous deformities
of the extremities and by underweight.

Various physiographic regions differ in their characteristic
defects. We may distinguish the maritime, mountain, desert
and sparsely settled areas. The maritime district, apart from
the great cities, includes a high defect rate for venereal disease,
for various nervous and mental diseases, myopia, valvular dis-
eases of the heart, myocarditis, arteriosclerosis, flat foot, hallux
valgus, deficient teeth and underweight. This group is largely
influenced by conditions in the parts of Virginia bordering on
Chesapeake Bay, as well as in the peninsular regions through-
out the north. There is, on the other hand, a comparative ab-
sence of goiter and drug addiction.

The mountain sections, on the other hand, are characterized
by goiter, deficient vision, valvular diseases of the heart, ac-
quired defects and bad teeth, while there is relatively a small
amount of tuberculosis, venereal disease, myocarditis, tonsillitis,
arteriosclerosis and deaf mutism.

The desert region is characterized first of all by tuberculosis
(due to the use of this region as a sanitarium), by hernia, tra-
choma, and flat foot and by a small amount of myocarditis, de-
fective speech and bad teeth. The sparsely settled regions of
the northwest, outside of the desert territory, are characterized
by high rates of goiter, hernia, flat foot and deformities of the
hand resulting from accident. On the other hand, there are low
rates for nervous and mental disease, for eye defects, otitis
media and underweight. |

These results are not to be interpreted as indicating merely
the effect of conditions upon physique; they are largely con-
trolled by the constitution of the populations which have selected
these regions as homes.

Comparison of Rural and Urban.—The whole country has
been divided state by state into rural and urban districts. The
statistics reveal a rural rate of 528 and an urban rate of 609.
Thus, the selected cities showed about 15 per cent. more of de-
fects than did the rura! districts. This excess of urban defects
is largely determined by the excess of flat feet, which amounts
to a rate of 25. There is also in the cities an excess of under-
weight, inflammation of the middle ear, errors of refraction,
goiter, pulmonary tuberculosis, defective teeth, and syphilis.

DEFECTS FOUND IN DRAFTED MEN 141

These defects, in which the city rates surpass the rural rates,
are, however, partly counterbalanced by the greater amount in
rural districts of mental deficiency, deformed and defective ex-
tremities, blindness in one eye, arthritis and ankylosis and
gonococcus infection. Thus, while the urban districts exceed in
the defects due to inferior stock and bad environmental con-
ditions, the rural districts exceed in hereditary congenital de-
fects (partly due to the fact that many congenital defects in-
crease in the population in consequence of consanguineous
matings, which are commoner in the rural districts than in great
cities) and to accidental injuries (also in the amount of rural
negro gonorrhea). The relative incidence of various defects in
urban and rural districts is shown graphically in Fig. 28.

Thus, in summary, the northeastern part of the country ap-
pears to be characterized by congenital defects and those of city
life. The northwest is characterized by deformities due to acci-
dents, by goiter and by flat foot. The southeast is characterized
by venereal diseases, hookworm and similar complications, in-
cluding blindness of one eye, arthritis and ankylosis, under-
weight, mental defect, emotional disturbances, by pellagra, her-
nia, loss of upper extremity, and bullet and other wounds. The
southwest is characterized by tuberculosis, drug addiction, hy-
pertrophied tonsils and hernia. The northern central area is
contrasted with the southern central by having more goiter, less
tuberculosis, much less venereal disease, more varicocele and
more varicose veins, more valvular disease of the heart and
cardiac hypertrophy and dilatation, more deficient teeth, more
psychasthenia and constitutional psychopathic states. It is
characterized by more otitis media, errors of refraction, dia-
betes, curvature of the spine, defects of genitalia and weak feet,
but less epilepsy, blindness of one eye, pellagra, loss of upper
extremity, bullet and other recent wounds, underweight and
deficient chest measurement. From a military standpoint the
northwest contains the best men of the country.

142 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

TONE COLOR

By Dr. T. PROCTOR HALL

VANCOUVER, B. C.

T ordinary temperatures, waves of sound in air advance
we at the rate of 340 meters (1,120 feet) per second. By
wave-time is meant the time of advance from a given position
to the position of the preceding wave. It is recognized by the
ear as the pitch of the tone. Wave-length, the distance between
the crests of two consecutive waves, is the product of the veloc-
ity and the wave-time. The wave-length of audible sounds in
air varies from one centimeter for the highest to twenty meters
for the lowest note. Sounds whose wave-lengths are less than a
centimeter are not heard by human ears. Sounds with waves
longer than twenty meters are heard as a series of beats, but
not as a continuous note. The wave-time of middle C on the
piano is 39 ten-thousandths of a second.

Fic. 1. DIAGRAM OF A SouND WAvE IN AIR. Warvye-length, one centimeter. Wave-
time, 0.8 ten-thousandths of a second.

The loudness of the sound depends upon the amount of
energy contained in its wave. For waves of a given pitch and
quality this increases with the amplitude, that is, with the ex-
tent of motion of the air-particles during the passage of
the wave.

Sound waves are impressed as up-and-down indentations on
a graphophone cylinder or an Edison disk, and as side-to-side
wavy grooves on the ordinary disk of a gramophone. They are
conveniently and clearly represented on paper as up-and-down
waves proceeding from left to right, in which the down part of
the wave indicates compression and the up part expansion of
the air.

The simplest form of a wave is the sine curve (Figure 2).
Its tone is smooth and clear, like the tone of a tuning fork or a
flute. Many instrumental waves are compound sine curves,

TONE COLOR 145

‘

Fic. 5. WAVE FROM A Low NOTE OF

A TROMBONE, ‘The whole curve between

the sharp upper points is a single wave.
2 000,

—

ic. 2. FLuTeE WAVES, ENLARGED
FROM A GRAPHOPHONE RecoRD. Magni-
fied vertically 2,000 times. Each line
is made by a single note.

Fic. 6. PIANO WAVES, xX 2,000. The
first two lines are two successive tra-
cings over the same wave-record, given
to show the degree of accuracy of the
enlarging machine.

Fic. 3. VIOLIN WAVES, xX 2,000.

Fic. 7. BAGPIPE WAVES. The up-
per line, like the third line in figure
Fic. 4. TRUMPET WAVES, x 2,000. two, shows a compound note. x 2,000.

consisting of a fundamental long sine wave, to which are added
shorter sine waves whose lengths are submultiples of the first.
The form of these compound waves gives to each instrument its
characteristic timbre or quality, by which, for example, the note
sounded by a violin is distinguished from a note of the same
pitch and loudness made by a cornet.

Notes sung by a human voice differ radically from such in-
strumental notes, in that their smaller superposed waves have
no fixed ratio to the fundamental wave. In the voice the funda-
mental wave, which decides the pitch of the vocal note, is pro-
duced by a rapid succession of puffs of air forced from the lungs
through the slit between the closed and stretched vocal cords.

144 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 8. THr SOUND OF a IN HAT,

< 2,000. The upper line shows 5 or 6
Wave groups, of moderate pitch; the
second is a low note; the third very
low, with long wave groups.

Fic. 9. THE LOWER LINE SHOWS Fic. 10. WAVES OF e€ IN DEEP. x 1,200.
A VERY LOw NOTE OF a IN HAVE: THE

UPPER A LOW NOTE OF a IN MADE:
x 2.000. .

Tightening the cords increases the rate of the puffs and there-
fore raises the pitch. Following each puff the air in the throat,
nose and mouth is thrown into more rapid oscillation, like the
air in an organ pipe; and these smaller resonance waves, which
are added to the pitch wave, are the source of the different vocal
qualities. Vowel quality, for example, depends on the lengths
of the resonance waves present. The short sound of a, as in
“hat,” has a resonance wave-time of 14 ten-thousandths of a
second. The long sound of a, as in ‘‘ made,” has 24 ten-thou-
sandths. The sound of ee in ‘‘ deep” has two resonance waves;
one whose wave-time is 114, the other 20 or more, ten-thou-
sandths of a second.

The term tone color is sometimes used to express timbre, or
tone quality of any kind. I propose to restrict its use here to
that kind of tone quality which is independent of the form, am-
plitude, time, or length of the wave.

The tone colors of the notes of the diatonic scale have been
variously described. One set of descriptive words is so selected

TONE COLOR 145

as to begin with the same letters as the names of the notes to
which the words apply. Another set is similarly related to the
letters on the staff in the scale of C.

do’ defiant C’ Clearness
ti trying B. Brightness
la lurid A Adversity
so strong G Gladness
fa fateful F Faith

mi mild E Ease

re rousing D_ Desire

do dauntless C Constancy

These diatonic colors were personified by a young lady
teacher, for the benefit of her younger pupils, in the story of

THE Do FAMILY

When they receive visitors at their home by the C the members of this
family always sit in a row in their parlor. First comes Father Do, next
to him a husky boy Re, and his little sister Mi. Beside Mi sits her melan-
choly brother Fa, and next to him the big brother So. Grandma La comes
next and helps to look after Baby Ti, who always keeps close to Mother Do.

The diatonic colors whose nature is suggested by these va-
rious expressions are unchanged by a change of the key. It
follows that they are due to the relation that each note bears to
the key note. What this relation is will now be shown.

A stretched string or a column of air vibrating as a whole
gives out its lowest or fundamental tone. If it vibrates as two
separate halves the note is an octave higher and the wave-time
is one half as great. If it vibrates in three equal lengths the
note is so in the next higher octave, and the wave-time is one
third. Proceeding in this way we obtain a series of notes from
which a selection is made to form a “natural scale.” The notes
of the diatonic natural scale have the wave-times and wave-
lengths, relative to the lowest note, given in the first line of
fractions below.

do re mi fa so la ti do
if 8% % % % 36 84:
8% 40 146 86 %o §

The second line of fractions gives the ratio of the wave-time
of each note to the one before it. From this it appears that
there are three kinds of intervals between the notes. Two of
them, % and %o, are nearly equal; the third, 1%4,¢, is about half
as great as either of the others.

voL. x.—10.

146 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

If a piano or organ were tuned to the natural diatonic scale
all the music played on it would have to be played in the key of
C, or the intervals would not fit the music. A change of key
would not be possible.

To overcome this difficulty Bach, 200 years ago, devised the
Tempered Chromatic scale, in which each octave is divided into
twelve equal intervals, or twelve tempered chromatic tones.
The wave-times of the several notes of this scale are found
from the time of the key note by dividing repeatedly by the
twelfth root of 2 (1.0495).

The following table shows the relation of these notes to
each other, and also to the notes of the natural diatonic scale.
It will be seen that do, re, fa and so are practically identical in
the two scales, and that the difference of wave-time for mi, la
and tz is in each case less than one per cent.

Diatonic Natural Scale Tempered Chromatic Scale

Note Ratio to Keynote pei Parle Ratio to Key specu
do’ 1/2 5 12 5 1/2
ti 8/15 .533 il .530 9/17
— 10 561 9/16
la 3/5 -600 9 595 3/5
= 8 630 5/8
so 2/3 .667 7 667 2/3
== 6 707 12/17
fa 3/4 -750 5 749 3/4
mi 4/5 -800 -L 794 4/5
— 3 841 5/6
re 8/9 .889 2 891 8/9
— 1 944 17/18
do 1 1.000 0 1.000 1

The strongest note, so, of the diatonic scale bears the sim-
plest time-ratio, 74, to the key note. The note next in strength,
fa, has the ratio, 4, next in simplicity. The most complex
ratio, 45, belongs to the note ti whose tone color is irritation or
unrest. Next to tz is re, %, whose tone color is stronger, but
partakes of unrest because of the psychic effort required to ap-
preciate the element of harmony in the ratio of 8 to 9. Evi-
dently the diatonic color of each note of the scale is determined
by the ratio its wave-time bears to the wave-time of the key
note. During a melody the key note is subconsciously borne in
the memory, and each note that is sung is subconsciously com-
pared with it. A change of key makes a corresponding change
in the note of reference and shifts the diatonic colors to the
new position of the scale.

1 Musicians still persist in calling these intervals “half tones,” which
is as foolish as it would be to call the unit of length a “ half meter.”

TONE COLOR 147

The diatonic color of a note is therefore determined by the
interval between it and the key note. It is evident that any
interval between successive notes of a melody must in the same
way produce in the second note a tone color, which I shall call
melodic color. The melodic color of a note may be stronger than
its diatonic color and may either reinforce, modify, neutralize,
or even reverse the diatonic color. Melodic colors occur in all
possible chromatic intervals, and all these intervals are found
between notes of the diatonic scale. The following table gives
the tone color of each chromatic interval, the words being sug--
gestive rather than exactly descriptive.

Note Interval Tone Color

do 1 a Aig Oe er Rem Boldness, defiance.

ti 111 S030) Lethe Be aan Suspense, restlessness.
OS ue ia Awe, dread.

la Renate ote ah Soe Apprehension.
Pee Sh beet tales Pleasure.

so Tbe Se eS Oe Brilliance.
Gah iat oi va Strangeness.

fa eh A Depth of feeling.

mi CLEA See Agreeable mildness.
= Oo eee Sorrow, depression.

re DBA vate ese al suelo Anger, resentment.
1 Ae te LS Irritation.

do OP AEG 265 oe i's Confidence, rest.

Melodic color exists not only between the successive notes of
a melody but to some degree between any two of its notes. The
accented notes form, by themselves, through their diatonic and
melodic colors, a skeleton which expresses the stronger charac-
ters of the melody. The color of a musical phrase may be so
pronounced that its essential character is retained in various
positions on the scale. Here are the endless possible combina-
tions in which composers revel, guided by a sense of feeling,
often with no clear consciousness of the elements of their art.

A third variety of tone color, which may be called harmonic,
arises from the relation of the upper note of a common chord to
its ground note. The ground note is already in the subconscious
memory in relation to the key note, and the upper note adds to
its other colors some of the color of the ground note. The mid-
dle note of a major common chord is the upper note of its rela-
tive minor, and its harmonic color is that of the ground note.
either of the minor or of the major weakened.

148 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Relative Wave-times

Wonie ;Chord jak eka sae ee do mi so 15:12:10

Its relative minor........ la do mi Geb ine
Subdominant chord .......... fa la do 15: 12:10

Its relative minor........ re fa la 6: 5: 4 (nearly)
Dominant chord ............ y so ti re 15:12:10

Its relative minor........ mi so ti Gis 7b shee
Dominant seventh .......... SO) Ath eu 15: 12:10:83 (nearly)

Each chord has its own chord color, which is totally distinct
from its harmonic quality, and is, speaking broadly, like the
diatonic color of its ground note. The wave-time ratios are
identical in the three major common chords. Their harmonic
characters are therefore exactly alike. But there are differ-
ences in the ratios to the key note. These ratios are as follows.
(See the table on page 146.)

Tonie chord (and key) inset es 6 cee 13 13% :% or 15-2 26:22050
Subdominantychordice cae ae eee 1:%:3% :% 20s Thee to
Donmunant chord/-fsace oo oe Le ease 1: 3%: 45: % 223% 15: 12250

The order of simplicity of the ratio to the key note is the
order of strength of the chord color.

The elements of music are three, namely,

1. Rhythm, including time and accent,
2. Melody, the succession of notes.
38. Harmony, including tone quality in general.

Of these elements rhythm is the most fundamental and was
without doubt the first to be developed. It is still the most
important element in popular music. The moving power of a
brass band depends on the drum as much as on any other in-
strument.

Melody, though it comes second in the order of importance
and in the order of development, has been the last to be scien-
tifically analyzed. Tone color is the key to its mysteries.

Harmony was practically unknown before the year 1000 4.D.,
and most of its development has occurred during the last 300
years. Its principles depend upon the mathematical ratios of
wave-times, and are well understood.

A fourth element, suggestion, belongs rather to the listener
than to the music, for its effects depend upon former experi-
ences of the listener.

TONE COLOR 149

Suggestion acts (a) by imitation, as when the rippling of
water is represented on a piano, or the cry of a child on a
violin; (b) by natural association, as when lightning is sug-
gested by an imitation of thunder; or (c) by individual associa-
tion, as when some experience of joy or sorrow is recalled on
hearing some associated music.

The best and strongest music combines all these elements to
produce the desired effects. A clear understanding of the part
played by each element in musical composition will lead to a
marked improvement in the music produced.

150 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

MILTON’S IDEAS OF SCIENCE AS SHOWN IN
“PARADISE LOST”

By KATHERINE MORSE, A.M.
NEW YORK TRAINING SCHOOL FOR TEACHERS

GGLESTON’S “Transit of Civilization” starts with an in-
teresting discussion of popular belief in Europe in the
seventeenth century. In its literature we find much about
astronomy and astrology; especially did they touch the popular
imagination. Astronomy must have been a jumble of the
Ptolemaic “firm-set earth” and the Copernician theory of the
revolution of the spheres. Lowell speaks of Copernicanism as
“the theory that has so stirred all our modern wits.” It seemed
to the suspicious thought of the time to smack of witchcraft;
Galileo was imprisoned, Kepler was working in obscurity, and,
as we read, occasionally casting horoscopes for princes. ‘In
the best society, the sun, moon and stars continued to revolve
around the earth” without gravity and with prognostics dire
of diseases and divers fortunes. Astrology was a serious avo-
cation. Comets, eclipses, and meteors were danger signals.
“God governed this one little world, and logic was the only
means of discovering truth.” Finally the Copernican theory
evolved constant proof of the correct standpoint; even the
making of clocks received an impetus, and “ almanacs gradually
became filled with those minute calculations with which the
world has since grown familiar.”

At what point in this evolution of science Milton stood is
indicated by the “ Paradise Lost.” It is probable that he was
partly convinced of the truth of Copernicus’s system; at least
in two striking passages he shows his acquaintance with it.

One (Book IV., ll. 592-597) reveals the uncertain state of
his opinion on the subject, where he states that the sun’s setting
in the west would be more easily explained if the earth revolved
eastward. However, to be consistent with the general scheme
of the poem Milton must make his “‘ Prime Orb”’ roll incredibly
fast to the west. Again (Book VIII., ll. 15-178), during
Raphael’s delightfully informal visit to the hospitable lovers,
Adam discusses at length with the Archangel this debatable
question of astronomy, the outcome of which discussion is later
diluted for the understanding of submissive Eve. Adam per-

MILTON’S IDEAS OF SCIENCE 151

ceives how difficult it is to believe that the stupendous Universe
revolves in one day about “this Earth, a spot ... that better
might with far less compass move.” The Angel, however, is
not only “ affable” but discreet, as he responds that the truth ig
concealed by God from man and angels, and that speculations
(evidently looking far down the ages) “move His laughter.”
As far as man’s duty is concerned it is of no real consequence
as to which moves. One feels here that Raphael (and Milton)
inclined to the superior simplicity of the Copernican system, in
spite of prudent conservatism.

The Ptolemaic theory was evidently more adapted to con-
centrating the emphasis of the poem on our little earth and its
tragedy, whatever Milton’s own scientific conclusions may have
been. His was a profound mind; he had met Galileo and refers
to him in Book I., 1. 288, in Book III., ll. 588-590, and Book V.,
ll. 261 ff.; in his day the struggle between the two theories was
waging; it is possible the poet was of one mind, the compact
reasoner of another. His scheme in “Paradise Lost” is un-
doubtedly Ptolemaic. If one dare be expository in the presence
of start dust and planetary whirls and the music of the spheres,
the plan of the poem may be indicated somewhat thus:

Before time was, space, strangely enough, was in two divi-
sions, the upper half Heaven, the lower Chaos—an inexpressible
quagmire. At one day, however, in the annals of timeliness,
a place was prepared for the outcast angels, below Chaos. We
have now three divisions of ‘‘ Universal Space.” It was a nine-
days’ fall, or rather retrogression from Heaven, as angels are
not subject to gravitation and had to be beaten through Space
by Christ’s thunders. That Space was as far as from the center
of the earth “thrice to the utmost pole of the Universe” (Book
VI., 1871) ; such is the effort of the human mind to express
infinite ideas, for which there is no material language. During
an ensuing nine days, while the rebel host lay overwhelmed
upon the fiery lake in “restless ecstasy”? of woe, Infinity is
again modified (Book I., ll. 50-53). The new universe is
created. Taking a pair of immeasurable compasses, “the Son”
fixes their one foot far out in Chaos, and with the other describes
a great circle in the void—the boundary of the new creation.
Imagination rocks at the image! (Book VIL., ll. 224-231). The
new universe is attached to Heaven at its north pole, and at the
place where an opening is left in Heaven for angelic communi-
cation. Who but a Milton would dare be thus exact in the face
of infinity! Now for the Ptolemaic theory:

152 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

In this sphere the earth is the fixed center, hanging “ self-
balanced.” Nearest earth were the seven planets including the
sun and moon, Venus, and the “other wandering fires ”—Mer-
cury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. (These spheres according to
Pythagoras and the most beautiful conception of poetic minds,
moved “not without song,” “each quiring to the young-eyed
cherubim.” Cf. also ‘Ode on the Nativity,” stanza XII.)

Beyond the planets was the firmament, an eighth sphere,
containing the “fixed stars.” This was the sphere that turned
from east to west in twenty-four hours, carrying with it “all
the planets in their turn,” which, however, had all separate
motions of their own. There was also a ninth sphere, and
finally a tenth, which was called the “ Primum Mobile,” an im-
penetrable shell separating the Universe from the turmoil of
Chaos. In Book IILI., ll. 481-483, the ten spheres are enumer-
ated, where the ambitious spirits attempt to ascend from Earth
to Heaven, and are whirled aloft to the ‘‘ Paradise of Fools” on
the outside of the Primum Mobile.

This, in general, is the scheme that Milton has elaborated in
his epic, first in the passage (Book IL., ll. 561-565) where Satan,
wandering on the dark outside shell of the universe, is attracted
to the opening at the zenith, and through that beholds the whole
interior; and again in the account of the creation in the magni-
ficent Seventh Book.

The portion marked out by the golden compass from Chaos
is impregnated with warmth and light and life by the Word of
God. Noxious elements escape into Chaos from the lower part
of the sphere. Then follows the “‘conglobing of like things to
like” out of the ‘four grosser elements ”—earth, air, fire, and
water, as the ancient Greek philosophers considered them.
Light, the fifth element, is evoked by the Creator. The sun,
which Satan saw as the most splendid body in the universe,
though but the fourth sphere, Milton describes as containing a
large part of the light of the world, the Almighty having con-
centrated it there at the fiat, “‘ Let there be light.” (Book VILI.,
ll. 359 ff.)

Milton’s interpretation of the “firmament” is the reconcili-
ation of the first chapter of Genesis with the Ptolemaic theory.
The firmament separates the waters flowing around the Earth
from water “diffused throughout the Universe.” This He re-
moved to the outside of the Eighth Sphere, forming the Ninth,
or “Crystalline Sphere” separated from Chaos only by the
Primum Mobile (Book IIL., ll. 444 ff.). Thus the firmament was
the great extent of space between the earth and the utmost

MILTON’S IDEAS OF SCIENCE 153

boundaries of the eighth or visible sphere. This vast expanse
was named heaven, after the greater Heaven, the abode of God.
Line 176 in Book VII. (“Immediate are the acts of God”’)
would seem to imply that Milton conceived of Creation as in-
stantaneous, though perhaps for the sake of human limitations
it is described as the work of six days.

Again in Book VIII., ll. 81 ff., occurs a very definite state-
ment of the growth of the Ptolemaic universe by the addition of
“orb after orb.” Further on the poet refers to the two devices
of the eccentric and the epicycle, by means of which complicated
system of reasoning the Ptolemaic astronomers tried to explain
why the sun’s motion seems faster or slower according to the
season (Book VIL., ll. 82-84), in which connection it is inter-
esting to note that Bacon himself showed his dissatisfaction
with such reasoning in De Augmentis, IV., ll. 347-348, where
he compares the contribution of astronomy to the human intel-
lect to the fraud practised by Prometheus upon Jupiter.

We find Milton again wavering in Book VIIL., ll. 130 ff.,
where the earth is said to have three motions; rotation on her
axis, movement around the sun, and her “trepidation” (Book
III., 1. 483) during her orbit. Here is the Copernican theory ;
but in ll. 131 ff. Milton says, ‘‘ which else” you must ascribe to
the old theory that several spheres move contrary to one another
with “thwart obliquities.” As for the moon, it was supposed to
have rain (‘‘ Her spots thou seest as clouds’’), and perhaps in-
habitants (Book IIL., ll. 145-147). ‘“ Other Suns, perhaps with
their attendant moons,” may be a reference to Galileo’s dis-
covery of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn (ib., ll. 148-149).
It is interesting to note at the close of this passage on Milton’s
uncertain astronomical faith, how opposed are his to Bacon’s
pronouncements. Milton discourages the inductive process,
“nor with perplexing thoughts to interrupt the sweet of life”
(Book VIIL., ll. 183-197). This is, of course, directly the oppo-
site of all Bacon’s teaching as to inquiry into the secrets of
Nature with a view to solving her perplexities.

Finally in Book X. is an ingenious explanation, whether
Ptolemaic or poetical, of the obliquity of the earth’s axis to the
ecliptic (ll. 671 ff.). “Some say” that after the Fall, God bade
the angels turn the pole so that it no longer pointed toward
Heaven’s gate. Or else “the Sun was bid” to turn out of “the
equinoctial road.” At all events, Spring was thus prevented
from “perpetual smile” on earth, and days and nights were
made unequal.

Milton’s astronomy has, I fear, been rather vaguely indi-

154 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

cated. It is, indeed, an unexampled combination of vagueness
and exactitude, of material limitations and sublimity. It is less
of earth than of Heaven and Hell and ‘‘ Chaos and old Night.”
It is the conception of a soaring intellect and a blind man who
sees flashing lights and geometrical shapes in the darkness.

As to his ideas of natural science, there is less to say. He
held, like all his contemporaries, beliefs as to the physical infiu-
ence of stars on beings of this earth. (“Their stellar virtue,”
etc., Book IV., 1. 671.) ‘‘ The sweet influences of the Pleiades”
were supposed to bring gentle blessings when they were in the
ascendant. In the autumn Orion brought storms “with fierce
winds armed.” ‘Comets shake pestilence and war” (Book II.,
1. 710). Astrology, I fancy, was a natural outgrowth of Ptol-
emaic astronomy. The most striking reference to astrology is
in Book X., ll. 658 ff., where the “aspects” of planets is men-
tioned, which according to tradition were “happy and un-
happy ” as regards the destiny of man.

Quaint notions of chemistry occur. In Book L., ll. 673-674,
Milton expresses the popular belief of the time as to the impor-
tance of sulphur. “In his womb was hid metallic ore, the work
of sulphur.” From Pliny to Bacon, men held that sulphur, mer-
cury, and salt were the all-pervading substances in nature.
Other minerals occur; “‘ Naphtha an asphaltus” light the roof
of Hell. Alchemy is also referred to in Book III., 1. 601, and
the ‘“philosopher’s stone.” ‘They do bind volatile Hermes”
evidently means the solidifying of fluid mercury.

All things need food, even angels and perfect men, ‘“ who
fell upon their viands’”’; even elements, of which “the grosser
feeds the purer ””—Earth the sea, and Earth and Sea the air—
they all need nutriment. The moon is fed by mud of the earth
sucked up with the moisture, according to Pliny, who is here
echoed by Milton: “‘ The moon whence in her visage round, those
spots, unpurged vapours,” etc. ‘‘ The sun receives his alimental
recompense in humid exhalations, and at even, sups with the
Ocean,” a statement of which Landor strongly disapproved
poetically. Another belief, expressed in Book X., ll. 248 ff.,
assumes that things “ of like kind” have peculiar physical sym-
pathy at whatever distances from each other they be—a sort of
atomic telepathy. In Book X., |. 666, we find the old belief that
thunder is rolled by winds.

In Milton’s natural history, we are again reminded of Pliny,
as where serpents ‘with snaky folds and added wings” are
created (Book VII., 1. 483). In Book IX., ll. 581-582 is an allu-
sion to the supposed habits of serpents that loved the smell of

MILTON’S IDEAS OF SCIENCE 155

fennel and were said to suck ewes’ udders. ‘‘The female bee,”
according to the belief of the day, is represented as the worker
of the hive. The animals in “Paradise Lost” are all highly
entertaining. Milton seems to have thought that brutes have a
higher degree of intelligence than is usually attributed to them.
“They reason not contemptibly,” he writes in Book VIIL, Il.
373-374. He alludes to the flight of cranes “ with mutual wing
easing their flight’”’—each helping the progress of the whole
body by becoming in turn the point of the V. The will-o’-the-
wisp he calls “a wandering fire” (Book IX., ll. 634 ff.). In ac-
counting for this phenomenon Milton seems very modern, if we
take its origin from “‘ unctuous vapor” to mean gas from decay-
ing swampy matter. Vultures are made to “scent a field un-
fought,” as Beaumont and Fletcher also held in “The Beggar’s
Bush.” This must have been a popular superstition. The dif-
ferent kinds of asps, scorpions, etc., in Book X., 1. 524, seem to
be taken direct from Pliny after the manner of natural his-
torians of the day. Echoes are found here also of Lucan’s
“Pharsalia” (Book IX., 1.700).

The medical theories of Milton’s day occur in various parts
of “Paradise Lost,” notably in that poignant passage of Book
VII. on his own blindness, where he describes it as probably
arising from “the drop serene” that left his eyes without blem-
ish ; yet he is not sure but that his case is one of “ dim suffusion.”
Eye diseases were thought to arise from affections of “the
humours.” “ Euphrasy and rue (Book XI., 1414) are mentioned
as strengthening the eyes; euphrasy was called “ eye-bright.”
The poet had possibly tried both in vain. In Book XL, ll. 477-
493, occurs the famous enumeration of diseases—one sad re-
sult of Adam’s fall. ‘“ Moon-struck madness” echoes another
popular superstition. “In thy blood will reign a melancholy
damp” is a reminder of Burton, who calls old-age “cold and
dry” and of the “same quality as Melancholy.” ‘ Humours”
and their baneful operations were prolific subjects for specula-
tion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it appears.

Botany in “Paradise Lost” is interesting. What minute
and loving memories of plants! Eve’s troublesome vines make
one think of the charming gardens described by Harrison and
Sir Thomas Browne. But to one reader, at least, the most inter-
esting observation, aside from Milton’s amazing astronomy, is
the detailed and accurate knowledge of geography displayed by
the blind man. How minutely he remembered his maps! What
marvelous surveys of geographical discoveries! What delight
in sounding names! The passages are too well known to need

156 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

comment. One of the most remarkable, however, is in Book XI.,
ll. 385-411, where the eyes of the poet’s mind glanced over all of
the then known Asia, Africa, and Europe—a stupendous feat of
memory, as well as an example of “the poetry of proper names.”
One is reminded of Macaulay’s famous passage in his essay on
Milton in which he describes the “long muster-roll” of
“charmed names.”

A. striking impression that remains after a careful reading
of “Paradise Lost” is the daring use Milton made of his im-
mense knowledge—the combination of definiteness and mys-
tery; titanic pagan angels fighting like the heroes on the plains
of Thessaly, but in a definite Ptolemaic scheme; deathless
beings, not subject to gravitation; Time in Heaven (‘Two
days as we compute the days of Heaven’ said the Almighty
Father”) ; Satan suffering from the loss of his immortal ichor,
as Mars did at the onslaught of Minerva, and modern methods
of blood-stoppage applied; all of gorgeousness, awe, dignity, in
a materialistic heaven with fighting angels who dig for metals
to make cannon! How could any one at that time have accom-
plished such audacity with what are called Christian concep-
tions? Homer is audacious and sublime, but we call him
frankly pagan. Again, in portions where exactitude of infor-
mation is most evident, as in the “‘ muster-roll of names,” and
in the Ptolemaic astronomy, occur some of the most transcen-
dent passages of poetry!

The seventeenth century writers, it would seem, had an atti-
tude of high romance toward science; at least they wrote about
it poetically. (Wordsworth once said it must eventually be-
come a subject for poetry.) Surely we find that poetic sweep
of thought in Bacon with his visions of experimentation; in
Burton who made a medical treatise read like a novel; in Sir
Thomas Browne, whose observations on obscure researches
sound like the Book of Revelation; and in John Milton, who
marshaled all the hosts of his mighty mind to evolve a vision of
creation out of darkness.

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL UNREST 157

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL UNREST

By Professor ERNEST R. GROVES

NEW HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE

HIS is the era of science. Were we unable to discover
this fact for ourselves we at least would come to believe
it from the constant and proud affirmations of the scientist.
We are told that science has recreated the world and within a
brief century. The facts are so apparent that the person least
interested in science has to admit them. At every point human
experience has been changed by the contribution of science and
invention. Traditions have been broken. Customs have been
destroyed and are being destroyed. Social habits have been
modified. New motives have followed from the new conditions
created by science; former motives have grown faint and are
passing. Already science has accomplished beyond the dreams
of human fancies of an earlier period. And the end is not yet.
Indeed, science never promised more than now and was never
advancing with more rapidity.

There is another fact that stands out as clearly these days
as that of scientific progress. We are living in an age socially
as discontended and feverishly restless as the world has known.
The discontent is not, however, a hidden dissatisfaction, far
under the surface and known only by the few gifted in genius
for penetrating into contemporary conditions. Our social dis-
content is self-conscious, boastful and even blatant. It is also
omnipresent and from it we can not escape. It has entered
into the remote countryside and brought under its spell even
the least sensitive of farm “help.” It has captured the house
servant and brought chaos to individualistic housekeeping and
our crowded hotels to the point of bursting. Contrary to the
opinion of some, it is not class movement, for it cuts across
classes and is found among the wealthy just as it is among the
poor. It is not in any sense national, for it appears to have
swept the entire temperate zone like a rapid-moving pestilence.

If the scientist has made our era, he surely must also accept
responsibility for our characteristic unrest. It may be that the
world has indeed been recreated, but it has not yet been brought
to a condition of safety. The scientist in the past has given

158 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

scant consideration to the social problems created by his splen-
did success in mechanical and industrial development. Human
nature, as the war has taught us, has changed little since the
time of primitive man, and during the last century with the won-
derful advancement of science there has not been equal progress
in human discipline or intelligence. The things that men handle
have been multiplied and magnified, while man himself has
lagged behind, altogether too confident that the results of ma-
terial progress would in themselves bring social satisfaction
and sanity.

It was a foolish assumption. To hold it now is stupid stub-
bornness of mind. There are some who by heroic effort still
cling to it, fearing that nothing else can give a substantial basis
for the idea of progress. It is, however, growing more and
more difficult for any one to believe that social security will
necessarily follow from the contributions science is making that
enrich the material resources. The unpalatable but enormously
significant fact can only be held out of consciousness by the
persons who are willing to cloud the social truths if for a season
they may protect their intellectual comfort from such disquiet-
ing disenchantment as would follow the admission that unrest
has become the dominant social phenomenon in this age of scien-
tific prosperity. It is becoming increasingly difficult, however,
for any one to shut his eyes to the premonitory fact that stands
out so clearly. A multitude of men and women are by no means
socially content in this era of science; they are profoundly dis-
satisfied and their souls are seething with restlessness. The
solid fact can not be pushed aside by refusal to recognize it.

From a social point of view science has not been as success-
ful as the average scientist imagines. Science means more than
a mere collecting of information. It is not simply a classifying
in a systematic way of all the trustworthy facts known at the
time. It is especially an attitude of mind and one that human
nature acquires with painful difficulty. It originates, to be sure,
from a universal instinct of curiosity, but the finished product
contains an element of personal indifference which is foreign
to the unmodified instinct. Science is the highest form of that
reality thinking of which the psychoanalysts make so much and
stands in sharpest contrast with their definition of the easy-
going pleasure-form of thought. It is the most heroic effort the
human mind can make to get rid of all personal inclination and
bias in meeting an intellectual problem in order that the truth
of any matter may be as accurately known as is possible. It

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL UNREST 159

is in its success in putting aside personal desire that scientific
thinking distinguishes itself and wins the right of intellectual
supremacy. Huxley has most happily expressed this spirit of
self-renunciation on the part of the scientist when he faces any
investigation.

Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the
great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of active sur-
render to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be pre-
pared to give up any preconceived notion, follow humbly wherein and to
whatever abysses nature leads or you shall learn nothing.

Unscientific thinking is under no such coercive discipline, but
may, if it pleases, follow hard after personal desire even though
at the end one be ditched from having neglected fact for fancy.

Science has, by its superior attitude of mind, accomplished
marvels and obtained a spectacular success. It has not, how-
ever, given the great mass of people any appreciation of its
highest function. Science has been valued by the majority of
people for its accomplishments, not for its portrayal of the ad-
vantages of stern discipline in mental experience. It has
merely encouraged a vast multitude to believe that human exist-
ence is a never-ending pleasure hunt and science the best giver
of material comforts and luxuries. The craving for personal
gratification has been stimulated by the magic-like productions
of science until an appetite has been created that nothing can
satisfy. Social well-being has needed the teaching of science
more than its products. The philosophy of the street admires
science for its liberality in things; it turns with indifference
from any attempt to popularize the self-restraining spirit of
science. The scientist is welcomed as a good workman; he is
ignored as a teacher.

From such a situation social sanity can not be expected.
Science increases the power and freedom of men; it fails, or
thus far has failed, to prepare them for the proper use of their
increasing opportunities. The race with its hundred thousand
years or more of stern discipline and struggle is hardly ready
for the present enormous quantity of pleasures and the life-
motives that are constructed in pleasure-terms. The social
problem has come to be merely making life easier for a greater
number of people and by some process permitting material
pleasures to be equally shared.

Even if we assume that this program states the goal of all
social endeavor it by no means follows that its working out is
asimple matter. The problem of method still remains and here,

160 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

if ever, there is need of patient scientific investigation and ex-
perimentation. Social experience ought by this time to have
taught men how complicated the details of any such program
must be and how foolish it is to attempt a quick and 4 priori
solution. Why is it one may well ask that the popular thought
is so intolerant of giving to science the problem of finding a
more just distribution of material wealth? The world-wide
drift of population toward the cities is part explanation of the
confident social philosophy that can not endure the thought of
giving even so delicate and hazardous a problem over to “ cold-
minded” science. Urban life does not tend to teach men caution
in the working out of social programs, for it is difficult in the
city to have that first-hand contact with nature, which, more
than any other human experience, provides the basis for moral
discipline and curbs the arrogant and unreasonable demands of
men and women. The city, by hiding the natural obstacles that
always hamper the accomplishment of man’s purposes and by
turning the attention to the competition one person has with
another, encourages the belief that the difficulty of obtaining
one’s complete happiness is due to the interferences of other
people. The constant experiences of rural people with the
menace of frosts, blights, insect pests and droughts impress
upon them the elemental fact that nature itself is often in oppo-
sition to the purposes of men. Rural philosophy becomes by
instinct suspicious of any get-right-quick social scheme.

City conditions provide the perfect opportunity for the gre-
garious leader, who wins his power by skill in directing urban
discontent and industrial restlessness. He is by temperament
unsympathetic toward the cautious experimental methods of
science. Indeed he could not hold his following by a judicial
attitude toward social grievances, for they follow him not for
his accomplishments, but for his ability to voice in catching
phrases their inarticulate discontent. Everything in the city
conspires to turn this dissatisfaction into economic form. The
conflict of classes, the apparent omnipotence of money to fur-
nish the conditions of health, social standing and happiness to
the well-to-do of the city and to deny them to the poor, the con-
stant pressure of economic competition, these influences and
many others of similar character all tend to magnify the value
of money and to conceal the ever-present checks upon human
purposes that nature will present under any form of social
régime. The urban problem of life boils down to the getting of
sufficient money to satisfy one’s desires and it becomes the con-

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL UNREST 161

viction of a multitude that their satisfactions can be increased
only by placing limitations upon other people whose desires col-
lide with their own.

Since the modern city is the creation of science, science must
assume responsibility for the intense gregarious appeal that it
is now making throughout the civilized world. No person, how-
ever great his indifference toward science, ever visits our great-
est city without appreciating how science makes possible mod-
ern New York. The very existence of the city is conditioned
by the inventions that face the visitor on every hand. Were any
ef the more important contributions science has made to the
city’s welfare to be removed or made inactive, in an hour’s time
the city would change from a place of business and amusement
to a horrible death trap from which men, women and children
would flee as from the clutches of a devouring monster.

It is folly to regard our present social crisis as merely a suc-
cession of disputes regarding wages, commodity prices and
hours of labor. It is not merely based upon dissatisfaction with
our present capitalistic system. In the present temper of the
people no change, whether it be in industrial organization or
wealth distribution, can bring cessation of social restlessness.
Science has created an appetite that no governmental or indus-
trial regime can satisfy.

The situation in which the world finds itself, which the war
has hastened but not caused, resolves itself in its lowest terms
to the impossibility of a people socially unscientific living a
satisfactory life in a scientific era. The safe way out, the path
that is likely to be chosen after painful social experiences in
any case, sooner or later, is through the popularizing of the
spirit of science. The task is not impossible, for any social
attitude can be taught by a vigorous, determined leadership.

For the most part in the past science has been indifferent
to its teaching function. Many of its leaders have been aristo-
cratic in their conception of science and have looked askance
at their colleagues who have had a mild desire to bring to the
average person a taste of the sweet fruits of the scientific mind.
Especially has the scientist cared little whether science was
taught in the public schools or whether it was so taught as to
give the developing pupil a glimmering of the methods by
which science wins its conquests. College teachers of science
have not infrequently dismissed the problem of high-school sci-
ence with the comment that they always have found that
pupils who have had no science in the high school are the best

vou. x.—11.

162 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

prepared for college courses in science, refusing to accept the
testimony of the students respecting the value of their pre-
paratory courses. The vocabulary of the scientist and his
manner of writing and speaking has in general been unneces-
sarily esoteric and he has been proud of the self-imposed limita-
tion that has given him a class consciousness.

On the other hand, the scientist has been subservient to the
ambition of commerce and never-ending effort has been made
to popularize the demands for the products of science. By
means of human ingenuity, by advertising propaganda of tre-
mendous economic cost, the appetite for things has been stimu-
lated and the concept built up that the happiness of man does
consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.

Society desperately needs a democratic science. In very
recent years, especially in medicine, there has been a most
encouraging movement toward the socializing of science and
the acceptance on the part of the scientist of his obligation as
a public: teacher. Medical science deserves the greatest appre-
ciation for this splendid service carried on often against the
self-interests of the profession. It is, however, not the results
of science that the people need so much as its spirit of rational
discipline.

The promise of social progress is in science teaching men
and women with the same success that now it feeds, houses
and gives them playthings.

MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING NATURAL HISTORY 168

POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING
NATURAL HISTORY

By ROGER C. SMITH, Ph.D.
BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

HERE is in the popular mind a surprisingly large store of
T misinformation and misconceptions concerning many
forms of natural history. They concern not only exotic and the
less well-known plants and animals, but our commonest forms
share prominently in these misbeliefs in spite of the large
amount of published information on natural history and oppor-
tunities for individual observation. To err is human and all
classes share to a greater or lesser extent in errors of judgment
and observation. But there is a large class of traditional errors
that have become more or less fixed, some locally, others nation-
ally. It is this class, a part of our folk lore, which has been
perpetuated in many cases in books, magazines, newspapers
and traditions with which this article will deal. It is perhaps
impossible to find the origin and to trace the development of
our common natural history misconceptions. It is possible by
an analysis of some of our most widely known ones to assign
probable explanations of their origin and by the application of
certain well-known principles of human psychology to under-
stand their perpetuation.

It should be mentioned first that the perpetuation of our
traditional natural history misconceptions is made possible
largely by the fact that a considerable portion of the people do
little or no reading. There is also a class which reads for
thrills and not for information, that may be included with the
above. There is in print enough accurate information to set
at naught most or perhaps all of what is commonly termed
popular misconceptions. It appears that prevalence of natural-
history superstitions and misinformation in countries and com-
munities is in inverse ratio to the amount of reading done. It
is perhaps true that the country people perpetuate more of this
- misinformation than do city people, though the difference is not
so great as is generally thought.

It has been frequently stated that human nature is inher-
ently lazy. One apparent manifestation of this is that many
individuals prefer to take another’s explanation of some phe-

164 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

nomenon rather than to secure the information for themselves.
This is of course not a characteristic of the untutored mind
alone, but college students very commonly follow this line of
least resistance. This fact makes possible the perpetuation of
gross inaccuracies. It is commonly stated that the earthworms
seen so often crawling about after a hard rain have fallen with
the rain. An observation requiring only a few minutes would
reveal the holes in the water-soaked earth through which they
have emerged and perhaps a few in the act of emerging.

The statements of the more prominent people in the com-
munity are more likely to go unchallenged than those from the
less well known. This prevails among all classes. A very
prominent early worker in entomology figured grasshoppers
laying eggs in an impossible position fifty years ago. This
figure has been widely copied and accepted without question
until a few years ago, when it was disproven. It would have
been an easy matter to check up this observation had not the
prominence of the early worker given added confidence to the
earlier conclusions. There are no doubt, many errors in scien-
tific writings perpetuated because of the prominence of the
writer, whereas the unknown scientist might be quickly doubted.

An acceptance of the opinions of others is most frequent
when individual observations are difficult or impossible. The
group of misconceptions arising in this connection is naturally
a large one, since superstition, hearsay and exaggeration play
important parts. It is impossible for the rank and file to follow
the latest scientific discoveries explaining even most familiar
phenomena, much less to investigate for themselves. Consider
the following in this connection. It is quite generally believed
that flies are able to walk upside down because they have
suckers on their feet. This is an old idea which has persisted,
largely in the popular mind, though it has long been known
that there is a secretion of adhesive material from minute
glands on each tarsal pad which enables the insect to literally
glue itself to its sub-stratum. Again, animate objects that
glow or glisten are generally said to possess phosphorescence.
The best known instance is that of the lightning bugs or fire
flies which are often seen by the thousands on a warm sum-
mer’s evening. Recent studies apparently find no basis for
this belief, but explain the light as due to rapid oxidation of
certain cell substances. Less frequent perhaps is the belief
that the glistening of the cat’s eyes in the dark is due also to
phosphorescence, when the true explanation is said to be the
reflection of entering light by the tapetum, a thin membrane

MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING NATURAL HISTORY 165

covering the retina. Quite general is the belief that mad dogs
foam at the mouth; in fact this is thought to be the one thing
to look for when a mad dog is suspected. Published observa-
tions indicate that foaming at the mouth is not present in all
cases and when present is not the first manifestation of hydro-
phobia. The streaks of light so often seen in summer in the
west below the sun is explained as the sun drawing water. At
times, it is commonly thought the sun draws with such force
that the earthworms, frogs, snakes and even fish are drawn up
to be dropped with the next shower.

Perhaps the majority of misconceptions concerning natural
history are based on mistaken observations and misinterpreta-
tion of the facts involved. Many people arrive at conclusions
quickly and an explanation that appears plausible to one is
likely to appeal to others. Such misconceptions arise from new
sources constantly. A beaver’s tail, for example, suggests a
trowel, especially when considered in connection with its houses.
It is not surprising that there has arisen a persistent miscon-
ception sometimes seen in school texts that the beaver’s tail is
used as a trowel. Seton finds no evidence whatsoever to sub-
stantiate this belief. Its front legs and chin are its chief tools
in building operations, while the tail serves chiefiy as a pro-
pelling and guiding force while swimming and to “slap” the
water as a signal to its associates. The beaver is said to drive
stakes or piles in the mud of streams, another fallacy based on
a superficial observation of the sticks and not a study of the
animal. The porcupine is said to shoot its quills at its enemies
because possibly of the superficial resemblance of the quills to
arrows. Indeed, when a dog attacks a porcupine he invariably
comes off with some quills in his flesh, which is accepted as fur-
ther proof that they were shot like arrows at him. It is of
course impossible for this animal to protect himself in this man-
ner, there being no muscular or other arrangement to effect it.
The quills are very loosely attached, therefore easily dislodged.
They are also very sharp and readily puncture the flesh of
its captor.

Some misconceptions of this class have been given prom-
inence and perpetuated by incorporating them in the common
names of the animals themselves. Flying squirrels and flying
fish are familiar subjects of natural history, yet neither actually
fly. The so-called flying squirrels are gliders or parachuting
animals only, inasmuch as they can only descend from a higher
place to a lower, using the extended skin between the fore and
hind legs in the same way as a parachute is used. The go-

166 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

called fiying fish appear superficially to be true flying animals
for the enlarged pectoral fins suggest the wings of a bird. Yet
there is no doubt that they use these fins as planes for gliding
only. The propelling force is the tail which supplies the mo-
mentum before the fish leaves the water. The longest glides
are made against the wind. There is no suitable musculature
to effect a flapping movement. There are many available illus-
trations among insects where the common names involve an
error of some kind. Popularly speaking, all insects are bugs
when, strictly speaking, this name applies only to one order of
sucking insects (Hemiptera). The larve of some insects are
called worms when this name is more properly applied to mem-
bers of the phylum annulata, of which the earth worm is a type.
Clothing, carpets, etc., are said to be attacked by the clothes
moths, yet in no case is the injury done by the moths, but by the
larvee of the moths, the former feeding on nectar or pollen and
being quite harmless. The buffalo bug is not a bug but a
beetle; the pear slug is not a slug, but a slug-like larva of a true
insect ; the sheep tick is not a tick, but a fly, etc.

It appears further that of all animals, there are more mis-
conceptions concerning the ugly and disliked ones than others.
The skunk, weasel, toad, snakes and spiders are not general
favorites with the people at large; in fact they are shunned and
even a distant acquaintance is abhorred. The less known about
an animal, the more readily will hearsay, mistaken ideas and
imaginative tales be believed. Snakes are perhaps the most
widely feared and despised of all creatures. It is not surprising,
therefore, that we have such fantastic stories as the hoop snake,
the glass snake, the monster sea serpents, mother ‘snakes
swallowing their young in the presence of danger, not to men-
tion the mythical scaly monsters that exhaled smoke and fire.
The snake charmer makes a living by taking advantage of the
lack of true information about these much abhorred creatures
as well as of various superstitions and misconceptions concern-
ing them. No circus would be complete without its dangerous
snake, the largest in captivity. It is quite generally believed
that all snakes and spiders are poisonous and their bites would
prove fatal, when authentic accounts say there are many of
both that are wholly harmless. Snakes are said to be deaf, and
only last year this misconception appeared in prominent head
lines on a page about snakes in a leading Sunday paper. True,
there is no external ear present, but there is nevertheless a pair
of ears and the old adage “as deaf as an adder” is no longer
expressive. Rattlesnakes are supposed always to rattle before

MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING NATURAL HISTORY 167

striking, a kind of gentlemanly sportsmanship to warn the
victim that he still has a chance. Observations recorded ap-
pear to show that the rattlesnake may forget this chivalrous act
and strike without warning. The writer believed throughout
youth that when a snake was killed, its tail would not die until
sun down. This misconception has been met with among youths
of three widely separated localities. The brain of snakes is
small, consequently some powers held by the brain in certain
other animals are delegated to the spinal ganglia in the snake,
therefore crushing or severing the head of the snake does not
remove the possibility of body movements from impulses ema-
nating from these ganglia. Perhaps some one disliking cats
started the revolting story that if a cat was left alone with an
infant, it would kill the child by sucking its breath. This im-
possible thing is quite generally believed, though without basis
of facts.

Then there is another prominent group of misconceptions
bearing little semblance of truth whose origin is perhaps the
work of a fertile imagination. Consider, for example, the well-
known belief that a horse hair will turn to a snake. It must be
a hair pulled out by the roots from either the mane or tail and
kept in quiet water, we are told, and in due time it will be a
snake. Thus Gordius and other closely related round worms
which are about the same size as horse hairs are supposed to
come into existence. Of course no one has even been able to
effect this transformation, because he failed to follow direc-
tions carefully. The earwigs (Forficulide), relatively common
insects in Europe, are so named because they are supposed to
puncture people’s ears. This reminds us somewhat of the very
general belief in the United States that dragon flies sew up the
ears of bad boys with their long abdomens which superficially
suggest a stout needle. But one of the best examples of this
class is the well-known supposed performance of the “doodle
bugs,” more properly known as ant lion larve (Myrmeleonide).
These larve make little pits in sandy places and wait concealed,
except for the protruding jaws at the bottom of the pit, for ants.
The story goes that when a pit is found, if one repeats the fol-
lowing couplet, the hidden larva will immediately leave its pit
and pass in review before the observer. One version is, “ doodle
bug, doodle bug, fly away home; your house is on fire your
children will burn.” There are various modifications of this
charm in different localities. This is one of very few instances
where a lowly insect is credited with “knowing” its name. —

There is a difference in the misconceptions about objects of

168 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

natural history in different localities thus introducing some in-
teresting variations. The writer had this forcibly brought out
in several communities by the various popular rules to follow
for determining which mushrooms were edible and which were
poisonous. In one community, those that were pink under-
neath were regarded as edible by some collectors, in another
community these were discarded as poisonous. The same
divergence of opinion was observed with the rule that if they
would peel they were edible and with those growing on wood.
In one community to find water with a forked stick, a peach
twig had to be used, elsewhere cherry or willow was always
used. One finds a host of examples of local differences in super-
stitions. In some homes the chirp of a cricket in the house is
regarded as a “good sign,” in others fortelling disaster. Like-
wise the screech owl in some communities is supposed to foretell
by its plaintive song evil happenings, at other places, announc-
ing good news. In some communities killing a toad will cause
all the cows in the neighborhood to give bloody milk, elsewhere
robbing a robin’s nest will effect the same result according to
the superstitious folk. The crowing of the cock before midnight
is in some places the herald of rain the next day, elsewhere it
merely announces a visitor.

The chief importance of a consideration of these and other
misconceptions of natural science, excluding the student of folk-
lore, is their effect on the youth. These mistaken ideas become
fixed in the minds of children, perhaps when very young, and
will persist until corrected. Classes of fifth-grade children in
the public schools of Milwaukee invariably stated that the
ostrich in the presence of danger buried his head in the sand,
and immediately felt safe, on the principle that if he could see
no danger there was no danger. Perhaps seventy-five per cent.
would uphold this idea. This explanation has persisted with the
public generally and can be found in many books at the present
time, notwithstanding reliable observers report this to be
fallacious. In the writer’s community it was almost universally
believed that dragon flies were snake doctors whose chief duty
it was to heal sick and wounded snakes. This supposed duty
was the source of considerable prejudice against these bene-
ficial creatures, and we therefore killed them at every oppor-
tunity. Likewise the barn swallow was killed and its nests
destroyed whenever possible, for it was supposed to carry
bed bugs.

Children are told these things by parents, servants, play-
mates or neighbors and in rare cases in the elementary schools.

MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING NATURAL HISTORY 169

Their confidence in these people causes them to believe them
unreservedly. In many homes, especially where little attention
has been given to scientific facts, boys and girls gather together
a surprisingly large store of mistaken ideas and misconceptions
about natural history before reaching school age. This fact is
all the more significant when we recall that, for most of us, it
requires more effort to correct a mistaken idea than to learn a
new one. The daily and Sunday newspapers have a share of
the responsibility for some of the misconception in this connec-
tion. In their effort to present the unusual and supposed
revolutionizing discoveries, the truth is sometimes handled
recklessly. Furthermore, purported scientific observations
made by correspondents and others are often misleading.
Aside from the uselessness and burden of mistaken informa-
tion, there is an important practical and economic aspect to this
subject. The individual may be made to fear or despise a truly
beneficial creature and to kill it at every opportunity for rea-
sons based on errors. Which creatures are beneficial to man
and which are harmful are, after all, too important considera-
tions to be based on errors.

Let these truths be added arguments for the serious and
efficient teaching of nature study in the public schools, for if
popular misinformation about well-known objects of natural
history is ever corrected, it will be largely through the initia-
tive and intelligent direction of the schools.

170 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION

By EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN

PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
TV. MENDELIAN INHERITANCE

HE factors of development, whether of an individual or of
a species are both intrinsic and extrinsic, hereditary and
environmental; but every evolutionary change must be in-
herited else it would be ever-changing and evanescent; conse-
quently only inherited changes in organisms are of evolution-
ary value. Thechief problems of evolution concern the manner
of origin and fixation of these inherited changes. Nearly thirty
years ago Osborn said: ‘“‘ When we have reached an inheritance
theory that will explain the facts of heredity the problem of the
causes of evolution will be a thing of the past.” We have now
reached a theory of inheritance that explains the main facts
of heredity and both directly and indirectly it has contributed
enormously to the solution of the evolution problem. But
although certain phases of that problem are now things of the
past many new phases have appeared which are still unsolved.
The history of Mendel’s discovery and the principles of
Mendelian inheritance have been described so frequently of late
that it is not necessary to dwell upon them here. In bare out-
lines the essential features of this theory and of later additions
to it may be summarized as follows:

1. ALTERNATIVE INHERITANCE

Sexually produced organisms are mosaics of characters each
of which is usually derived from one or the other of the two
parents but not from both. These alternative characters or
their germinal factors are known as allelomorphs. For ex-
ample, Mendel found that when two varieties of peas are
crossed, one having yellow seeds (Y) and the other green (G),
all hybrids of the first generation (F,), had yellow seeds but
with green recessive or latent, Y(G), as was shown by the fact
that when each of those hybrids was self-fertilized it produced

1Qsborn, H. F., “Evolution and Heredity,’ Woods Hole Lectures,
1891.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 171

a second generation (F,) which formed yellow and green seeds
in the proportion of three yellows to one green (3Y:1G). In
subsequent generations (F,, F,, etc.), if flowers were self-
fertilized, green seeds always gave rise to plants with green
seeds, one third of the yellow seeds produced plants which bore
only yellow seeds, while two thirds of them produced plants
which bore yellow and green seeds in the proportion of three
to one (3Y:1G) as in the second hybrid generation. The
whole result may be summarized in the following scheme:

Parent Generation (P )—

First Filial Generation (F,)—

Second “ os (F,)—

Third i ‘s (F,)—

Fourth “ is (F,)— ¥
Ete.

That is green-seeded plants always breed true when self-fertil-
ized, those which are pure yellow-seeded also breed true, while
those which are hybrid yellow and green with the green re-
cessive, Y(G), give rise in each generation to yellow-seeded
and green-seeded plants in the proportion of 1Y:2Y(G):1G.

Mendel found that the same principle held true of several
other contrasting characters or allelomorphs such as round
(R) and wrinkled (W) seeds, tall (T) and dwarf (D) stems,
ete. In every case he found that the first hybrid generation
resembled one parent only with respect to any of these con-
trasting characters and these characters he called dominant
while those which became latent or hidden in the hybrid he
called recessive. In some cases hybrids are more or less inter-
mediate between the parents and in such neither character
completely dominates the other; thus Correns found that when

2 All kinds of germ cells, whether plant or animal, male or female,
are known as gametes and the union of male and female gametes gives
rise to the zygote, which is the fertilized egg or the organism into which
it develops. When two gametes with the same hereditary constitution
unite they produce a homozygote or pure-bred individual; when gametes
of different constitution unite they produce a heterozygote or hybrid. All
the gametes produced by a homozygote are of the same hereditary type,
those produced by a heterozygote are of two different types for each pair
of contrasting characters of the parents. The various types of hereditary
constitution, such as are indicated by YY, Y(G), GG in this table are
known as genotypes; the types of developed organisms are phenotypes.
Thus the three genotypes named constitute only two phenotypes since
YY and Y(G) give rise to developed organisms which look alike.

172 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

a white-flowered variety of Mirabilis, the “four o’clock,” was
crossed with a red-flowered variety all of the hybrids of the F,
generation had pink flowers and from these in the F, genera-
tion there came white-flowered, pink-flowered and red-flowered
forms in the proportion of 1 white; 2 pink; 1 red. This is a
better illustration of the Mendelian law than is offered by the
peas, since in this case the hybrids are always distinguishable
from the pure dominants.

When peas with two contrasting characters are crossed only
the dominant characters appear in the F, generation but in
subsequent generations every possible combination of these
characters occurs. Thus when peas with yellow and round
seeds (YR) are crossed with green and wrinkled (GW) the F,s
are all yellow and round-seeded, but with green and wrinkled
recessive, Y(G)R (W), and these, when self-fertilized, yield
9YR:3YW:3GR: 1GW in the proportions named.

When peas with three contrasting characters are crossed,
one having yellow and round seeds and tall stem, (YRT) with
one having green and wrinkled seeds and dwarf stem (GWD)
all hybrids of the first generation have yellow and round
seeds and tall stem, the other characters being recessive,
Y(G)R(W)T(D); but when these hybrids give rise to the
second hybrid generation (F,) all possible combinations of
these original characters appear, and in the following propor-
tions :—27RYT: 9RYD: 9RGD: YWYT: 8RGD: 3WYD:3WGT:
1WGD. These characters are therefore separable in heredity ;
they behave as separate units in hereditary transmission and
are therefore called “ unit characters.”

Purity of Germ Cells.—Mendel clearly perceived that there
must be things in the germ cells which corresponded to or gave
rise to these characters in the developed plant and, although he
represented these things by letters, he did not attempt to define
or describe them. It was evident that these things or factors
or genes as they are now called were separable in heredity and
that every germ cell, even though it came from a hybrid, could
carry the genes for only one of each of these contrasting char-
acters. Thus the hybrid produced by crossing green with
yellow-seeded peas must form equal numbers of two kinds of
germ cells, one carrying the gene for green seeds and the other
that for yellow. No germ cell could carry both of these genes
and this led to the most important of the Mendelian discoveries,
namely that in the formation of germ cells there is a separa-
tion or segregation of genes so that every germ cell is “pure”
with respect to the genes for any two contrasting characters.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 173

Consequently when a germ cell carrying the gene for green (G)
is fertilized by another carrying the same kind of gene (G) a
pure bred green-seeded plant results (GG) ; when a germ cell
carrying the gene for yellow (Y) is fertilized by another carry-
ing a similar gene (Y) a pure yellow-seeded plant is produced
(YY) ; but when a germ cell carrying the gene for yellow (Y)
unites with one carrying the gene for green (G) a hybrid
carrying both genes results, Y(G), the yellow gene however
being dominant over the green. All the germ cells of a pure
green-seeded plant carry the green factor, all those of a pure
yellow-seeded plant carry the yellow factor, but half of the
germ cells of a hybrid between yellow and green-seeded plants
carry the factor for green and the other half the factor for
yellow. Consequently since in the last named case these two
kinds of germ cells are produced in equal numbers there is one
chance in four that two germ cells with the yellow factor will
unite or that two with the green factor will unite while there
are two chances in four that a germ cell carrying the yellow
factor will unite with one carrying the green factor. All this
may be summarized in the following scheme:

YY: OF GG

Parental Gen.
g 2B

Pt \ Gametes
6G G ;

All ¥ (G)
Dear a Wmmderrt Fs? GEIR.

2

i fone

1YY :2Y(G):1Ge Fo Gen.
: G

oh i UN Gametes

sy. 3G

AI1 YY :2Y(G ql G— FP, - ete,

Monohybrids, Dihybrids, Trihybrids, etc—When parents
differ in only a single pair of contrasting characters, as in
yellow or green seeds, round or wrinkled seeds, tall or dwarf
stem the resulting offspring are monohybrids; where they differ
in two pairs of characters the offspring are dihybrids; where
they differ in three pairs they are trihybrids, and where they
differ in more than three pairs of characters the offspring are
polyhybrids.

174 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

When the parents differ in only one pair of contrasting
characters or allelomorphs, one of which completely dominates
the other in the F, hybrids, there are in the F, generation 3
genotypes and 2 phenotypes, or developed types, in the rela-
tive number of 3 dominants to 1 recessive; this is the simple
Mendelian or monohybrid ratio. When the parents differ in
two, three or more such characters the number of types and
their ratios are the square, cube, etc. of those for the mono-
hybrid, as shown in the following table:

NUMBER OF GENOTYPES AND PHENOTYPES WHEN THERE ARE FROM 1 TO 7
PairRS OF ALLELOMORPHS

Pairs of | Number of Phenotypes in F2
Allelo- | Genotypes in a at
morphs F2 Number Ratios
1 (3)!=3 (2)1= 2 (3:1)! = 8:1, 2 ¢, 1 phenotype (of 3 individuals):
1 phenotype (of 1 individual)
2 | (3)?=9 (2)?=4 | (3:1)? = 9:3:3:1, z. e., 1 phenotype (of 9 individuals):
2 phenotypes (of 3 each): 1 phenotype (of 1 ind.)
3 Gy =20 (2)§=8 | (3:1) = 27:9:9:9:3:3:3:1, ¢. e., 1 (27):3(9):3(3):1(1)
4 | (3)4=81 (2)4=16 | (3:1)4 = 81:27:27:27:27:9:9:9:9:9:9:3:3:3:3:1, 4. e.,
1(81):4(27):6(9) :4(3):1(1)
5» | (8)§=243 | (2)5=32 | (3:1)5 = 1(248):5(81):10(27) :10(9):5(8):1(1)
6 (3)§=729 | (2)§=64 | (3:1)§ = 1(729):6(2438):15(81) :20(27) :15(9) :6(3) :1(1)
ch

(3)7= 2187 | (2)7=128 | (3:1)? = 1(2187):7(729):21 (243) :35 (81) :35(27) :21 (9) :-
7(3):1(1) :

Where there are many allelomorphs the possible number of
genotypes and phenotypes, due to different combinations, be-
comes very great and the relative numbers of the different
phenotypes differ widely. In almost every case parents differ
in more than a single character and in many cases, such as
species crossings, they differ in a great many characters. It
would not be possible to determine experimentally the absolute
and relative numbers of different types in such cases without
an enormous number of offspring. Fortunately it is usually
possible to deal with each pair of contrasting characters by
itself and without regard to the others so that, in such a case,
one determines for each pair of characters whether they occur
in the simple Mendelian ratio of 3:1.

Thus not only the different combinations which are possible
but also the relative numbers or ratios of these different com-
binations are all explained by the simple principle of the
“purity” of a germ cell with respect to any given gene and
the chance union of germ cells in fertilization. This is un-
doubtedly one of the greatest discoveries ever made in the field
of biology and it is as far-reaching in results as it is simple
in principle.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 175

This principle of the separableness of inheritance factors
or genes in hereditary transmission has been demonstrated in
hundreds of cases in both plants and animals and there is now
no reason to doubt that it is a universal law of heredity. The
many apparent exceptions to this law which were noted when
the Mendelian discovery was new have been shown to be due
to misunderstandings of the principles involved, or to unwar-
ranted emphasis upon certain minor phases of Mendel’s theory,
or to a failure to properly analyze the characters in question
or their causes.

The Factorial Theory of Heredity—Germinal factors or
genes are not wholly independent things though they may be
localized in the chromosomes and may be separated, transposed
and recombined in sexual reproduction. Furthermore it is not
true that genes are merely the developed characters, in minute
form, or that the factorial theory merely shifts the mysteries
of heredity from the region of visible characters to that of
invisible factors. Genes are not undeveloped characters but
rather the elements whose combinations and interactions pro-
duce developed characters, just as combinations of chemical
elements produce chemical compounds or as combinations of
cells produce tissues and organs. The properties of the com-
pounds or organs or characters are not to be found as such in
the elements or cells or genes which enter into their genesis but
they result from the combination or synthesis of these elements.
Morgan says that each gene probably influences many char-
acters and that it may possibly influence every character of the
developed organism, and on the other hand it is known in cer-
tain instances that more than one gene is concerned in the
production of a particular character. But while it is true that
one gene may influence many characters and that more than
one gene may be concerned in the production of a given char-
acter it is generally true that a particular gene is the differ-
ential factor in the production of any particular character.
Very many factors are involved in the production of a white
or red flower, of a white or black guinea pig, but in each case
there is at least one factor which is differential, that is it is
found in one of these alternatives and not in the other.’ This
differential factor alone is emphasized in dealing with the
hereditary causes of these differences,—it is sometimes spoken
of as if it were the only factor or gene concerned in the pro-
duction of the character, whereas all that is meant is that it is
the differential factor. .

176 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Multiple Factors——When more than one gene is concerned
in the development of a character the factors or genes are said
to be multiple. Thus in many instances the development of
color is dependent upon two or more separable factors, and
only when all of these factors are present does color develop
typically. A similar condition is usually found in the inherit-
ance of size, and gradations in size or color may be explained as
the result of varying combinations of these multiple factors.

Modifying Factors.—Akin to cases of multiple factors are
those conditions in which the action of a principal factor is
modified by subordinate factors. Morgan and Bridges have
discovered six or seven such factors which modify the “ Eosin”
eye color of Drosophila. These modifying factors are also
separable in heredity and the stronger or weaker development
of certain characters can be shown to depend upon certain com-
binations of these modifying factors. The fact that selection
may serve to build up or to reduce a character is known to be
due in some instances to the selection of individuals with or
without certain of these modifying factors.

Lethal Factors.—Finally Morgan and his associates have
demonstrated the existence of a considerable number of lethal
factors in Drosophila which cause the early death of those
gametes or zygotes in which such a factor is not balanced by a
normal one. Consequently only heterozygotes with respect to
such lethal factors survive and all individuals which are homo-
zygous for a lethal factor usually die so early that they are
never seen. Nevertheless their existence can be determined
by indirect methods, such as linkage with sex. Such lethal
factors modify expected Mendelian ratios and greatly compli-
cate the study of genetics, but they do not destroy its funda-
mental principles, indeed when properly understood they fur-
nish one of the strongest proofs of the truth of the factorial
theory of heredity.

The factorial theory is as necessary to the study of heredity
as is the atomic theory to the study of chemistry and the one is
as well justified by the results obtained as is the other. Weis-
mann says that for a long time he tried to avoid the assumption
of the existence of inheritance factors, but he finally came to
the conclusion that no understanding of the phenomena of
heredity was possible on any other basis. At present inher-
itance factors are no more hypothetical than are atoms and
electrons. We know not only that they exist but also that they
are located in the chromosomes; we know how they are sepa-
rated and recombined in sexual reproduction and we know that

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION IFT

evolution is caused in some cases at least by changes in these
factors or genes.

2. BLENDING INHERITANCE

When the Mendelian theory was new it was generally sup-
posed that there were forms of inheritance which differed
materially from the Mendelian type; in fact it was supposed
that the latter was one of the less common forms of heredity
and that blending of parental traits and not separation was
the rule. Among such cases of blending inheritance may be
mentioned the color of hybrids of white-flowered and red-
flowered ‘‘ four o’clocks” and of white and black men, the size
of hybrids of large and small races of rabbits or other organ-
isms, etc. In these cases the F, generation is more or less
intermediate between the two parents but the significant fact,
which was formerly overlooked, is that in the F,, and subsequent
generations we have a more or less complete segregation of
the original characters out of these hybrids in which the char-
acters are blended. In the F, generation the pink-flowered
“four o’clocks” produce white-flowered and red-flowered as
well as pink-flowered plants, the children of mulattoes range
in color from white to black, the offspring of those hybrids
which are intermediate in size between their parents are large
and small and intermediate. In these cases there is a true
Mendelian segregation of genes but owing to the fact that one
gene does not completely dominate its allelomorph or to the
fact that multiple factors are present in varying numbers the
hybrid is intermediate between the two parents.

Other cases of apparent blending inheritance are found in
quantitative characters in which the size of offspring or the
degree or extent of their pigmentation ranges all the way from
one parental type to the other. Such cases have been studied
particularly by Castle in rabbits and in hooded rats and he con-
cluded that such intergrades could not be explained by the
segregation of constant genes but must be attributed to quanti-
tative and qualitative changes in the genes themselves. Mac-
Dowell, on the other hand, showed that in rabbits the inter-
grades in size may be explained more satisfactorily by the
multiple-factor hypothesis than by Castle’s hypothesis of
changes in the genes themselves. And the work of Morgan
and his associates on the gradation of eye-color in Drosophila
has shown that such gradations are due to “ modifying factors ”’
which increase or diminish the action of the principal factor.

VOL. xX.—12.

178 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Castle has more recently accepted this principle of modifying
factors as an explanation of the results of his work. There
are then in all these cases several factors which are concerned
in the production of these quantitative characters and the in-
tergradations which occur are due to varying combinations
of these factors rather than to modifications of the factors
themselves. Blending inheritance, therefore, so far from being
a contradiction of the Mendelian principle of the segregation of
unchanging factors, becomes an important argument in favor
of that principle.

3. SPECIES HYBRIDS

a. Numerous Allelomorphs.—In species crosses certain phe-
nomena occur which do not appear to be Mendelian in char-
acter. For example, species hybrids are usually intermediate
between the two parents so that it looks as if this were a case
of blending inheritance. This appearance may be due to the
large number of dominant factors which are contributed by
each parent so that in general the offspring seem to be inter-
mediate; or it may be due to the fact that neither allelomorph
of a pair completely dominates the other in which case there
should be a segregation of parental characters in the F, genera-
tion. In the classical cases of Mendelism the varieties crossed
differ in only a few characters. Linnean species, however,
differ in very many characters and if the dominant characters
are pretty equally distributed between the two species the result -
would be that the hybrids would appear to be intermediate.
This is in fact one of the most general features of hybrids
between species. If such intermediacy is really the result of
the combination of large numbers of contrasting characters,
or rather of their genes, the F, generation should present a
large number of segregations and therefore wide variability.
Owing to the large number of contrasting characters or allelo-
morphs in different species the number of possible combinations
in the F, generation is very great (p. 174) and immense
numbers of offspring are necessary in order to determine
whether or not all these possibilities are realized and still larger
numbers are needed to determine the relative numbers of these
different types.

Thus the smallest number of offspring which would repre-
sent the Mendelian ratios of different types, where one allelo-
morph completely dominates the other, would be for

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION ila)

pair of Allelomorphs, 4 F, individuals.
“eé “e 66 16 66 cé

1
2
3
aaa a 256 * ~
5
6

Of course a much greater number than that must actually be
observed if the ratios are to be determined with any approach
to accuracy. For example, in determining the simple 3: 1 ratio
in the cross of yellow-seeded and green-seeded peas, Mendel
observed 6,022 yellow seeds and 2,001 green seeds and 15 differ-
ent investigators who have made this cross have recorded in the
F., generation a total of 152,824 yellow-seeded to 50,676 green-
seeded peas which makes the ratio 3.004: .0996 or very nearly
3:1. (See Morgan, 1919, p. 24.) It would therefore be an
enormous labor to determine with any accuracy the relative
numbers of different types which would result where there were
even five or six pairs of allelomorphs.

For example, Baur has determined the existence of more
than 20 different factors for the color and form of flowers in
the snap-dragon Antirrhinum. Lotsy crossed two species of
snap-dragon, A. majus « A. molle; the F, hybrids were inter-
mediate in all respects and were completely fertile; out of an
F., population of 255 plants, he distinguished about 25 different
flower types, besides many other character differences such as
size, form of leaf, habit of growth, etc. One of these F, plants
produced 209 plants of the F, generation all of which had dif-
ferent types of flowers, but wherever single pairs of allelo-
morphs could be recognized and followed it was found that their
segregation in the F, and subsequent hybrid generations ap-
proximated the Mendelian ratio of 3:1.

Detlefsen obtained essentially similar results in crossing
two different species of the guinea pig, Cavia porcellus < C.
rufescens. He studied in particular five pairs of contrasting
characters in the color and arrangement of the hair and as a
result of this work he concludes that in the hybrids of these
species inheritance is Mendelian.

b. Infertility But another and even greater difficulty in
determining whether species-crosses are Mendelian or not re-
sults from the fact that such hybrids are frequently but not
invariably more or less infertile. If certain combinations of
allelomorphs should be sterile or less fertile than others it

180 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

would cause wide departures from the expected ratios and in
cases where infertility of hybrids is the rule, it is of course
impossible to determine whether or not Mendelian segrega-
tion occurs. There are however many cases in which such
hybrids are fertile and in all such cases there are evidences that
inheritance is Mendelian. On the whole there is no good
reason to suspect that species-crosses differ fundamentally
from variety-crosses in this respect.

4. UNEQUAL RECIPROCAL HYBRIDS

In typical Mendelian inheritance reciprocal crosses yield
identical results. Thus it does not matter in a cross between
white and red guinea pigs whether the male is white and the
female red or vice versa; the results are the same in either
case. But in some instances reciprocal crosses yield different
results. Thus the cross between the male ass and the female
horse yields a mule, but the reciprocal cross between the female
ass and the male horse produces a hinney. When the hybrid
resembles the father more than the mother it is said to be
“yatroclinous’”’; when the reverse is true it is ‘‘ matroclinous.”
Such unequal reciprocal hybrids have been studied especially
in the Ginotheras by de Vries and he comes to the conclusion
that they are due to the fact that the male and female gametes
of a species may carry different factors—that they may be
heterogamous as contrasted with the more usual conditions
where they are isogamous. The cause of heterogamy is ob-
scure, but de Vries suggests that the pollen which receives
maternal factors, for example, may remain rudimentary so that
all the active pollen carries only paternal factors while the
reverse may be true of the egg cells.

The extensive work which Morgan and his associates have
done on lethal factors in Drosophila shows that they play an ex-
tremely important part in the non-survival of certain gametes
or zygotes. They have demonstrated that a number of such
lethal factors are located in the X chromosome and that all in-
dividuals in which such a factor is not balanced by a normal
allelomorph die early. All males that receive such a factor die
since there is only one X chromosome in the male; all females
that receive it in both X chromosomes die, while only those
survive that have such a lethal factor in one or neither of the
X chromosomes.

’ Bridges has shown also that patroclinous sons and matroclinous
daughters may result from a phenomenon which he calls “ non-disjunc-

tion,’ that is the failure of certain pairs of chromosomes to separate
during the maturation of the germ cells.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 181

In some such manner as this it may be possible to explain
the condition of heterogamy and unequal reciprocal hybrids.
Such hybrids therefore do not disprove the Mendelian law but
they furnish additional and unexpected support for it when
they are properly analyzed. We may therefore conclude that
the Mendelian law of heredity, especially as regards the segre-
gation of inheritance factors, is of universal occurrence—that
there is no other type of inheritance.

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THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 183

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION*

By Professor JAMES HENRY BREASTED
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

LECTURE TWO

THE EARLIEST CIVILIZATION AND ITS TRANSITION TO EUROPE, II

Just as the Central American culture, particularly in Yuca-
tan, was in close contact with Cuba in pre-Columbian times, so
the shipping of the Pharaohs in the Pyramid Age maintained
frequent intercourse with Crete. The map (Fig. 85) shows us
how Crete, the southeastern island outpost of Europe, is thrust
far out into the Mediterranean toward Egypt, almost opposite
the mouths of the Nile. This intercourse was facilitated by
favoring winds and currents making the three hundred and
forty mile interval a matter of a few days’ sail. Thus the prod-
ucts of the Nile craftsmen began to find their way into Crete
after 3000 B.c.

It can be no accident that the appearance of metal in Crete
and on the neighboring mainland of Asia coincides in date with
the appearance of the first sea-going ships built by the Phar-
aohs. The peculiar copper dagger of Egypt, ornamented with
lines diverging from a central rib, passed across Europe and

A 3 C.
Egypt Italy Jura Mountains Denmark

Fic. 86. COPPER DAGGERS OF EGYPT AND BARLY EUROPE, SHOWING THE TRANSI-
TION OF METAL FROM THE NILE VALLEY TO Europr, (From the author’s ‘“ Ancient
Times,’ by permission of Ginn & Co.)

1 Delivered before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington,
D. C., April 28 and 29, 1910, as the seventh series of lectures on the Wil-
liam Ellery Hale Foundation.

184 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 87. EGyPriAN GLAZED BEADS FOUND IN AN EARLY Bronze AGE BURIAL IN ENG-
LAND. (After Sayce in Journal of Egyptian Archeology, Vol. I.)

Fic. 88. STonp VASES OF EGYPT (LEFT) AND OF CRETE (RIGHT) IN THE PyYRA-
MID AGE, SHOWING HOW THE HARLY CRETANS REPRODUCED EGypTIAN Forms, (irom
the author’s “ Ancient Times,’ by permission of Ginn & Co.)

EGYPTIAN CRETAN EGYPTIAN CRETAN
NN
Sign of Life oe Tower
Libation Vase Bronze Adze

Fic. 89. EGypriANn HIbROGLYPHICS COMPARED WITH SIGNS FROM EARLY CRETAN
Writing. (After Sir Arthur Evans.) The signs are arranged in pairs with the
Egyptian sign on the left and the corresponding Cretan sign on the right.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 185

penetrated as far north as the Scandinavian countries (Fig.
86), and Egyptian glazed beads have been found as far west-
ward as the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age graves of the Brit-
ish Isles (Fig. 87). The beautiful stone vases wrought by the
skilled craftsmen of the Pyramid Age with their new tubular
drill (Figs. 73-74), roused the emulation of the gifted Cretans,
and they presently succeeded in making very clever copies
(Fig. 88). As a result of such endeavors thriving industrial
communities, exhibiting surprising native capabilities and
artistic gifts, arose in Crete, and their copying, quite freed
from any slavish imitation, began to display a vigorous and
creative individuality which brought forth the earliest civiliza-
tion on the southeastern fringes of Europe.

This new Cretan civilization, revealed to us especially by
the brilliant discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossus, and
also by very creditable American excavations, continued to
develop after 2000 B.c. in close contact with the Oriental life
on the Nile. As the Cretans developed their own writing, the
connection with Egyptian hieroglyphic is evident, as Sir Arthur
Evans has showed (Fig. 89). After the expansion of Egyptian
power into Asia and the Mediterranean in the Feudal Age (or
Middle Kingdom, flourishing for two centuries after 2000 B.C.)

Fia. 90. ALABASTER VASE LID BEARING THE NAME OF THE EGYPTIAN PHARAOH
IKHIAN FOUND BY SIR ARTHUR EVANS UNDER A WALL OF THE CRETAN PALACE OF
CNOSSUS—PROBABLY ABOUT THE 17TH CENTURY B.C.

186 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Pitgke Cb eh hee
DA DoD aL CA Bast I i

vA ANEHK hata tis

CIARA

~ se Ne

Fie. 91. A LINE OF CRETAN ENVOYS (THE LOWER ROW) IN HGYPT BRINGING
TRIBUTH TO THE PHARAOH IN THE 15TH CENTURY B.c. The scene is taken from a
painting on the wall of the tomb of Rekhmire, Grand Vizier of the Pharaoh Thutmose
IIl., the greatest of the Egyptian conquerors.

and the Empire (1580-1150 B.c.), the development of the first
great navy enabled Egypt to maintain unchallenged supremacy
in the eastern Mediterranean and among the islands of south-
eastern Europe. The beginnings of this Mediterranean power
of Egypt are suggested by the name of the Pharaoh Khian,
engraved on an alabaster vase lid found under a palace wall at
Cnossus (Fig. 90).

As the Egyptian Empire established its power in the north-
ern Mediterranean, the Pharaoh appointed a governor over the
Avgean Islands. Cretan envoys bringing their tribute to the
court of the Pharaoh were a common sight in the fifteenth cen-
tury B.c. (Fig. 91). Such Cretans who had visited the Nile,

rr oe

Ml ttl)

Wie. 92. A CRETAN VASE DECORATED IN RAISED PATTERNS WITH EGYPTIAN
I’Lowprs. A fine example of the remarkable decorative art of Crete in the Grand
Age about the middle of the 15th Century B.c.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 187

and likewise Egyptian wares common in the Cretan markets,
brought many a Nilotic motive into the art and life of this re-
markable island people which they promptly appropriated.
Thus Egyptian flowers like the lotus or the papyrus became
common in Cretan art, where they were employed with new
life, freedom and vigor, which are a marvellous expression of
Cretan ability in decorative art (Fig. 92). This magnificent
decorative art of Crete also had its influence on Egypt in re-
turn, for the situation was one in which reciprocal influences
were inevitable. It is sometimes a question among archeolo-
gists as to which was the giver and which the receiver (Fig. 93).

Fic. 93. CrILING DECORATIONS OF EGYPT AND MYCEN#AN EUROPE. The Egyp-
tian pattern (on the left) is from a painted ceiling in an Egyptian tomb at Thebes
(Egypt), while the Mycenzan design was carved on a tomb ceiling at Orchomenos
in Greece, and belongs to the outgoing Aligean art of the period when the Greeks were
already taking possession of the Algean world—the period which was called Mycenean
after Schliemann’s discoveries at Mycene.

While the highly developed arts and crafts of Egypt fur-
nished the A.gean world with the devices and the technical
processes for carrying on a flourishing industrial life, the archi-
tecture of the Nile did not leave a noticeable mark on the
fringes of Europe until the Greek Age which we are now ap-
proaching. The limited power and resources of the Cretan
state or states would not have permitted any Cretan ruler to
vie with the vast monumental architecture of the Nile. The
gigantic clerestory hall of the Karnak temple (Fig. 94) was a
structure possible only to a ruler of imperial wealth and re-
sources, commanding a highly efficient body of architectural
engineers such as existed at this time nowhere outside of
Egypt. It is impossible in this brief presentation to do more
than suggest in terms of such architecture as this, the imperial
development which went on in Egypt after the sixteenth cen-

188 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

3
“eel haul (SS
oy eu

ius at
Wad

fe

Fic. 94. COLUMNS OF THE GREAT KARNAK CLERESTORY HALL, A hundred men can
stand on the capital of each column of the nave.

tury B.c. (Figs. 95-96). The resources and impulses which
had prompted this great expansion of Egyptian life and power
were exhausted by 1200 B.c. and fifty years later Egypt was
nationally prostrate and powerless.

A similar development of human life had meantime been

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 189

going on in Western Asia, and if we have been late in reaching
it, this has been chiefly due to the fact that the Babylonian
world of the lower Tigris and Euphrates lay separated from
the Mediterranean by a great northern extension of the Arabian
desert over five hundred miles across. Babylonian civilization,
thus cut off from immediate contact with the Mediterranean
world and Europe, was later in affecting the tide of Oriental
influences which for ages pressed upon the life of Europe and
the West, and in Hebrew and Christian religion has not yet
ceased to do so. Another reason which has delayed us in
taking up Western Asia is found in the fact that the prehistoric
development of the region, as we have already stated, has yet
to be investigated, and as a whole to be recovered from the still
inaccessible and undiscovered sources. But Babylonian in-
fluence was not less great and important because it was some-
what later than that of the Nile.

A glance at the map shows us that southern Babylonia
and northern Egypt are practically in the same latitude.
Yet their respective situations are totally different. Egypt,
strategically considered, is surprisingly protected from inva-
sions and assaults of foreign peoples. Its isolated situation
due to the wastes of the great Sahara on each side and the
Mediterranean on the north, enabled it to enjoy a continuous
development uninterrupted by foreign intrusion for many cen-
turies at a time. In an age when maritime peoples were still
unknown on the Mediterranean, this body of water was a pro-
tecting barrier against the Stone Age barbarians of the north,
of enormous importance to Egypt, and to this freedom from
invasion at the hands of the backward northern peoples, we

Fic, 95. RSTORATION OF THE GRHAT KARNAK CLHRESTORY HALL. Built chiefly
by Ramses II. in the 18th century B.c., some 1,500 years after the incipient clerestory
of Khafre at Gizeh (Fig. 79), it represents the culmination of a long development
which has brought forth tall and stately clerestory windows in place of primitive
light-chutes, and imposing colonnades in place of 1ectangular piers (Fig. 80). From
such Egyptian temple halls the basilica structures of Hellenistic and Christian Europe
have descended.

190 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

sa tee Ses eee ie Panic aanctens i
Fic. 96. ONP OF THE COLOSSAL PORTRAIT STATUES OF RAMSES II. ADORNING
THE FRONT OF THE CLIFF TEMPLE OF ABU-SIMBEL ON THE NILE IN NuBIA. There are
four such figures along the front of the temple; each is seventy-five feet high.

may attribute in no small degree Egypt’s advance to civiliza-
tion at a time when no such great civilized nation had appeared
anywhere else.

The alluvial plain on the lower Tigris and Euphrates, which
we call Babylonia, was, on the other hand, continually exposed
to invasion by the less developed peoples of the mountains on
the north and east. At the same time the nomad population,
which still finds pasturage for its flocks along the northern
fringes of the Arabian desert, beset Babylonia with a similar

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 191

unceasing menace from the other side. The history of western
Asia is often made up of the struggle between the mountaineers
on the north and the desert nomads on the south, for the pos-
session of the Fertile Crescent which lay between, and of which
Babylonia forms the eastern and Palestine the western end. It
was therefore impossible for any people occupying the Baby-
lonian Plain to develop without interference in accordance with
its own capabilities and native gifts. The civilized develop-
ment here was repeatedly halted and sometimes stagnated, as it
has done in modern times, for centuries. This was not seldom
due to the further fact that the invasions were often at the
same time migrations bringing in a relatively large body of
foreign population.

Retarded from prehistoric times by the rigor of the northern
winters and the cold of the outgoing glacial age, western Asia
was far behind Egypt at the opening of the fourth millennium

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Fic. 97. EGYPTIAN RELIEF (LEFT) OF THE 30TH CENTURY B.C., SHOWING THE
STANDING FIGURE OF AN EGYPTIAN NOBLE, AND BPARLY SUMERIAN RELIEF (RIGHT),
SHOWING THE FIGURE OF A SUMERIAN CITY KING OF THE SAME AGE. We have here an
opportunity to compare the art of the two cultures at the same age. It may be
noted that the Babylonian relief is a royal monument while that of Egypt is from the
tomb of a noble only.

192 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 98. THE CENTRAL PORTION OF THE MOUND OF THE OLD SUMBERIAN CITY OF
NIPPUR, NOW CALLED NIFFER, IN CENTRAL BABYLONTA. The highest portion of such
mounds covers the public buildings and especially the temple mount or tower. (By
courtesy of the University Museum, Philadelphia.)

p.c., and the prehistoric advance of Babylonia was for the
reasons mentioned above so slow that in the thirtieth century
B.c. her culture was still noticeably inferior to that of Egypt
(Fig. 97).

The earliest towns on the Babylonian alluvium were rarely
more than a few hundred paces across. They were built of
sun-dried brick and as a result of the action of weather and
successive destructions at the hands of hostile invaders, a con-
siderable volume of disintegrated brick accumulated as the cen-
turies passed. This rubbish was not cleared away when the
new buildings were put up, and hence the town finally stood on
a high mound (Fig. 98). Such a mound is called by the Arabs
a “tell,” a word which therefore appears very commonly in the
geographical names of Egypt and western Asia. Traversing
the Babylonian plain to-day the modern traveler is rarely out
of sight of such a mound somewhere on the horizon. These are
the treasuries whence the evidence for the reconstruction of
early Babylonian life and history is chiefly drawn. Thus far
only a small proportion of the early Babylonian mounds has
been excavated and thoroughly investigated. Indeed the rig-
orous methods of Mediterranean archeology have only recently

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 193

and in limited measure, begun to be applied to Babylonian
research.

Each one of these mounds represents an early city-kingdom
consisting of the town and a fringe of outlying fields. You
could have walked across the whole kingdom in an hour or two.
At the head of this petty realm was a king, whose monuments,
excavated from the mound now covering his town, sometimes
reveal him to us in primitive sculpture engaged in the cere-
monious functions of his little state (Fig. 99).

The people over whom he ruled are called Sumerians in the
documents of the time. While their racial origin is still uncer-
tain, it is evident that they were not Semites, like the nomads of
the neighboring desert, and their affinities are therefore to be
sought in the mountains. Well back in the fourth millennium
B.c. they had developed their own writing. Like the writing

Fig. 99. AN HARLY SUMERIAN CITY KING OF THE 30TH CENTURY B.C, ENGAGED IN
PUBLIC CEREMONIES. The relief is engraved on the limestone base of some cere-
monial object, presumably a mace, the handle of which was thrust into the hole in
the middle of the block. In the upper relief the king is seen standing at the left
with a basket probably filled with earth on his head. Before him in a line his
children approach, and behind him is his cup-bearer. The ceremony is probably that
of beginning the digging for some important public work like a canal or the founda-
tion of a temple. Below the king is seated at the right with much the same per-
sonages about him. The birdlike features and crude drawing evince the primitive
and undeveloped character of the art. The inscriptions in cuneiform record the
names of the individuals shown. That of the king was Urnina, a ruler of Lagash.

VOL. x.—13.

194 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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fragment of a round-topped stela commonly called the Vulture Stela, recording the
victories of Eannatum, king of Lagash. The scene shows him at the head of a pha-
lanx of the troops of his little city-kingdom.

of Egypt it grew up out of picture signs. As a result of the
process of writing on soft clay tablets, the individual lines of
the pictures assumed the forms of wedges, and for this reason
the writing of these people has been called cuneiform (Latin
cuneus, ““wedge’’). It never developed alphabetic signs. The
Egypto-Babylonian culture group thus devised two physical
processes of writing: the one by tracing the characters with a
pen and a dark pigment on a vegetable membrane; the other by
impressing or incising the characters on a soft or plastic sub-
stance. The latter process, that of Asia, survived for a time in

Fig. 101. EARLY SUMERIAN CYLINDER SEAL IMPRESSION SHOWING THE FIGURES
or ANIMALS IN BALANCED OR ANTITHETIC ARRANGEMENT, It must be remembered that
these tiny figures were cut by the lapidary around a cylinder of hard stone not
thicker than one’s finger, and sometimes much smalier, and perhaps only half as long.
They represent a great and noble art in striking contrast with the feebleness of the
sculptor in relief (Fig. 99).

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 195

the clay tablets of Crete and the waxen tablets of the Roman
gentleman, and then perished; the other, the method of Egypt,
still survives in the pen, ink and paper of modern usage.

These Sumerian city-kingdoms had already gained agricul-
ture and were practising it in the fourth millennium B.c. Their
oldest documents mention emmer, wheat and barley as every-
day matters. The occurrence of wild wheat, or emmer, which
was the ancestor of domesticated wheat, growing in a wild

Fig. 102. AN HAGLE SURMOUNTING Two ANTITHETICALLY PLACED LIONS FORM-
ING THE ARMS OF THE City OF LAGASH. Engraved on a silver vase of king Entemena
of Lagash in the 29th century B.c. It forms a fine example of early Babylonian
heraldic art.

state in western Asia as far east as the Kermanshah Pass,
may yet lead to the conclusion that it was domesticated in Baby-
lonia, but we must make the botanical exploration of the Near
East more nearly complete before this question can be finally
settled. That wheat and barley were domesticated by the
Egypto-Babylonian group and passed thence into Europe is,
however, perfectly clear.

Cattle and sheep were likewise possessed by these people
long before 3000 B.c. Further investigation of the culture
levels of the fourth millennium, still almost untouched, will be
necessary before we can reach final conclusions regarding the
sources of these animals. It is interesting to observe that the
Sumerians already possessed the wheel as a burden-bearing
device, so that they were able to build wheeled carts. It is pos-

196 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fie. 103. THE ARMS OF LAGASH AS SHOWN IN Fic. 102, FROM A PLAQUE OF BITU-
MINOUS CLAY.

sible that they already employed the ass to draw such carts.
In any case they possessed the animal in a domesticated state,
a fact which points toward connection with Egypt. At the
same time they came into possession of copper. The earliest
dated pieces of copper in Asia are a thousand years later than
the copper needles of the earliest graves in Egypt, and it is evi-
dent where we must look for the original home of metallurgy.

These early Sumerian city states were constantly embroiled
in petty wars among themselves. The art of warfare among
them had reached an extraordinarily high development, far
superior to that of Egypt. It is a justifiable generalization to
say that the arts of peace were developed chiefly in Egypt, while
those of war were due to the peoples of western Asia, especially
the Sumerians and Assyrians. We find the Sumerians already
employing the phalanx as early as the twenty-ninth century B.C.
(Fig. 100). The Egyptian monuments show that this forma-
tion had reached the Mediterranean by the twelfth century B.c.,
and there can be no doubt that the later Greek phalanx was
inherited from the ancient Sumerians. It may be a fair ques-
tion whether the existence of this formation among the Sumer-
lans at such an early date does not point to a western origin for
them somewhere in Asia Minor, whence their military exper‘-
ence was easily communicated to Europe.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 197

While early Sumerian art as exhibited in sculpture was at
first crude and backward (Fig. 99), the Sumerians developed
a decorative art of epoch-making importance. It was practised
with the greatest success by the lapidaries, who were called
upon to produce the stone cylinder seals employed by the Su-
merians to seal their clay documents. The content of this deco-
rative art was chiefly animal and human figures arrayed in a
balanced or antithetic arrangement (Fig. 101), which we have
already seen in the prehistoric art of Egypt (Fig. 63). As em-
ployed by the Sumerians these groups were given startling vigor
and power by depicting the figures in violent motion or engaged
in tremendous muscular effort. Thus arose the heraldic art
familiar to us all in the “lion and the unicorn.” The Sumer-
ians therefore contributed to the decorative art of the world a
rich treasury of powerful forms to which it has ever since been
indebted.

AA

Fic. 104. BALANCED ANIMALS, EGYPTIAN, SUMERIAN AND MAUGHAN, ~ Antitheti-

cally placed animal figures were common in the art of Hgypt from the remotest times,
probably earlier than in Babylonia, as noted in Fig. 63. hey are a conclusive evi-
dence of the culture diffusion within the Egypto-Babylonian group, whence such

influences passed to the Augean as shown in the last figure of the three,

198 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Among such figures is that of an eagle with its wings and
talons extended in antithetic arrangement. With its talons
the bird at the same time clutches the backs of two lions, like-
wise antithetically placed (Figs. 102 and 103). The lions some-
times turn their heads and set their teeth savagely into the
outspread pinions of the eagle. This device formed the emblem
of the Sumerian city of Lagash, that is, what we should now
call the arms or armorial bearings of the little kingdom. The
eagle with outspread wings early passed into Asia Minor (or is
this another evidence of the origin of the Sumerians in Asia
Minor?), and thence into the Agean (Fig. 104) and Europe,
where we are familiar with it in the arms of the southeast
European states, like Austria. It eventually reached the Ger-
man states, like Bavaria and Prussia, and later also Russia and
France. It was from these European sources that we drew our
own American eagle, for the earliest ancestry of which we must
therefore go back to an ancient Sumerian city-state.

Lack of stone in Babylonia prevented the development of
such massive monumental architecture as we have found on the
Nile. The Sumerian builder was dependent exclusively upon
brick, chiefly sun-dried, but occasionally baked to protect the
faces of his larger structures from the destructive action of
rain. His buildings were almost all small and unpretentious.
He never undertook a treatment of the void, such as developed
the piers and colonnades of Egypt. Western Asia was there-
fore entirely without the column until Greek times, notwith-
standing the elaborate colonnades with which Ferguson and
other historians of architecture have embellished their restora-
tions of western Asiatic buildings. The Sumerian architect’s

Fic. 105. A PAR or Wary ASs ILLUSTRATING THR
TEMPLE TOWER OF THE SUMERIANS. (After Andre.) Such towers were not com-
monly erected in pairs. These two belonged to the double ‘temple of Anu and Adad in
the city of Assur, and as restored by the excavators they serve very well to illustrate
the earlier Sumerian temple towers. It was such a structure which gave rise to
the tradition of the tower of Babel. From it have descended the prevailing types of
tower and spire architecture in Hurope (see Fig. 126).

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 199

Fic. 106. MONUMENT OF VICTORY OF THE SEMITIC KING NARAMSIN OF AKKAD:
THE EARLIEST GREAT SEMITIC WORK OF ART (28th century B.c.). The king, whose
figure is depicted-in heroic proportions, has pursued the enemy to the summit of a
mountain, The artist has selected the dramatic moment when the foe has sur-
rendered and the king indicates his merciful intentions by lowering the point of his
weapon.

device for carrying the wall or the roof over the void was the
arch and the vault, and he never made wider interiors than he
was able to span with his vault. It was from the buildings of
western Asia, as we shall see, that the arch was transmitted to
Europe. .

200 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 107. IMPRESSION FROM A BABYLONIAN CYLINDER SEAL OF AKKADIAN AGH IN THE
OLD SuMERIAN MANNER. (Collection de Clercq.)

While the Sumerian made no contribution to the treatment
of the void, he was the more successful in his handling of the
mass. He broke up the monotonous surfaces of his brick walls
by a rhythmic distribution of alternate panels and pilasters.
As to the form of the mass he made a real contribution in the
artificial temple mount erected alongside the sanctuary in the
form of a rectangular tower with an ascending ramp winding
about it from base to summit by which the priest climbed to the
top (Fig. 105). This structure, which gave rise to the legend
of the Tower of Babel, marked the entrance of the tower into
architecture. From it have descended the leading tower forms
of the West, as we shall see.

It will be seen that Sumerian civilization made fundamental
contributions to the life of man, to which we are still indebted.
The exposed situation of their home, however, as we have already
stated, made it impossible for them to continue an uninterrupted
development. The Semitic nomads who drifted down the Two
Rivers, were strong enough to set up a small kingdom in the
district of Akkad, the northern portion of the Babylonian Plain.
We can trace the career of the Sumerian city-kingdoms from
their earliest emergence in the thirty-first century B.c., for
about three centuries, and then in the middle of the twenty-
eighth century the Semitic rulers of Akkad contributed the
first great Semitic leader in history, whom we now call Sargon
of Akkad. Although these Akkadian Semites were obliged to
make the revolutionary transition from the primitive nomadic
life of the desert without writing, arts or institutions, to the
civilized life of the Sumerian towns, in short to shift from the
tent to the sun-dried brick house, they eventually outstripped
their Sumerian teachers, on whom they were at first completely
dependent.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 201

Under Sargon they were so completely master of the Su-
merian art of war that they gained the leadership of the Baby-
lonian Plain, and the descendants of Sargon continued to rule
there for some two hundred years. A noble stela recording the
victories of Naramsin, an able ruler of this line, reveals to us
the superiority of the Semitic Akkadian in art (Fig. 106). It
is the first great Semitic work of art. A comparison with Fig.
99 will demonstrate how far the art of Babylonia had advanced
since the early days of the Sumerian city-kingdoms. The
Semite displayed his superiority in the same way in the mag-
nificent cylinder seals of the time (Fig. 107). These, like the
relief of Naramsin (Fig. 106), belong among the great works of
art of all time.

While the Sumerian towns regained the leadership and

Fie. 108. Drorire SHArT BHARING THE GREAT CopE or HAMMURAPI (early 21st
century B.c.). (Compare Fig. 132.)

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THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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Fie. 109. A Sipep ENGINE OF THH ASSYRIANS IN THE NINTH CENTURY B.C.
A city at the right is being attacked by the Assyrian machine seen in the middle.
The machine is on wheels operated by men concealed within. A turret with peep
holes protects the commander of the machine, and a firing tower (also with peep
holes) is occupied by two archers at the top. A heavy metal-tipped beam (which
later passed to Europe as the “battering ram’’) is swung by concealed men against
the walls and the results are seen in the falling fragments of the wall. It will be
seen that this is a man-power tank lacking only gunpowder and gasoline power to
make it a modern tank. Note the armor on front, over turret and around the firing
tower. The scene is from a relief adorning the palace of King Assurnacirpal, and
now in the British Museum.

struggled for centuries with waning power, to maintain it, the
rise of a new Semitic line, living at the still insignificant town
of Babylon, completely crushed the Sumerians and they never
after regained the leadership of the region. Like Latin in the
medieval church, their language still survived, especially in the
literature of religion, and their cultural contributions had long
since become a permanent element of western Asiatic civiliza-
tion. The life of their towns, however, languished and de-
clined, never to rise again. They are marked to-day by a line
of mounds along the lower Euphrates, most of which still await
excavation.

The powerful Semitic line which had elevated Babylon to
the leadership of the plain to which the city gave its name, cul-
minated in the rule of Hammurapi after 2100 B.c. A remark-
able monument of this great man’s administrative ability has
survived to us in the splendid shaft bearing his code of laws in
3,600 lines, the earliest surviving code (Fig. 108). It is a re-
markable expression of that ability to organize the material
interests of life, especially business and commerce, which as we
shall see, later contributed essentially to the rising civilization
of Europe.

The reign of Hammurapi, which unified Babylonia and a
considerable outlying region round about it, was the culmina-
tion of a thousand years of civilized development, from the
thirty-first to the twenty-first century B.c. This is the first
thousand years of which we can discern the general historical

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 203

Fic. 110. RESTORATION OF THE GREAT PALACE OF Sarcon II, Ar KHORSABAD.—\—
Highth century B.c. (After Place.)

drift in western Asia. Hammurapi’s successors were not able
to maintain the unity of Babylonia, and the Semite yielded the
leadership of the plain for many centuries to non-Semitic moun-
taineers, a new group of invaders of uncertain race whom we
call Kassites. They were little better than barbarians and
under them the life of the Babylonian plain relapsed into a
stagnation so lethargic that it did not revive for almost a thou-
sand years after Hammurapi’s time.

Meantime another Semitic group which had found lodg-
ment and a convenient stronghold on a spur of the eastern

Fig. 111. ARCHED DOORWAYS OF THE FACADE OF SARGON II’S PALACE AT KHORSA-
BAD. (Highth century B.c.) ‘This facade with its three arches was the ancestor of
the Roman triumphal arch (Fig. 125), and eventually of the facade of the Christian
cathedral with its three arched doorways.

204 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

mountains on the upper Tigris, had been developing in obscurity
since the days of the early Sumerian city-kingdoms. Its
stronghold was known as Assur, from which our familiar desig-
nation Assyria has descended. As a result of their exposed
situation the Assyrians early produced hardy soldiers; and a
nation of peasants and herdsmen, developing on a basis of old
Sumerian civilization, with which were combined numerous
characteristics of the mountainous north, became the greatest
military power, not only of western Asia, but also of the whole
ancient world of that age (Fig. 109).

By the middle of the eighth century B.c. the Assyrian kings
were ruling a great Western Asiatic Empire, which was advanc-
ing its frontiers in almost all directions not limited by the desert.
After the fall of the peoples along the eastern Mediterranean
coast, including the Hebrews and Pheenicians, in the latter half
of the eighth century B.c., the conquests of Sargon II. raised
Assyria to a height of power and splendor never before enjoyed
by an ancient people. Not far northeast of Nineveh Sargon
erected a magnificent palace and city which he called Dur-Shar-
rukin (“Sargonburg,” Fig.110). It was fitting that this splen-
did architectural expression of Assyrian power should stand
forth as the earliest great monumental architecture of Asia.
The old Sumerian buildings, the Syrian palaces, and even the
extensive capital city of the Hittites were insignificant com-
pared with it. Its vast staircase, the first great monumental
escalier in the history of architecture, the spacious arched door-
ways and enormous sentinel animals of sculptured stone, embel-
lishing the imposing facade (Fig. 111), brilliant with designs
in brightly colored glazed brick—all this proclaimed a new im-
perial age in western Asia. Under Sennacherib and Assur-
banipal (Sardanapalus), the walls and splendid palaces of
Nineveh stretched for two miles and a half along the banks of
the Tigris. National greatness and power, which do so much
to quicken the creative imagination of the architect, as we have
observed in Egypt, had thus brought forth the first monumental
architecture of Asia on a grand scale.

It is a significant fact that the iron mines of northeastern
Asia Minor, which had been worked by the Hittites as far back
as the thirteenth century B.c., made the Assyrian armies the
first great armies of the ancient world to carry weapons of
iron. Over against Assyrian ferocity in war, however, even
though it was rendered the more dreadful by these terrible
weapons, we should in fairness write down not a few other im-
portant considerations which essentially alter our estimate of

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 205
the character and effects of Assyrian supremacy in the ancient
world. We can not even summarize these in this slight pre-
sentation, but one of them we have suggested in our references
to Assyrian architecture, and another which ought not to be
overlooked is the presence of a cuneiform library in the palace
of Assurbanipal at Nineveh, the earliest known library in Asia,
and centuries older than the oldest royal library among the
Greeks.

While the Oriental world, or a large part of it, had been
slowly coming under the domination of Assyria, the most fun-
damental changes had been going on in southeastern Europe
as far back as the fifteenth century B.c. The pastures of inner
Asia which stretch westward around the north end of the
Caspian and along the northern shores of the Black Sea to the
mouths of the Danube, have for ages been a great inter-conti-
nental sluice-way along which the nomadic peoples of Asia have
swept into Europe. Somewhere, along the Asiatic stretches of
these grass lands in the third millennium B.c., there lived a
group of nomads whom we call Indo-Europeans. Some of their
descendants shifted southward along the east side of the Cas-
pian to enter India, as the Sanscrit peoples; while a similar
group pushed southwestward to reach the frontiers of Baby-
lonia eventually as the Medes and Persians. Others drifting
westward along the north side of the Black Sea finally found
their way into the Balkan Peninsula. These were the ances-
tors of the Greeks. Such at least is the more probable recon-
struction growing out of the scanty and difficult evidence now
available. |

Probably by 2000 B.c. these barbarian nomads, the ances-
tors of the Greeks, were driving their flocks southward through
the passes of the Balkans. Reaching southern Greece by 1500
B.C., they had landed in Crete probably by 1400, and before 1000
B.C. the barbarian Greek tribes had taken possession of the re-
maining Greek islands and the coasts of Asia Minor, in short of
the entire #gean world. Thus the wonderful Cretan civilization
which had grown up in southeastern Europe was overwhelmed
and crushed by barbarous invaders who had hardly advanced
beyond the Stone Age life of earlier Europe. Such of the un-
fortunate Cretans as were able to do so took to flight, escaping
southward and eastward across the Mediterranean. .The Pha-
raohs of the declining Egyptian Empire in the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries B.C. were obliged to meet these northern Medi-
terranean fugitives as enemies, and the temple records of
Egypt’s wars at this time reveal to us the fleet of Ramses III.

206 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

1
ae

i‘

Fig. 112. AIGHAN FUGITIVE FLEET DRIVEN FROM CRETH BY THE GREEK IMMIGRA-
TION AND FIGHTING AN ENGAGEMENT WITH EGYPTIAN FLEET OF RAMSES III. ofr
THE SYRIAN COAST. (Harly 12th century B.c.) The scene is sculptured on the wall
of a Theban temple of Ramses III. and is the earliest surviving representation of a
naval battle. The five Cretan vessels may be distinguished from the Egyptian battle-
ships by the fact that the Cretans have all lost their oars. One Cretan ship is over-
turned. The high bow and stern of these northern Mediterranean vessels shows that
they have been copied from the early Egyptian craft, the first sea-going ships (Fig.
84). The Egyptian fleet kept ifs distance and won the battle by the use of archery,
before which the heavy armed Cretans were helpless. (From a drawing in the
author’s “* Ancient Times,’’ by permission of Ginn & Co.)

crushing a fleet of the fleeing Cretans. It is the earliest naval
battle of which we have any representation (Fig. 112). Some
of the Cretans found a new home on the shores of Syria and
Palestine and we are familiar with one group of them as the
Philistines.

Civilization, after having maintained itself for perhaps a
thousand years in extreme southeastern Europe, was thus over-
whelmed and blotted out by the northern Greek barbarians,
who were only prevented by the Mediterranean from extending
their invasion southward and destroying the civilization of
Egypt. We have here a striking illustration of how the Medi-
terranean saved Egypt from a destructive invasion such as
those to which Babylonia and the Mesopotamian world were
continually exposed. Under the shadow of the great civiliza-
tions of the Orient, the rude Greek nomads settled down among
the wreckage of the Cretan and Mycenezan palaces. Cretan
writing, the earliest writing in Europe, disappeared. The
drawings on Greek pottery (Fig. 113) of the eighth century B.c.
are not as good as those of the Paleolithic hunters in the caves
of southern France ten thousand years earlier, and no better
than many made by our own American Indians.

During the flourishing days of the Assyrian Empire, which
stopped Greek colonization in Asia east of Tarsus, the life of
Greece developed slowly under the influences of Oriental civili-
zation. The civilization which thus arose in Europe for the

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 207

second time was exposed to the forces of civilized life in the
Near East which had so long been converging with ever in-
creasing power on the Greek world. The agencies by which
these influences chiefly operated were commercial, and the
routes along which they came were in the main through Asia
Minor and across the Mediterranean. Through Asia Minor
came Babylonian business usages, like credit, and weights and
measures; while coinage, which arose in Asia Minor, reached
the Greeks in the seventh century B.C.

The decline of Egypt and the destruction of the Cretan fleets
left the Mediterranean free to exploitation by the maritime
cities of the Pheenicians, which gained great commercial power
and wealth, and became the common carriers of the Mediter-
ranean after 1000 B.c. The Phoenicians were clever imitators
and their leading cities became the centers of an active indus-
trial life of which the output was a curious composite of Egyp-
tian and Asiatic elements. The latter were in turn a composite
of Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Hittite, but chiefly Sumero-

7REPK PAINTED POTTERY VASE OF THE DIPYLON TYPE DATING

Fig. 1138. ARCHAIC (
FROM TEE EIGHTH CENTURY B.C. A comparison of the crude painted decoration on
this vase with the wonderful Cretan decorated vases like Fig. 92, will illustrate the
collapse of civilization due to the invasion of the cultivated Agean world by the
barbarian Greeks during the latter half of the second millennium p.c. (By courtesy
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.)

208 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 114. SiLveER PLATTER MADE BY PHGNICIAN CRAFTSMEN AND ENGRAVED BY THEM
WITH EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE Motives. Now in the Berlin Museum.

Semitic. Their arts and crafts and industrial processes, like
the making of glass, the pouring of hollow casts, and the pro-
duction of diaphanous linens, they learned from the Egyptians;
while their decorative art combined the vegetable motives and
the sentinel animals of the Nile with the balanced human and
animal figures of the Euphrates (Figs. 114-115).

The Pheenicians learned shipbuilding from the Egyptians
and copied the models of the Egyptian ships which had been
entering their harbors since the thirtieth century B.c. (Fig. 84).
This is quite evident from the paintings of early Phoenician
ships preserved to us in the Egyptian tombs (Fig. 116), and
dating from the fifteenth century B.c. Against the old tend-

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Fie. 115. Ivory COMB MADE BY PHMNICIAN CRAFTSMEN AND DECORATED BY
THEM WITH A LION DRAWN FROM ASSYRIAN Sources. The lion in gorgeously colored
glazed brick was one of a line decorating the wall on both sides of a festival avenue
of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon. If was drawn by the Babylonian architects from
such decorations in the Assyrian palaces (e.g., Fig. 110).

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 209

a { aN i
AME MGR * ce ae

Fig. 116. PH@NIcCIAN SHIPS LANDING AT AN HGYPTIAN MARKET PLACE IN THE
15TH CENTURY B.c. (After Daressy.) The model of the Phoenician craft, with high
bow and stern, shows that the Pheenicians built them in imitation of the earliest
Egyptian sea-going ships (Fig. 84). The Phonician merchants, clearly marked by
their foreign costume, may be seen trafficking in the Egyptian bazaars. It was here
that they learned the arts and crafts and the decorative motives which they then
so freely introduced in their home ports, and transmitted throughout the Mediter-
ranean, and also as far east as Assyria and Babylonia. The scene is taken from a
wall-painting in an Egyptian tomb at Thebes in Upper Egypt.

ency to attribute too great importance to the cultural activities.
of the Phoenicians in the eastern Mediterranean, there has been
a natural reaction; but it has gone much too far, and has over-
looked new and important evidence like the painting of the
Phoenician ships in Fig. 116. Here the Phoenicians are shown
trafficking in the Egyptian bazaars, whence they drew the
processes of industrial art, as well as its decorative motives...
Similarly, unfinished work in ivory has been found in Assyria,,.
still bearing the Phoenician workman’s scribbled notes. As
practisers and distributors of borrowed Oriental arts through-
out a large area in Western Asia, and very widely in the Med-
iterranean world, the Phcenicians played an imposing role in
the early centuries of the last millennium before the Christian
Era. Phoenician merchandise like the ivory comb of Fig. 115.
was common as far west as the Spanish Peninsula, where such
things are found in early burials.

VOL. x.—14.

Howanrp,

O.
President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

lL.

Dr.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE ST. LOUIS MEETING OF
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIA-
TION FOR THE ADVANCE-

MENT OF SCIENCE

THE seventy-second meeting of
the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and the
affiliated national scientific societies,
held in St. Louis from December 29
te January 3, was attended by about
1,200 scientific men. In view of the
fact that several important affiliated
societies were meeting elsewhere,
this attendance must be regarded
as satisfactory and it is certain
that the scientific sessions and the
various addresses, lectures, confer-
ences and other features of the pro-
gram were of great interest and
importance. Thus the large lecture
room used by the physicists was
crowded and the dinner of the bota-
nists was attended by about 200.

The formal opening took place in
the auditorium of the Soldan High
School on Monday evening, Decem-
ber 29, Chancellor Hall, of Wash-
ington University, delivering the ad-
dress of welcome. President Simon
Flexner, director of the laboratories
of the Rockefeller Institute for Med-
ical Research, responded fittingly,
after which he introduced the retir-
ing president, Professor John M.
Coulter, who delivered the address
on “ The Evolution of Botanical Re-
search,” which was printed in the
issue of Science for January 2. At
the conclusion of this address the
revised constitution was read and
unanimously adopted.

Among the measures adopted by
the council were the following:

That the American Meteorological So-
ciety and the Southern Educational So-

ciety, be admitted as affiliated societies.

| New Mexico,

The council further declared itself as look-
ing with favor on the affiliation of any
national society which is interested pri-
marily in scientific research.

That there be authorized the organiza-
tion of members of the association in
all or part of Texas and
such other territory as may seem advis-
able into a Southwestern Division of the
American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science.

That arrangements for closer affiliation
be authorized between the association and
the academies of science of the Central
States.

That the general adoption of the metric
system by national and state governments
be approved.

That the association will look with
favor on any plan approved by the men
of science in the country for the encour-
agement of research in engineering under
the auspices of the government.

That the president be authorized to ap-
point a committee on international auxil-
iary languages to cooperate with a corre-
sponding committee of the International
Research Council.

That the American Association for the
Advancement of Science will be pleased
to cooperate with the National Physical
Education Service in promoting physical
education.

That sectional officers avoid placing on
their programs papers relating to acute
political questions on which public opin-
ion is divided.

That approval be given to measures
under consideration with the Carnegie En-
dowment for International Peace to enable
the British, French and Italian equiv-
alents of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science to send dele-
gates to the meeting to be held a year
hence in Chicago.

That the sum of $4,500 be made avyail-
able to the committee as grants for the
ensuing year.

In accordance with the provision of the
new constitution which calls for an ex-
ecutive committee of eight elected mem-
bers to replace the old committee on
policy the following were elected: J. Meck.
Cattell, H. L. Fairchild, Simon Flexner,
W. J. Humphreys, -D. T. MacDougal, A.
A. Noyes, Herbert Osborn, H. B. Ward.

eer

ae

OV SIMO] 1S | PONSIDS: +0 LAW aN Atty lL Sts Wornvioesey WW resmy 3H

vas Th ry:

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

Dr. L. O. Howard, chief of the
Bureau of Entomology and distin-
guished for his contributions to eco-
nomic entomology, who has served
the association as its permanent sec-
retary for twenty-two years, was
elected president of the association
by unanimous vote. Dr. Howard had
previously stated that in view of the
great enlargement in the work of
the Bureau of Entomology and the
increasing responsibilities of the
office of the permanent secretary of
the association, he felt unable to
continue to hold the two offices.. The
election of a permanent secretary
was consequently referred to the

executive committee with power and.

it is now announced that Dr. Burton

E. Livingston, professor of plant

physiology
University, has been elected to the
office.
tired this year from the active work
of the chair of physics at Cornell
University, for some years chair-
man of the committee on policy of
the association, was elected general
secretary.

The meeting of the association
next year will be held in Chicago
and this will be one of larger con-
vocation week meetings held at
four-year intervals in Washington,

in the Johns Hopkins.

Dr. E. L. Nichols, who re-,

213

the annual dues to fivedollars. This
change had been recommended, after
careful consideration, by the com-
mittee on policy and the council and
was adopted by unanimous vote at
the opening general session of the
association. The increase in the dues
only meets the general situation. All
the expenses of the association have
increased in some such proportion,
except the salaries of the officers,
and it would be unfair to them and
a bad example to other institutions,
to retain nominal salaries paid in
depreciated dollars. This has been
done in the case of teachers in many
institutions of learning and for sci-
entific men in the service of the gov-
ernment, while commensurate with
the increased cost of living have
been the increases in wages for
many of the working classes, and of
the earnings of most professional
and business men.

Institutions of learning and the
scientific bureaus of the government
have suffered alarming losses from
their staffs. At the present time

many men of science are hesitating

New York and Chicago, in which)

all the affiliated societies are ex-
pected to cooperate. It will prob-
ably be the largest and most impor-
tant meeting of scientific men hith-
erto held in this country or else-
where.

THE DUES OF THE AMERICAN
ASSOCIATION -AND THE
SALARIES OF SCI-
ENTIFIC MEN

THE revised constitution of the

American Association for the Ad-.
vancement of Science, as presented |

at the Baltimore meeting, was
adopted at St. Louis with only one
substantial change—an increase of

between loyalty to their institutions
and research work, on the one hand,
and duty to the their families and
the attraction of new opportunities,
on the other. In one government
bureau three men are now holding
open offers of twenty to thirty thou-
sand dollars a year to see whether
the Congress will increase their sala-
ries to six or eight thousand.

If men are driven away from po-
sitions where they are using their
ability and their training for the
general good, and if those who re-
main are compelled to use time that
should be devoted to research or
teaching to earning money from out-
side sources, the future of science
and with it the welfare of the nation
will be jeopardized. A generation
might pass before there would be
recovery from the resulting demor-
alization. It would be indeed humil-
iating to conquer Germany in war

Sir WILLIAM OSLER,

Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford and Honorary Pro-
fessor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University, by whose death at the age
of seventy years, the Anglo-American world loses its good and great physician.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

and then permit it to surpass us in
the arts of peace.

It is certainly unfortunate that
the American Association should be
compelled to increase its dues, as
measured in dollars, at a time when
all costs are advancing to such an
extent that those living on fixed
salaries find it extremely difficult to
make both ends meet. It would, how-
ever, be a still more serious misfor-
tune to permit the work of the asso-
ciation and its publications to be
crippled. These are important fac-
tors in the advancement of science
and in impressing on the general
public the place of science in modern
civilization and the need of main-
taining research work for the na-
tional welfare.

The meetings of the association
and the publications going to its
members and read by a wide public
are forces making for appreciation
of the value of science to society and
the need of giving adequate support
to scientific research and to scientific
men. Each member of the associa-
tion contributes to this end and does
his part to improve the situation for
others as well as for himself. It is
consequently to be hoped that no one
will permit his membership to lapse
on account of the necessary increase
in nominal dues, but, on the con-
trary, that every member use all
possible efforts to increase the mem-
bership of the association and to.
promote its influence and its use-
fulness.

GRANTS FOR RESEARCH OF
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION

AT the St. Louis meeting of the
association, the council assigned the
sum of $4,500 to be expended by the
Committee on Grants for Research
during the year 1920. The members
of the committee for the current
year are: Henry Crew, chairman;
W. B. Cannon, R. T. Chamberlin,
G. N. Lewis, George T. Moore, G. H. |

Dil

Parker, Robert M. Yerkes, and Joel
Stebbins, secretary.

The committee will hold a meeting
in Washington in the month of
April, when the distribution of the
grants will be made. Applications
for grants may be made under the
general rules given below, which
were adopted in 1917; but the com-
mittee especially invites suggestions
from scientific men who may happen
to know of cases where young or
poorly supported investigators would
be greatly helped by small grants.

1. Applications for grants may be made
to the member of the committee repre-
senting the science in which the work
falls or to the chairman or secretary of
the committee. The committee will not
depend upon applications, but will make
inquiry as to the way in which research
funds can be best expended to promote
the advancement of science. In such in-
quiry the committee hopes to have the
cooperation of scientific men and espe-
cially of the sectional committees of the
association. ;

2. The committee will meet at the time
of the annual meeting of the assoclation
or on the eall of the chairman, Business
may be transacted and grants may be
made by correspondence. In such cases
the rules of procedure formulated by the
late Professor Pickering and printed in
the issue of Science for May 238, 1913,
will be followed.

8. Grants may be made to residents of
any country, but preference will be given
to residents of America.

4. Grants of sums of $500 or less are
favored, but larger appropriations may
be made. In some cases appropriations

| may be guaranteed for several years In

advance.

5. Grants, as a rule, will be made for
work which could not be done or would
be very difficult to do without the grant.
A grant will not ordinarily be made to
defray living expenses.

6. The committee will not undertake to
supervise in any way the work done by
those who receive the grants. Unless
otherwise provided, any apparatus or ma-
terials purchased will be the property of
the individual receiving the grant.

7. No restriction is made as to publica-
tion, but the recipient of the grant should

!in the publication of his work acknowl-

edge the aid given by the fund.
8. The recipient of the grant is ex-
pected to make to the secretary of the

216

committee a report in December of each |
year while the work is in progress and a |
final report when the work is accomplished.
Each report should be accompanied by a
financial statement of expenditures, with
vouchers for the larger items when these
can be supplied without difficulty.

9. The purposes for which grants are
made and the grounds for making them
will be published.

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

WE record with regret the death
of Richard C. MacLaurin, president
of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, previously professor of
mathematics in the University of
New Zealand and of mathematical
physics in Columbia University, and
of George Macloskie, professor emer-
itus of biology in Princeton Univer-
sity.

OFFICIAL notice has been issued by
the French Academy of Sciences of
the award of the Bordin prize in
mathematics to Dr. S. Lefschetz, as-
sistant professor of mathematics in
the University of Kansas, and of

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the Lalande prize in astronomy to
Dr. V. M. Slipher, director of the
Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff.—
Dr. Jacques Loeb, of the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, Dr.

Robert Andrews Millikan, of the

University of Chicago, Dr. Arthur
Gordon Webster, of Clark Univer-
sity, and Dr. W. W. Campbell, of
Lick Observatory, have been elected
honorary members of the Royal In-
stitution of Great Britain and Ire-
land.

AT the dinner of the alumni of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy, held in Cambridge on January
10, it was announced that the en-
dowment fund of four million dol-
lars had been obtained by the alumni,
thus securing the gift of an equal
sum from the hitherto anonymous
“Mr. Smith.” It was revealed that
“Mr. Smith,’ who has now given
eleven million dollars to the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, is
Mr. George Eastman, president of
the Eastman Kodak Company.

THE SCIENTIFIC
MONTHLY

MARCH, 1920

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION’

By Professor EDWIN B. WILSON
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

1. Unrest in Physical Science.—What you ask me to perform
in presenting to you some discussion of the new conception of
the categories of space and time suggested by Einstein’s treat-
ment of universal gravitation is a task that I accept reluctantly,
even among friends and philosophers, because the matter is so
new that an adequate judgment can no more be given to-day
than a satisfactory judgment upon Maxwell’s theory, whether
in its philosophical or its physical significances, could have
been given in the early days when he was forming it in his
memoirs and before the appearance of his great treatise.

There is moreover, to-day, in the physical world a general
unrest, little realized by non-physicists, and quite unlike the
condition, I believe, existing fifty years ago. This unrest leads
physicists to alternate, according to their temper, between a
despair of ever settling the physical bases of the many new
facts which experiment is thrusting upon them and a desperate
grasping at any theoretical straw that offers even a feeble
chance of support in the flood. In this generally febrile con-
dition of our science it is particularly unsafe to draw philosoph-
ical conclusions.

When I read books or essays on philosophy that which im-
presses me most, next to their appearance of getting nowhere,
is their apparent attempt to get universal judgments. I realize
that much of this impression is probably due to a misconception
on my part of the technical terms employed by philosophers.
Such words and phrases as “ Absolute,” “ original,” “ ultimate

1 Read before the Royce Club, Boston, January 18, 1920. The first ad-

dress to the Club, by its Founder, Professor Josiah Royce, appeared -in
Science, 39, April 17, 1914, pp. 551-566.

VOL, x.—15.

218 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

ground,” “the eternal and immutable,” “final causes,” “ first
causes” and “comprehensive view of the universe as a whole”
are quite unintelligible to me, although the last which contains
“comprehensive,” “ universe,’ and “as a whole” seems on its
face to be so far emphatic of something that I might reasonably
expect to have a precise idea of what that something may be. To
me this sort of phrase represents merely emotional aspiration.’

I say this in no spirit of contumely; for I shall probably use
to-night many technical terms of but poor intelligibility to
others—try as I shall to avoid them—and, besides, I suppose
that next to the philosopher nobody so insistently tries to reach
the “ultimate” as the theoretical physicist!

2. The Dynamical View of Nature.—I have spoken of the
scientific unrest. The world seems to run in waves of excite-
ment and of hum-drum, of discovery and of codification.

Two hundred years ago Newton set up the fundamental laws
of kinetics and of gravitation. Little by little the major part
of accurately known Nature came under the régime of these
laws. <A hundred years ago Laplace had shown the marvelous
accuracy with which astronomical observations eould be ac-
counted for, and when Ampére and other continental workers
came to develop the theory of electric and magnetic phenomena
they followed the astronomical model. Stokes and Kelvin were
students of dynamics and exponents of the dynamical explana-
tion of Nature.

There was a time some fifty years ago when there was in
the minds of many a belief that a dynamical account of the
world at large was clearly foreshadowed. Maxwell, to be sure,
gave up action at a distance; but, trained as he was in the Eng-
lish school, his point of view was largely dynamical—the dy-
namics of media, of the special medium known as the ether. He
tried, and Kelvin long continued to try, to construct a mechan-
ical model of the ether. There were bizarre theories of matter
on a hydrodynamical basis—the atom founded on the persist-
ence of vortices in perfect fluids, the atom built upon the theory
of sinks and sources, and finally, not so long since, the general
structure raised by Reynolds on the basis of a granular ether.

So happily did phenomena fit into the dynamical theory of

2May it be that some philosophers mistake emphasis for precision
and description for definition? In times past mathematicians have used
terms like “ infinite,” “ infinity,” “ infinitesimal,” “sum of a series,” “ dif-
ferential,” “imaginary,” without sufficient precision in definition with
resulting inconclusiveness of proof, fallibility of analysis, and bitter pole-

mic even though confining themselves to much simpler questions than phi-
losophers treat.

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 219

Maxwell and so near were we to a satisfactory material basis
for the all-pervading medium that not a few of our ablest physi-
cists two or three decades ago felt that we had already entered
the hum-drum period of physics where the chief contributions
were bound to be merely the more careful determination of
physical constants—we were entering upon the reign of the
“next significant figure.” That there was need for this empha-
sis on accurate measurement will be granted by all who realize
the pitifully inaccurate condition of electrical measurements,
the large degree of indetermination in our standard electrical
units, which then existed.

3. The Flood of New Phenomena.—As a prediction, how-
ever, of the future of physical science, the hum-drum forecast
was bad. Perhaps the naturalist is too wise to hazard a guess
that the future of his science is largely routine. But the outlook
of some physicists in the middle nineties was not unlike that of
the classifying naturalist who should hold that the thing best
worth while was to get some money and some quinine and go
in search of a new gnat in South America or a novel Nymphza
in Africa—quite blissfully ignorant of the great new realms of
biology that would be opened by Mendel.

In the last twenty-five years we have learned that the atom
is not indivisible, but consists of small charged particles or
electrons. The physicist likes to have these particles in circular
motion; the chemist wants them at rest except for oscillations
about a position of equilibrium. We have learned about X-rays
—some things about them—and through them we are learning
much about many things. We have learned of radioactivity and
the self-transmutation of certain elements. We have learned
that radiant energy, at least in some of its manifestations,
Seems to possess a discrete or discontinuous structure, this
leading to the perplexities of the quantum theory—perplexities
not of physics alone but of mathematics and probability as well.
Here is cause enough for unrest.

It may be that to give a satisfactory treatment of quanta we
shall have recourse to a belief that space or time or both are
themselves discontinuous and that their seeming continuity is
but a statistical affair like the continuity of a fluid or solid.
There is apparently a long-period oscillation in physics between
the continuous and the discontinuous, and there is no reason
why in some of its excursions the pendulum should not reach
space and time.

4, The Results of Careful Experiment.—It is not only the
great new things we have learned that trouble us; refinement of

220 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

measurement is itself a two-edged sword. Our physical laws
are designed to correlate our observations. The correlation
may remain good while our measurements are good only to
three significant figures and become impossibly bad when we
can determine five or six figures.

It has been known for some time that the perihelion of Mer-
cury advances 42” per century, and Newton’s law of gravitation
has given no wholly satisfactory account of this advance; there
are also some slight unexpected secular variations in the moon’s
motion—enough perhaps to be visible to the naked eye after
some thousand years. So either Newton’s law is not perfect —
or there must be unknown masses, of relatively small amount,
circulating in the solar system.

Turning to another branch of physics we have the exceed-
ingly accurate experiment of Michelson and Morley wherein a
ray of light is split, part being sent along the direction of the
earth’s motion to one mirror and back, part being sent an equal
distance along the perpendicular direction and back. Now if
the light travels in the ether with a velocity dependent only
upon the elastic or quasi-elastic properties of the ether, the
light going in the direction of the earth’s motion and back will,
owing to the motion of the mirror, travel a trifle farther than
that going in the perpendicular direction. The difference in
path amounts under favorable circumstances to about one half
of one millionth of one per cent. of the path. This is not much,
to be sure, but it should show very plainly in such accurate
work as is done in interferometry, and it does not show.

One possible explanation would be that the earth drags the
ether with it just as it drags its atmosphere; but there arise
serious difficulties when this suggestion is pursued. Another
explanation might be that there is a shortening of matter in the
direction of motion—and this has been followed up by Lorentz.

5. The Electric Theory of Matter.—The suggestion of short-
ening is not unnatural on the electromagnetic view of matter.
When a charged sphere moves, the lines of force, instead of re-
maining isotropically divergent from the sphere, crowd up to-
ward the equatorial plane perpendicular to the direction of
motion and leave the poles of the sphere in the direction of
motion with a smaller superficial charge. The tendency of the
sphere is to shorten in the direction of motion. Now if all
matter is made up of electrons, and if the electrons themselves
tend to shorten in the direction of motion, with the attendant
alterations in their field of force, it is not unreasonable to sup-

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 221

pose that all matter suffers the same shortening when moving
through the ether.

The shortening is greater as the velocity of motion is greater.
For the earth which moves only 30 km. per sec. in its orbit
about the sun, the shortening is only a few inches in 8,000 miles.
For an electron which may move at 9 tenths the velocity of
light, the shortening is more than half, and if an electron should
move at 99 hundredths of the velocity of light, its diameter in the
direction of motion would, on this hypothesis, be only one
seventh its original amount so that the ST ou eas would appear
disc-like instead of spherical.

There is another effect of the Le which is calculable,
and that is the gain in electrical energy, and the gain in inertia.
A flattened electron when accelerated in the line of its motion
tends to become flatter; part of the work done by the applied
force must go into crowding the lines of force toward the equa-
torial plane and hence only part remains over to accelerate the
mass. The result is that for a given force the acceleration is
less than if the flattening did not take place, or to put it differ-
ently, the mass or inertia appears greater. Thus the electron
has conceivably two masses or inertias: one due to its mechan-
ical mass, the other to its electrical inertia, and the latter part
varies with the velocity in a perfectly definite way. When the
experiment of determining the inertia of the moving electron is
tried, it is found that apparently all the inertia is that of elec-
trical origin with none left over for ordinary mechanical inertia.

This discovery suggested very strongly that the day for a
mechanical explanation of nature has definitely passed and that
henceforth, at least for the immediate future, the attempt should
be made to give an electrical foundation to mechanics and to all
natural phenomena.? J. J. Thomson, as a matter of fact, long
previously had shown theoretically that a charged material
sphere has additional inertia by virtue of its charge, but for
ordinary spheres the amount of added electrical inertia is in-
considerable compared with the mass of the material. It was
only when the infinitesimal and relatively enormously charged
electron became available for direct experimental work that the

3 The attempt to give a unitary basis to the whole of physical theory
has an irresistible fascination and physical theory advances by the strife
between this monadic ideal and the ever-growing volume of physical fact.
It is like the contest between armor plate and the armor-piercing projec-
tile. Sometimes one appears to be winning, sometimes the other; on the
whole, it is a draw. What we have at any time is not one physical theory,

but a congeries of theories. See a note by G. W. Stewart, Science, 51,
1920, pp. 95-86.

222 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

amount of the electrical inertia and the law of its increase with
velocity could be determined.

6. The Old Relativity.—This idea of shortening in the di-
rection of motion was physically satisfying, but not so philo-
sophically. Space and time are not absolute. Every point of
space is just like every other and the only position known or
knowable on the basis of Euclidean geometry is relative posi-
tion. There has been since Newton’s time, and before, a natural
belief in a principle of relativity. Neither absolute position nor
absolute uniform velocity are determinable.

The laws of motion, when resolved far enough, show this.
We have to do with accelerations of particles and the value of
the acceleration of a point is unchanged when the position of
the point is specified by reference to any set of axes whether at
rest or moving uniformly parallel to themselves. (The accelera-
tion is affected by a rotation of the axes.) Moreover, the ac-
celeration is not altered by any choice of an initial instant from
which to measure time. Finally, as the action and reaction
between two particles lie in the line joining them and are sup-
posed to depend only on the distance between the particles, the
forces which enter into the equations are expressed in terms of
quantities (7. e., distances) which are independent of the choice
of axes. Thus arises a belief in relativity.

It is true that the equations of motion for definite bodies
moving under the definite conditions inherent in some particular
problem may not be analyzed down far enough to reach the
simple invariant form indicated. For example, a resistance
may be taken as a function of a velocity—a statistical form of
expression which gives the gross resultant action of all the
myriads of air particles on a bullet. Yet we should believe that
if each gaseous molecule were considered, the forces would be
representable as functions of the distance; and indeed even
when we insert a velocity into the equations of motion it is
always regarded as a relative velocity.

We have then in ordinary mechanics a full-fledged, if some-
times quietly ignored, principle of relativity. All that can be
treated or known is relative motion when translation is con-
cerned. Newton noticed the difference arising in the case of
rotation, which of course involves acceleration even when the
angular velocity is uniform.

7. The Absolute Ether.—Return now to the ether. This is
regarded as a medium filling all space and fixed except for its
tremors which show us light. The ether furnishes an absolute

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 223

material space, so to speak—and motion becomes conceptually
motion relative to the ether. But as no effect of motion of the
ether itself (except its tremors about its mean position) has
been detected, there is no reason why the ether in its mean posi-
tion should not be regarded as an absolute and motion relative
to it as absolute motion. If this be so, those who desire ‘‘abso-
lutes ” have their innings.

Here is where the famous Michelson-Morley experiment
comes in. If the ether is at rest, pervading all matter but not
dragged with it, an interference experiment should clearly
show the drift of the earth through the ether—not only the drift
due to the motion about the sun, but the drift to the motion of
the solar system towards its apex. And the result of the experi-
ment was negative. So also were the results of other experi-
ments which by other means should detect the drift. These
negative results may all be explained by shrinkage in the line
of motion. :

Why then should this effective physical explanation be philo-
sophically unsatisfying? Because. Just because. This is “a
woman’s reason.” It is a good one. I know of none more con-
vincing. Perhaps part of the dissatisfaction is due to our long-
continued belief in relativity fortified by a growing distrust of
any absolute background which refuses in any way to disclose
itself as in motion relative to us.

If lengths in the direction of motion shorten, our measuring
instruments shorten so as exactly to counterbalance the abbre-
viation of the thing measured. Why then should we believe in
the shortening at all? May it not be that the shortening itself
is only relative? That is, if A and B, being in relative motion,
observe a distance PQ with meter sticks which are identical
when at rest, A and B will differ on the measure of PQ by per-
haps one half of one millionth of one per cent.; but why should
B claim that it is A who is in motion and who has not corrected
for his shortening—why may not A equally well claim that it is
B who is in motion and has not corrected for his shortening?
And if a third party comes in as referee, and makes a finding
different from both because neither is at rest relative to him,
what then?

8. The New Relativity, Space and Time.—This sort of ques-
tion did not bother many until Einstein raised it and started out
to solve it by boldly affirming that we must construct our space
and time concepts in such a way as to avoid these discrepancies
and give us a real relativity consonant with physical fact and

224 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

independent of the opinions of different observers as to who is
and who is not in motion.

A fundamental postulate of his theory is that the velocity of
light c—38 < 10!° cm./sec. appears the same to all observers.
This means that velocities do not add according to the ordinary
law. Any velocity compounded with the velocity of light gives
the velocity of light—no more, no less. Two velocities in the
same direction do not compound into the sum of those velocities
but into that sum diminished by a small amount. The geometry
of velocities, so to speak, is non-Euclidean.

A still more striking revision of ideas is necessary relative
to space and time, because these two conceptions become neces-
sarily interrelated, whereas in Newtonian relativity they were
independent. Two observers with relative motion measure
space differently; they measure time differently; they do not
even have the same space and the same time, because the time or
space measure of either depends on the space and time measure
of the other, in such a way that they do not agree even as to the
simultaneity or not of events happening at different positions—
nor do they agree as to the identity or non-identity in position
of two events happening at different times.

A fusion of the time and space concepts into a single time-
and-space idea is necessary to bring simplicity out of the con-
fusion. What this does to the metaphysician who is interested
in settling “ what it is that we know and how it is that we know
it” is more than I can say. Such discussions as I have read of
the categories of space and time would seem to have very little
left as an ultimate residuum.

9. Knowledge of Nature.—In an article on metaphysics® by
a philosopher with obvious sympathetic leanings toward Aris-
totelian methods and an Aristotelian realism I find this quali-
fication in summary: “ Aristotle could not know enough, phys-
ically, about Nature to understand its matter, or its motions, or
its forces; and consequently he fell into the error of supposing,
etc.” Now relatively speaking there is a good chance that Aris-
totle in his day did know more, physically, about Nature than a
philosopher of to-day can know. There was much less known
about Nature then and the sort of thing known was much
simpler, and Aristotle was a profound student of Nature with

4TIf B’s velocity appears to A as u and C’s velocity appears to B as v,
then the composition of the velocities is by definition that velocity which C
appears to have to A. In ordinary mechanics this is w+, in relativist

mechanics it is not.
5 See “ Metaphysics,” Encye. Brit., 11th ed., Vol. XVIII.

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 225

the best resources of his time largely at his disposal. Aristotle
probably knew Nature better than a physicist to-day knows
physics or a chemist chemistry.

Here again I must state that I am not trying to be con-
tumacious toward the philosophers in this group. I appreciate
thoroughly that our Founder tried to collect into this aggrega-
tion students of many a field for the very purpose of pooling our
philosophical interests and our scientific information of mutual
philosophic import. I wish to emphasize merely this: That no-
body at any time can know enough about Nature to understand
its matter, or its motions, or its forces and that consequently
everybody will fall into error if he goes to supposing this or that
or anything else which is of the sort that later discoveries may
upset.

Certainly it is difficult to ascertain what it is that can not
by any future development be upset—and as I understand them
this it is, and this alone, that interests many philosophers. With
Einstein’s relativity of 1905 space and time as separate things
disappeared into the space-time fusion. Does everybody believe
this? By no means. The great majority are still either indif-
ferent to it, because it does not immediately affect their work,
or set against it because it is not “ physical” but “ philosophical.”

10. Force, Real or Fictitious.—Query: When is a force not
a force? Answer: When it is a “reversed effective force.” To
amplify this conundrum I will recall to your mind the general
principle of d’Alembert to the effect that: The impressed forces
acting on a body taken with the reversed effective forces form
a system in equilibrium. This amounts really to transposing
the terms in the equation Ma—=F' so that 0—=F—Ma. The
force F' is the impressed force, the force — Ma, the negative of
the mass times the acceleration, is by definition the reversed
effective force.

This principle is of great convenience. It enables the engi-
neer to treat a problem of motion in a curve by the introduction
of the fictitious “centrifugal force,” which is of course the re-
versed effective force—not a true physical force (the physical
force is centripetal). By this fiction the force-analysis relative
to the body in curvilinear motion is reduced to a simple static
diagram.

Suppose we are in a uniformly moving train and cannot look
out. Thanks to the principle of relativity, all goes nicely accord-
ing to the Newtonian laws, until we strike a curve. Then every-
thing has an outward acceleration—apparently. Really there is

226 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

no outward acceleration. The bodies are merely trying to main-
tain themselves in uniform motion in a straight line—at least
this is the interpretation we have come to put on the phe-
nomenon since Newton’s time.

Now as a matter of fact we are on a very smoothly running
train all our life; but the earth turns with so small an angular
velocity that it has been only in recent times that it has become
convenient, and consequently real, among scientists, to regard
the world as turning. And only in still more recent times have
refined experiments such as those with Foucault’s pendulum
and with gyrostats shown us before our very eyes this rotation
of our frame of reference. We may regard the earth as non-
rotating if we choose, but the introduction of “ centrifugal” and
“Coriolis” forces which are fictitious reversed effective forces.
Indeed, for the solution of such problems the introduction of
these fictitious forces is generally more convenient than to use
a fixed frame of reference, even though we know better than to
adopt as a philosophy a non-rotating earth and as physically
existing the fictitious forces in question. We are very wise
about things we have long since come to believe.

But just suppose that somebody tells us that the force of
gravity is physically non-existing quite as much as the cen-
trifugal or Coriolis force, and that the reason we think that
gravity is real is essentially the same that leads the untutored
mind to believe there is a physical force acting to move objects
to one side when a train goes around a curve—namely, an un-
happily ignorant view of Nature. This is what Einstein asserts.

11. The Space-Time Path.—He goes further and maintains
that instead of every particle of matter attracting every other
particle according to the Newtonian law, each particle goes its
way on the shortest or straightest path possible, when both time
and space are considered in a single space-time manifold.

That the path of the planets is really nearly straight may
easily be seen. In the motion about the sun the earth turns
through about 1 degree per day and departs from its recti-
linear motion by 22,000 kilometers in 2,600,000 when space
alone is considered. But, using the velocity of light as a stand-
ard, 1 second of time is equal to 300,000 kilometers of distance.
Hence in a day, which is 86,400 seconds, the advance in time is
the equivalent of some 26 billion kilometers, while the motion in
the path is only one ten thousandth as much and the motion
across the path is only 22,000 kilometers or less than one mil-
lionth as much.

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 227

In the space path we have a departure per day from recti-
linear motion of about one part in a hundred; on the space-time
path the departure from rectilinear motion (motion with uni-
form velocity) is about one part in a million, which represents
a much smaller curvature—the path is nearly straight.

This may all be made clearer by regarding the space-time
path as constructed in the following manner. Draw from the
sun perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s orbit a line which
shall represent the time-axis and disregard the third spatial
dimension. Now for each km. that the earth moves around in
its orbit, it must be considered to move in time by 10,000 km.
The path of the earth in space and time on this diagram is there-
fore a helix with an extremely steep pitch winding once per
year about the cylinder standing in the earth’s orbit but ad-
vancing ten thousand billion km. while “circulating” one bil-
lion km.

Such a helix departs very little from a generator (vertical
element) of the cylinder and is nearly straight. Not much
quantitative change in our space-time measurements, however
great the qualitative change might be in our space-time concept,
might make the space-time path a geodesic or shortest path in a
curve space-time manifold. Einstein shows how to make the
change.

The mathematics is complicated; it depends on the theory
of quadratic differential forms which to me seems perhaps the
most intricate branch of pure mathematics and is at all events
one unfortunately little studied in America—or anywhere else
except in Italy. Einstein himself stumbled many times before
he succeeded, not without the aid of others, in making the
change he desired, but his progress toward his objective was
relentless and must have required both a keen imagination and
an iron will.

12. “Curved” Space.—A word about curved space. This
is a difficult concept to non-mathematicians. All will admit that a
two-dimensional spherical surface is curved in three dimensions.
The difficulty is in seeing how a person limited to two dimen-
sions in his motions and without any imagination of a third
dimension could conclude from his observations on the spherical
surface that the surface was not flat but curved. Or how we,
limited to three dimensions, could by observations in three di-
mensions decide that our space was curved. Or, still worse, how
we, limited to four dimensions of space and time, could by ob-
servation determine that our space-time manifold was curved.

228 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Let us consider the case of the spherical surface and com-
pare it with that of the plane. Suppose the plane inhabitant
selects an origin O and a line OL issuing from it and specifies the
portion of a point P by the distance OP of P from O and the angle
POL giving the “bearing” of P relative to OL (polar coordi-
nates). Then he will find that the distance between two nearby
radial lines OP and OP’ at equal distances OP=s from the
origin O will be the product of OP=s and the infinitesimal
angle POP’, and that the length of the circle about O as center
and with OP as radius is 2xOP = 2rs.

Now the inhabitant of the sphere will find a very different
result by the similar procedure. He selects his origin O and line
of zero “bearing” OL. (This line will from our external point
of view be a great circle, but from his point of view a straight
line or geodesic, because its curvature being wholly normal to
his space is not directly perceptible.) He will find the infini-
tesimal distance at any point between two nearby lines OP and
OP’ not as OP times the angle POP’ but as this product multi-
plied by sin s/a-—s/a and the whole periphery of the circle
equidistant from O not as 2xOP but as 27OP multiplied by the
same factor, where a is some constant.

The difference between the results

2rs and 27s xX (sins/a—s/a)

for the perimeter of circles of radius OP =s is surely significant
of something. You may call it significant of the curvature of
the sphere even though you attach no other significance to the
word curvature. It is indeed probable that the use of the word
curvature here is attributable to our three-dimensional view of
the sphere.

When we work in our flat three dimensions we find the area
of a spherical surface of radius OP to be 4,OP?; if we should
find it to be something else such as 4rOP? X (sin s/a—s/a)? we
should attribute this to some property of our space and seek to
interpret the constant a relative to the space. We may or may
not speak of our space as curved but we do at least recognize
that the formula for the area of a sphere of radius OP is not
directly proportional to the square of OP when OP is large
though it is when OP is infinitesimal relative to the constant a.

In the Newtonian relativity space was flat and independent
of time; in the Einstein relativity of 1905 space and time had to
be considered together but the manifold thus obtained was still
flat and no special account was taken of gravitation, the theory
was essentially electromagnetic in the sense that it was fitted to

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 229

the electrical conception of Nature; in the Einstein new rela-
tivity space and time must still be considered together but the
space-time manifold has become curved and the curvature has
been so adjusted that the major effects of gravitation, as ordi-
narily considered, have been accounted for by the curvature
of the space-time manifold so that every particle of matter pur-
sues a geodesic or straightest path in the four-dimensional
manifold.

The further explanation of detail is complicated by the fact
that there are different sorts of curvature. Consider again the
spherical surface. There is one curvature, called the mean
curvature, which is estimated relative to the radius and is ex-
actly equal to the reciprocal of the radius, 1/a. There is another
curvature, called the total curvature, which is estimated rela-
tive to the square of the radius or to the area and is taken as
equal to the reciprocal of the square of the radius, 1/a?. On
the sphere both curvatures are constant; in the plane both are
zero. On a cylindrical surface of radius a, the mean curvature
is 1/2a, the total curvature is zero, both are constant.

An interesting class of surfaces is that formed by soap films
stretched across various forms of wire. The film has to stick to
the peripheral wire, but is otherwise free to contract under the
influence of the surface tension of the film. The result is that
the film shrinks into the form of the surface of least area, the
so-called minimal surface, which can span the periphery. Such
surfaces have their mean curvature constantly equal to zero.
They are saddle shaped with as much positive curvature in one
normal section as there is negative curvature in the perpen-
dicular section ; the total curvature of such surfaces is negative
and variable, being zero at the periphery where the film is at-
tached to a segment of straight wire. In stepping up to three
dimensions there are curvatures expressible as reciprocals of
lengths, or of areas, or of volumes, and of these the first two
are types of mean curvature, the last of total curvature.

Generalizations to four dimensions may be made. But when
we have to deal with gravitational effects of matter considered
to be at rest, as is the case with the dynamics of the solar sys-
tem so far as these are attributable to a sun regarded as at rest
(and in abstraction from all perturbative effects) it has been
shown by Levi-Civita that space and time may be separated (as
is also the case in the 1905 relativity where observers agree as
to what is at rest) so that phenomena pass in time and in space.

The three-dimensional space surrounding the central sun is,
however, curved, but with zero mean curvature much as the

230 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

soap film is curved but with no mean curvature. Within the
mass of the sun the mean curvature is not zero, but is intimately
connected with the density of matter or of energy.® For EHin-
stein’s theory is one of energetics.

18. Energy and Mass.—We have stated the theory chiefly
with relation to its modification of our space and time concepts
and with but little account of its underlying physics or philos-
ophy except in so far as concerns the early relativity of 1905.
It is necessary to return to the physics and philosophy of Ein-
stein between 1905 and 1915.

It was seen that the mass or inertia of any electron was
wholly electrical. Now mass according to our older concepts
has two properties—inertia and weight, for both of which
Newton set up the quantitative formulation. Does the electron
weigh? Is the electrical inertia, which is proportional to the
electrical energy, of the electron subject to the law of gravita-
tion? If matter is wholly electrical, the simplest hypothesis is
that the electron does weigh.

A beam of light represents energy; according to Maxwell it
represents also momentum which should be disclosed as the
pressure of light when the light is either absorbed or reflected.
The pressure has been measured. Light, therefore, has the two
principal characteristics of moving matter, energy and mo-
mentum, why should it not have the other two, inertia and
gravitation?

The physicist generalizes on very slight evidence if his
fancy, his esthetic sense, is sufficiently insistent. We have come
to believe’? that every quantity of energy, of whatever sort, rep-
resents just so much mass, that every amount of mass repre-
sents just so much energy of some sort, and that every bit of
energy attracts every other bit of energy just as much as every
particle of matter attracts every other particle—which on the
new theory is really not at all, so that we must state it other-

6 That Einstein’s gravitational theory makes it necessary for us to
think of our space-time manifold as curved I would not say. The non-
Euclidean plane geometry of Lobatchevsky may be developed without
specific reference to the curvature of the Lobatchevskian plane; or it may
be treated as the geometry on a surface of constant negative total curva-
ture such as the pseudosphere; or, by the aid of the Cayleyan system of
measurement, as a type of geometry inside an ellipse or circle in the Eucli-
dean flat plane. See “Geometry,” Encye. Brit., 11th ed., Vol. XI.

7I am here trying merely to state Einstein’s ideas as I understand
them, as throughout this paper, without wishing to give the impression
that all of these ideas are yet universally accepted or even certain to be-

come widely accepted. The theory is still young and may succumb to in-
fant diseases instead of to general disintegration after a ripe old age.

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 231

wise, namely, that every particle of energy puts its appropriate
crimp into our space-time manifold. Or to give a better phras-
ing, departures of our space-time manifold from flatness are
correlated definitely with what we otherwise term energy.

The numerical relation between mass in grams and energy
in ergs is this: The mass is the energy divided by the square of
the velocity of light. Thus one gram of matter represents
9 10% ergs or over 21 billion calories. Conversely, a hot
brick is heavier than a cold one—it has more mass by’ the
amount of heat added if measured in ergs and divided by
9x10, To heat 1 kg. of water 100° C. requires about
4.2 < 10? ergs; the increase in mass or weight is therefore only
about 5 millionths of a milligram. If there were any way of
making even a small part of the energy latent in matter avail-
able, our supply of useful energy would be enormously in-
creased: It may be that the sun is in a condition where such
conversion is going on. Radioactive matter is in such a con-
dition.

14. Hinsteinian Physics.—But to return now to light re-
garded as suffering attraction because, being energy, it is mass.
A simple calculation of the deviation of a ray of starlight pass-
ing close to the sun on its way to our eye shows that on the New-
tonian theory the deviation would be 0.87” and would fall off
inversely as the distance of the periphelion from the center of
the sun. (In the astronomical work of determining parallaxes,
0.87” is a very large quantity, larger than any stellar parallax.)
This was Einstein’s first estimate. When he had formulated his
complete theory, a new calculation showed that, on the curved
space-time hypothesis, the deflection should be twice as much,
namely, 1.75”.

The solar eclipse of last spring gave an opportunity to meas-
ure the deflection which was found to be in satisfactory accord
with the new theory, not with the ordinary Newtonian. The
report of these findings as presented at a recent meeting of the
Royal Society was the occasion for the newspaper interest in
the obsolescence of Newton.

Another fact that was really the cause of an early wide-
spread interest in Einstein’s work on the part of astronomers
was that from his theory a calculation of the motion of Mercury
showed an advance of the periphelion of 42” per century, the
amount that had so long defied satisfactory explanation.

A third consequence of the theory is that light originating
near a great mass such as the sun should be of lower frequency
than if originating near a small mass like the earth; the lines in

232 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the sun’s spectrum when compared with laboratory standards
should be shifted toward the red by a minute amount much as
if the sun were traveling away from the earth.

This prediction has been subjected to a most searching ex-
perimental analysis at Mt. Wilson and remains unverified,
though if the effect existed, it ought to have been found. The
phenomenon may ultimately be found or its absence satisfac-
torily explained. On the other hand the deflection of rays of
light by the sun, as solar eclipses are again searched, may be
found to be absent or may be attributable to refraction in an
extremely tenuous solar upper atmosphere.

There are, moreover, some cosmographical speculations by ©
Einstein relative to the finiteness of our sidereal universe, and
the distribution of matter in it, which I should mention if there
were time. Cosmography, however, has become a large science
in itself, in the last few years, with tolerably definite and highly
interesting conclusions which should be treated in their entirety,
and to this whole the present contributions of Einstein’s theory
are, of course, small.

15. Hinsteinian Philosophy.*—Our interest here is primarily
with the philosophical and there is one fundamental view of
Einstein’s which seems to have been his guiding star through
his earlier and his later relativity. In 1905 he desired to con-
struct a theory independent of the rest or state of uniform
motion of any observer—certainly a philosophical ideal.

Later he introduced his “ postulate of equivalence’ wherein
he states that from observations in a closed system (our rail-
road train) an observer should be unable to tell whether he
were at rest in a gravitational field or in motion with a uniform
acceleration. Thus not only can the isolated observer not de-
termine his absolute motion (velocity), he can not tell how
much of the force he feels may be due to attracting masses and
how much of it to his own acceleration. This is a reasonable
philosophic idea or physical assumption.

We all know that we feel lighter in an elevator moving with
a downward acceleration whether this be in starting down-
ward or in stopping toward the top of a rise. And we have all
heard the more complicated conditions arising in flight, and the
indetermination which arises thereunder, discussed by aviators
when telling of flights in clouds.

One can see in the equivalence postulate the germ of the

8 Reference should be made to Science, 51, Jan. 2, 1920, pp. 8-10, where
Einstein gives his own statement. See also “Relativity Theories in
Physics” by R. C. Tolman in a forthcoming number of the General Elec-
tric Review, Schenectady.

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 233

idea that gravitation is a fictitious force, and the possibility
that an observer by his own measurements would come to some
space-time conception which in itself should cover the phe-
nomena ordinarily attributed to gravitating masses.

Another proposition which guided Hinstein was that the
laws of nature, whatever they be, should be expressible in such
a@ manner as to remain valid when any system whatsoever of
time and space coordinates be used. This insistence on a gen-
eral invariantive or covariantive statement of law is respon-
sible for much of the mathematical difficulty in the formulation
of the theory, but we have the author’s testimony that it was of
considerable heuristic value.

The relativity principle whether old or new (1905) regard-
ing velocity and the equivalence postulate regarding gravitation
and acceleration are types of a “philosophy of ignorance” such
as is often met in the theory of probability, in the “‘ principle of
sufficient reason,” in arguments from symmetry, ete. It does
valiant service for the wise, but is a dangerous tool for the
really ignorant.

This method in science may be called the philosophic if it be
desired to have a phrase contrapuntal with the scientific method
in philosophy® concerning which Mr. Hoernle spoke to us at our
last meeting. The meaning of the adjective is, however, not
positive but comparative and reaches out toward the super-
lative in either case only as the adjectives philosophic and scien-
tific are conceived in their narrowest senses.?°

16. Man’s Place in Nature.—Man’s place in physical Nature
used to be central. His earth stood still and everything re-

®°The method, roughly, of Russell and Whitehead. Undoubtedly life
is too short to cast everything into a rigorous mould and much would be
lost by an insistence on the method. In mathematics itself the extreme
rigorous and logical method is not pursued except in restricted fields or
when dangerously critical problems are attacked. But a well-trained
mathematician or mathematical physicist must to-day have had some edu-
cation in extreme rigorous analysis that he may come to know the pitfalls
that are in the way of careless workers and avoid them. A similar train-
ing in the scientific method for its educational value should be required of
students of philosophy; it saves time in the long run.

10 Although Einstein’s method has been called philosophical, one should
not infer that Einstein is technically a philosopher or that philosophical
technicians will agree as to the system of philosophy that is fortified by
his conception of Nature. Mr. Hoernle has called my attention to some
spirited correspondence between Whitehead and Walker in the Nation
(London) for Nov. 15, 29 and Dec. 18, 27 (1919) wherein the former
claims that Berkeley has been avenged and the Aristoteleans put to rout,

while the latter finds that only now has Aristotle completely come into his
own. Alas, poor Yorick!

VoL. x.—16.

234 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

volved around it and him, and his god or gods sat off where
they were put and were pleased by his frankincense. And he
saw everything he had made and behold, it was very good, and
when he had thus done and been satisfied with the goodness
thereof he rested,—upon his Carnegie pension, or otherwise.

How near to this point of view some metaphysical idealists
may still be I do not venture to surmise. Certainly the perusal
of some presentations of the more extreme idealism gives the
scientist the impression that there have been those who would
convert that reverent and realistic scientific lullaby

Twinkle, twinkle, little star;
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.

into some such blasphemous conceit as

Twinkle, twinkle, little star;

I know what you really are—
Just a greedy summer fly,
Creature of my inner eye.
Nibbling at that hunk of cheese
Half a mile beyond the trees.

Probably none of their ilk remain.

Man’s place to-day in physical Nature is far from central.
He should be decidedly humble. He knows infinitely little and
what knowledge he has is for the most part either a partial
understanding of discrete facts or a conventional correlation
of different facts based not upon ultimate truth but upon the
brief convenience of the leading minds of his time,—to the
lesser minds the convenience of the leaders may be a serious
inconvenience.

In Homeric times the earth was flat. A thousand years later
it was round, first by philosophic or mystic fancy, then by in-
disputable proofs of Aristotle, measured with accuracy by
Eratosthenes and charted by Ptolemy. For a thousand years
under Christianity the earth was again flat, and no “ good”
man could think otherwise. Since a bare five hundred years
the world has been round again, first for martyrs and then for
all. Who shall say that it will not again become flat? Viewing
history and the prehistoric record as a whole who dares pre-
dict that some barbarian horde, some incendiaries of libraries,
some religious bigotry will never wipe out present knowledge,
replacing it for long periods of time by some earlier doctrine
that we now deem less convenient, untrue.

Aristarchus had a good heliocentric theory of the world;

SPACE, TIME, AND GRAVITATION 235

why should Hipparchus have chosen the geocentric—the greater
reversing the lesser scientist? Why should Ptolemy have con-
tinued the error? What seemingly sound scientific doctrines of
to-day are the geocentric systems of Hipparchus and Ptolemy,
overriding, reversing the saner positions of some humble Aris-
tarchus of a generation ago who may yet wait centuries for
vindication? May it be the luminiferous ether? Einstein is
quoted as saying there is no ether. Is the early corpuscular
optics to return, modified of course sufficiently to account for
our present continuous optics, and shaped to cover our discon-
tinuous optics of quanta? I do not know.

The absolute and the universal, though perhaps a guiding
inspiration, remain mere emotional aspirations. Under the
analysis of the last century even our logic broke down before
the paradox of “the class of all classes,” and however much we
may push off this contradiction by finer analysis, I do not
believe we shall be rid of it until we abandon such phrases ag
the class of all classes,—any more than the mathematician was
rid of his difficulties with the simplest type of infinity until he
insisted that this was no infinite except as an indefinitely in-
creasing finite, so that the static infinite became the kinetic
finite.

We are acquiring and discarding, learning and forgetting,
and at any time there is nearly an equilibrium between import
and outgo; for some centuries we gain, for others we decline
with a fall far more swift and precipitous than the arduous
climb.

Not the survey of the latest theories, nor estimates of the
immediate future, nor yet the study of the past few centuries
will suffice to ground a philosophy. Several millenniums are
necessary. On the whole we seem to be getting on. At least
we must have faith to carry on.

And so for a philosophy I turn back to the first of the meta-
physicians whose doctrine, as I understand it, may be phrased
in the words of the passing song, “‘ We don’t know where we’re
going, but we’re on our way.” Far better so than “ All dressed
up and nowhere to go””—yes, worse, left behind, in the majestic
march of Nature and of man’s living thought upon it.

236 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE NEED FOR A MORE SERIOUS EFFORT TO
RESCUE A FEW FRAGMENTS OF
VANISHING NATURE?

By Dr. FRANCIS B. SUMNER
SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LA JOLLA, CAL.

N these days of anxiety and suffering, when large popula-
tions are on the verge of starvation, and revolution
threatens us within our own gates, it might not seem especially
opportune to urge the claims of any movement not immediately
concerned with the welfare and safety of mankind. This is
perhaps particularly true of any proposal to render unavailable
for human consumption considerable fragments of what we
are wont to term our “natural resources.” Indeed, the most
plausible objection on the part of those who are engaged in
the commercialistic exploitation of these resources, would be
this one, that everything in the world must be made of some
“use” to humanity. Such talk seems to breathe of the spirit of
altruism, and it also harmonizes very well with the dominant
utilitarianism of the day.

And so it comes about that most of the “conservation ”
which is being preached in these days is the conservation of
our resources, of our coal and our lumber and our water-power
and our fisheries and what not. Heaven knows that all these
belated reforms are necessary enough. But there is another
sort of conservation which has thus far received utterly inade-
quate attention. I refer to the conservation of nature—nature
as a source of scientific knowledge and of the highest esthetic
enjoyment of mankind.

Some of you will think at once of our National Parks and
our National Forests, of our Audubon Societies and our game-
laws, and will conclude that the needs which I speak of have
already been sufficiently well provided for. I have little doubt
that a large proportion of even that small minority who have
any real interest in the preservation of nature and of wild
life soothe themselves with this reflection that the existing
agencies are quite adequate for the purpose.

We can not give too high praise to those individuals and

1 Lecture delivered before the California Academy of Sciences, San
Francisco, December 3, 1919.

VANISHING NATURE 237

organizations which have thus far succeeded in checking, how-
ever slightly, the destruction of our natural scenery and of
the native fauna and flora of our continent. But it is utterly
foolish to imagine that these slight beginnings are sufficient to
avert a great and irreparable catastrophe.

I think that no harm can come from our endeavoring to
indicate, in a general way, the sort of things which we should
like to accomplish, had we the power. This, even though our
aims, in some respects, may prove to be impossible of realiza-
tion. There are two equally important lines of effort, prompted
by two quite distinct motives. The first of these motives is the
scientific one.

Biology is the science of life, of the totality of plants and
animals which occupy or have occupied the face of our planet.
One might readily conclude, however, that there are zoologists,
and some of them occupying high positions, who would not be
greatly disturbed if the entire natural fauna and flora of the
earth, with a few specified exceptions, should be destroyed over-
night. If we left them the various laboratory types which are
dissected or sectioned in ‘‘ Zoology 23,” along with the fruit-fly
and one or two domesticated mammals and birds, I am not sure
but they would rest peacefully in the belief that all future needs
of their science had been fully provided for. I can not speak
with any such confidence for the botanists, but the fact that
neither they nor the zoologists are making themselves heard
from at all audibly in this matter, seems evidence of the com-
parative indifference of both groups of biologists to the world-
wide assault upon living nature.

It would hardly seem necessary to justify to scientific
readers the importance of saving from destruction the greatest
possible number of living species of animals and plants, and
of saving them, so far as possible, in their natural habitats and
in their natural relations to one another. And this is not pri-
marily in order that the ornithologist, the entomologist, and the
rest, shall gratify their traditional passion for naming species.
It is because some of the most important problems of biology
are concerned with relationships, and can only be solved by
comparisons. Comparative anatomy was to Darwin, as it is to
us, one of the chief fields to which we must look for our evi-
dences of organic evolution.

Another of these fields is that of geographic distribution.
It is not only the broader questions involving the larger sub-
divisions of the animal kingdom—the orders, families and
genera—which are of importance here. One of the most

238 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

promising lines of attack upon the still unsolved problem of the
“origin of species’ is to be found in the study of our incipient
species, u. €., our “‘subspecies” or geographic races. If most
of these are shortly to be exterminated, and many others to be
displaced from their natural habitats, we shall have lost a
highly important clue to the initial stages in the formation of
species in nature.

Then, too, what shall we say of the modern science of ecol-
ogy, which concerns itself with the totality of animal and plant
life in particular regions, viewing these whole assemblages as
being themselves organisms, having a definite cycle of develop-
ment, like an individual animal or plant. It is significant that
the ecologists, of all biologists, appear to be most active at
present in the campaign for the preservation of natural
conditions.

But aside from these broader considerations, can the labora-
tory biologist feel quite certain that even the “types” chosen
for his class-work, or the “material” for his own researches
will be eternally safe from depletion without any effort on his
part. We have for some years been hearing of the difficulty
of obtaining such classical objects of research as the sea urchin
and some other organisms for the laboratories at Woods Hole.
It would seem as if the biologist, like the hunter and the fisher-
man, had been seriously jeopardizing his own future supply
of game.

The second great motive for the conservation of nature is
that which, for a better name, we might call the esthetic one.
I think, however, that this word, if employed in the present con-
nection, would convey my meaning quite inadequately. For the
love of nature includes vastly more than the appreciation of
natural scenery. It includes that deep-rooted feeling of revolt—
not yet quite dead in most of us—against the noise and distrac-
tion, the artificiality and sordidness, the contracted horizon and
stifled individuality, which are dominating features of life in
a great city. Now it may be that such a feeling of revolt may
represent merely a passing phase in human development, in-
dicative of incomplete adjustment to a really higher plane of
existence. It may represent the welling up of atavistic, anti-
social tendencies, which it is our duty to sternly repress.
Perhaps the highly socialized man of the future will gather
more inspiration from the mad crush of the home-bound subway
crowd in New York City than he will from the solemn majesty
of the desert at sundown.

Perhaps all these things are true, but I should be sorry to

VANISHING NATURE 239

think so. If this is the real trend of human evolution, we who
represent the “unfit” type, may well pray for a speedy ex-
termination. I suspect that for many of us students of nature
the appeal of natural scenery is of the same kind, though vastly
more compelling, than that of either music or poetry.

I am quite aware that I am exposing myself to the charge
of leaving the field of scientific discussion and of resorting to
sentiment and rhetoric. This in a sense may be granted. But
I doubt whether any harm can come from our appealing to
both motives—the scientific and the sentimental—in a discus-
sion of this many-sided question. Who would be willing to say,
moreover, that these two motives are wholly distinct from one
another? Is there so little in common between the naturalist
and the nature-lover? Perhaps most of us would wish to be
regarded as both. However that may be, the two have a com-
mon interest in promoting the enterprise before us, even though
they may speak a widely different language.

The need for prompt and drastic action to save our native
fauna, especially the birds and mammals, has been ably and
forcibly set forth by various recent writers. It is scarcely
necessary for me to rehearse the gloomy chronicle of extinct
and vanishing species which has been recorded by Hornaday?
and others. Let us not, however, focus our attention too ex-
clusively upon these relatively few examples which are so con-
spicuous—the mammals and birds which are sought for as
sources of food or feathers or fur.

Many states retain but few traces of their original assem-
blages of animals or plants in general; many possess little that
can in any true sense be called natural scenery. Forests are
vanishing, brush land being cleared, swamps drained and the
desert irrigated. ‘‘Reclamation” is being pushed forward
with an almost religious fervor.

Cattle and sheep are grazing everywhere upon our meadows
and hillsides, with a resulting diminution of that wealth of
resplendent coloration which was formerly the glory of Cali-
fornia. Not only are our wild flowers disappearing through the
agency of grazing animals, but the same is true of various
birds, whose nests are built upon the ground.

No agency of civilization has perhaps been more potent in
bringing large numbers of our people into close contact with

2“ Our Vanishing Wild Life,” New York, Chas. Scribner’s Sons, 1913;
“Wild Life Conservation in Theory and Practice,” New Haven, Yale
University Press, 1914. See also the able and forceful article by W. G.

VanName, entitled “ Zoological Aims and Opportunities,” Science, July
25, 1919.

240 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

nature than has the automobile. But there is another side to
the story. The automobile is fast opening up to the week-end
excursionist the remotest mountain fastnesses and the wildest
solitudes of the desert. Game is shot, much of it doubtless
contrary to law, wild flowers and native shrubbery are gath-
ered in reckless profusion, disfiguring rubbish is scattered
broadcast, and fires are started which burn over thousands of
acres of brush or forest land. Most of these fires, according to
professional foresters, are due to carelessness. I think I am
safe in adding that most of them have been made possible by
the automobile.

The splendid redwood forests of the northern California
coast belt—perhaps the finest forests on the American conti-
nent—are falling before the axe and the saw of the “lumber
king” and the air for much of the year is hazy with the smoke
of the burning brush and trees which have to be thus removed
before the fallen giants can be cut up and dragged away for
the market. The result is a scene of appalling desolation for
years to come. When these forests are gone—as they will be,
save for a few remnants—our fertile-brained inventors will
discover quite acceptable substitutes for redwood lumber, and
the building business will continue “as usual.” But we shall
never find any acceptable substitutes for the redwood forests,
which it took nature thousands of years to produce. It is true
that in the case of this particular tree a second growth may
reforest an area which has been logged over or damaged by
fire. But this is a slow process, and we can not be sure that
the same plant associations will establish themselves as existed
previously.

Even the desert, which has long furnished interesting prob-
lems to the naturalist, as well as inspiration to the poet and
the painter, seems,,doomed to wholesale invasion and exploita-
tion. 'To make the desert ‘‘ blossom as the rose” has for ages
been looked upon as typical of man’s conquest over nature, and
the wonderful achievements in our own Southwest stand in the
front rank of such efforts. But we can not overlook the tragic
side of the picture. The limitless vistas of picturesque desola-
tion lose much of their mystery when we find that they are
threaded in all directions by automobile roads, and when the
eye is everywhere confronted by scattered rectangular clear-
ings, due to the fruitless efforts of would-be desert farmers.
The highly interesting and picturesque plant associations in the
western portion of the Mojave Desert are being rapidly de-
stroyed by so-called “settlers” who are probably not getting

VANISHING NATURE 241

enough out of the land, in most cases, to pay expenses. The
weird and beautiful tree-yucca, a plant so typical of our Cali-
fornia desert landscape, is now being largely used for various
commercial purposes. I know of at least one company, organ-
ized with the particular object of exploiting these yucca
products. As this is a tree of extremely slow growth, we may
expect its practical extinction within large areas in the near
future.

Where, then, has our discussion thus far led us? Are we to
check the growth of population, arrest the march of progress,
and withdraw from a large part of the land which we have
occupied? Such a proposal is, of course, ridiculous. What is
worth serious consideration is an insistence upon the conserva-
tion of our fauna and flora and natural scenery to an extent
hitherto not contemplated by our people or our government.

Large tracts of land, representing every type of physi-
ography and of plant association, ought to be set aside as
permanent preserves, and properly protected against fire, and
against every type of depredation. Here would be included
desert and chaparral, swamp land and seashore, mountain and
prairie. All this would doubtless cost vast sums of money, but
what is money for? The question is really one of relative
values.

Instead of game-laws, we should have a nearly absolute
prohibition, both within and without these reservations, of the
shooting of every wild mammal or bird not definitely known to
be harmful to man. Exceptions might be made in certain
cases, but only after careful consideration by competent and
disinterested persons.

All lumbering operations should be under the supervision of
the government. Throughout large tracts, such operation
should be absolutely prohibited, and where permitted, the trees
should not be removed faster than their natural rate of replace-
ment. Exception is of course to be made of land which is to
be permanently cleared for agricultural purposes. But the
question as to which areas should become farming lands, and
which ones permanent forests ought to be decided by disin-
terested experts, with sole reference to the higher welfare of
the public and of posterity, and not on the basis of purely
local circumstances or the accidents of private ownership.
Scientific considerations, such as the advantage of maintaining
the continuity of a given forest area, should figure here, among
other motives. .

The fact that all of our redwood forests, with two unim-

242 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

portant exceptions, are now in private hands and are fast dis-
appearing, shows how far we are from the realization of such
an ideal. Fortunately, in this particular case, a public-spirited
group of citizens have taken steps which seem likely to result
in the reservation of a considerable tract of these unique
forests.®

Another part of our program should be a vastly more ade-
quate system of fire protection, and of game-law enforcement.
This may be said without reflecting upon the competency of the
various forest and game wardens who are entrusted with these
duties at present. Many of them doubtless do the best possible
with the utterly inadequate resources at their disposal. Who
can read of the continuous series of holocausts which devastate
the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast States every summer
without realizing that the means of fire protection must be
utterly inadequate? The president of the American Forestry
Association is quoted as saying recently (N. Y. Times) that
although “the United States Forest Service spent more than
a million dollars fighting these fires in July alone, . . . the fire
protection measures in neither national, state nor private forests
are sufficient to properly protect them.”

At the time of the recent fire in the California Redwood
Park at the Big Basin, the state forester made the statement
that $140,000 had been asked of the previous legislature for
fire protection during the present biennium, whereas only
$25,000 had been appropriated for this purpose. He attributed
the frequency and the disastrous results of forest-fires during
the past season to this lack of adequate funds. We can not
help wondering how the thrifty taxpayer invested the few
cents which were saved him by this economy on the part of his
representatives at Sacramento.

As for game-laws, it is widely believed that these are habitu-
ally violated by dwellers in the more remote sections of the
state. Adequate protection would doubtless mean a much
greater expense, but here again we are met with the question:
would it not be worth while?

The whole problem with which we have to deal is, after all,
one of relative values. What are the things that are most
worth doing—and paying for? Our whole plea for the con-
servation of these considerable fragments of nature rests, of
course, upon the value of these to mankind. What the wishes
of the animals and plants are in this matter does not much

3 Save the Redwoods League. For information, address Mr. R. G.
Sproul, Sec.-Treas., University of California, Berkeley.

VANISHING NATURE 243

concern us. But we must recognize the existence of various
standards of value, and I believe that there are standards far
higher than are generally recognized and applied to this
question.

Our reasoning is too often like that of the farmer who was
asked why he wanted to add to the size of his farm. “So as to
raise more corn,” was his ready reply. Pushed by his ques-
tioner to tell why he wanted to raise more corn he said; ‘‘So
as to feed more hogs.” And the sale of his hogs, he declared,
would enable him to buy more land, in order to raise more
corn, in order to feed more hogs, and so on to the end of his
natural life.

I hope I may be pardoned for quoting from another article*
in which I have asked the question:

What will the increased population do which is made possible by a
greater food supply? It may all mean a merely quantitative increase in
the total amount of living—by no means a self-evident advantage, accord-
ing to my way of thinking. The great mass of humanity is engaged in
discharging the purely vegetative functions of the social organism, in
keeping alive the individual and the race, and in maintaining a certain
low minimum of comfort. To merely increase the total amount of this
vegetative activity in the world seems to be widely accepted as one of
the chief goals of human endeavor.

Once more:

Which is the higher aim to make room in the world for the greatest
possible number of human animals, or to make the world a more inter-
esting and intelligible [and beautiful] place to live in: to feed the belly
or to feed the brain?

Again, it must be insisted that as things now go, our world
is destined to be populated up to its capacity, within a com-
paratively brief period of time. In that day, if not before, we
shall be faced with the problem of correlating the rate of repro-
duction with the means of subsistence under endurable condi-
tions of life. Would it not be equally possible, and vastly more
desirable, that we should strike this equilibrium some time
before the inhabitable land had all been occupied? I think
there can be no difference of opinion as to which of these alter-
natives offers the greater prospect for future human happiness.
This mad rush to fill up every nook and cranny of the world is
prompted in a large degree by national ambition for power;
partly also by the greed of the business promoter and the real-
estate shark. These are the greatest foes of any movement
toward leaving the world truly habitable for the future.

4 ScIENTIFIC MONTHLY, March, 1919.

244 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

I trust that I shall not be charged with voicing any gen-
eral depreciation of what we call ‘‘man’s conquest of nature.”
To a large extent this has been desirable; and in any case it has
been the necessary price which we have had to pay for our
advance beyond savagery. Many things in nature have had to
be used, even though this use has destroyed their beauty and
their interest as objects of scientific study. What we insist
upon is a fuller recognition of the non-utiliarian motives, or,
we should perhaps say, a broader conception of what constitutes
usefulness.

Why is it that even we who claim the title of scientists are
always so timid and shamefaced about declaring our real mo-
tives for the protection of living things. We must save the
songbirds, because they eat up cut-worms and the seeds of
noxious weeds. We must save the game-birds, in order that
they may remain and be successfully hunted by future genera-
tions of sportsmen. We must save our forests as future sup-
plies of lumber and as a protection to watersheds ; we must save
multitudinous other things because we may still discover uses
for them now unknown.

Is all this because we feel that we are the only ones who
are highminded enough to appreciate our own lofty motives,
and that neither the public nor its elected representatives can
be taken into our confidence? Such a pessimistic judgment
may possibly prove to be warranted, but there are several
reasons for working on the opposite assumption, if only as an
experiment. In the first place, if the public and its repre-
sentatives in legislature and congress are really as sordid as we
credit them with being, our own attitude is calculated to con-
firm them in their sordidness. If even the savant assents to
the proposition that practical utility is the only standard of
value, what shall we say of the hoi-polloi? We are helping
to create a background of public-opinion which is certain to
block every serious move toward the reservation of large frag-
ments of nature for non-utilitarian ends.

In the second place, all such more or less disingenuous justi-
fication of our endeavors in this direction can not fail to react
upon ourselves. Can our intellectual honesty help being
blunted by our habitually acquiescing in a theory of life which
at the outset we must have stanchly repudiated?

The reader has doubtless long been patiently waiting to
learn whether my whole effort was to expend itself in exhorta-
tion, or whether I had a definite program of action to offer.
Personally, I have no very definite program; much less do I

VANISHING NATURE 245

wish to pose as a leader in a movement of such vast magnitude.
Least of all do I wish to slight the large volume of important
and successful work in this direction which has been accom-
plished by many persons, including some of our foremost
citizens. If my presentation of the case should result in re-
newed effort on the part of some of those who share these
views; or if it should attract the attention of a few who had
not given previous thought to the problem, my labors will not
have been vain. I fear that there is only too much justifica-
tion in the charge made by certain writers that we profes-
sional zoologists of the universities have not faced our plain
responsibilities in this all-important matter. Can we refute
the essential accuracy of Hornaday’s rather ill-natured declara-
tion that “fully 90 per cent. of the zoologists of America stick
closely to their desk-work,” not perhaps “soaring after the
infinite and diving after the unfathomable,” as he expresses it,
but nevertheless “never spending a dollar or lifting an active
finger on the firing line in defense of wild life.’

In similar vein, Van Name writes of the “easy-going in-
difference and irresponsibility of those who are the only ones
who can fully realize the needs and urgency of the situation,
and who should therefore feel it a duty to make others under-
stand also.’

Now, while I have no very definite plan of campaign to
offer to those who would like to devote some of their energies
to this cause, I do feel at liberty to make a few suggestions. In
the first place, this is an occasion above all others, where co-
operative effort is necessary. The matter should be taken up
seriously by the great national scientific societies. It may be
mentioned here that the Ecological Society of America already
has a ‘“‘ committee on the preservation of natural conditions for
ecological study.” This committee is in possession of consider-
able information which will doubtless be of value.

But the work of any of these societies would necessarily be
for the most part of an advisory nature. Such a program
could, of course, be carried out only under government auspices.
Here, several different branches of the service are to be men-
tioned.

1. The National Park Service, already administers an area
of about 10,000 square miles, comprising fifteen parks. The
latter, of all parts of the public domain, probably come nearer
to fulfilling the conditions required of a nature reservation in

5“ Wild Life Conservation,” p. 184.
6 Science, July 25, 1919.

246 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

our sense of the words. They are inadequate for our purposes,
however, in that they include only areas of exceptional scenic
grandeur. The demand for extensive tracts, representing
every type of physiography and of plant association, has not
thus far been met. Likewise, the national parks are preserved
primarily as “public playgrounds,” and the public is admitted
to every portion of these lands. Such playgrounds are doubt-
less among the important assets of the nation.?7 But there
ought to be still other tracts, in which the fauna and flora are
reserved primarily for the studies of the botanist and zoologist
—ones in which the native life will be more adequately safe-
guarded than at present. It does not seem to me utopian to
try to have the National Park Service or some other bureau of
the government adopt, and publicly and explicitly avow, this
additional motive for reserving tracts of land from settlement
or depredation—namely, the permanent preservation of the
native fauna and flora by reason of their value to science, and
to the higher interests of generations to come.

2. The National Forest Service, which administers nearly
a quarter of a million square miles, an area about as large as the
New England and Atlantic States combined. One might be
disposed to think that in setting aside these huge areas, the
government had done far more than the most sanguine con-
servationist would have a right to ask. But we must note
several important drawbacks, from the point of view of the
scientist. To begin with, the national forests are located chiefly
in the more elevated and mountainous regions of the country.
Very little of the lowland forests—none, indeed, of the coast
redwoods—are thus included. In the second place, lumbering,
although on a restricted scale, is permitted in the National
Forests, as are also grazing, hunting and camping. All of these
last conditions are quite incompatible with the interests of
botany and zoology, and they are likewise incompatible with
the aims of those who would like to retain great tracts of
virgin forest as a heritage for the future. Would it not be
possible to reserve certain tracts—wisely chosen by distinter-
ested experts—from which the lumberman, the hunter and the
cattleman should be forever excluded?

3. The United States Biological Survey has established a
considerable number of bird and game refuges, in which the

* Especially to be commended is the plan to have trained field natural-
ists detailed for duty in these parks during the summer season, for the

purpose of giving instruction to such visitors as may be seriously inter-
ested in the natural history of the region.

VANISHING NATURE 247

shooting or molestation of birds is prohibited. 'There are 74
such refuges thus far established, these, in every instance,
being selected with reference to their value as nesting grounds.
Attention must be called, however, to the lack of any guarantee
as to the permanency of such sanctuaries. Two of the most
important of them, lying within Oregon and California, were
set aside as bird refuges by President Roosevelt in 1908. One
of these, Lower Klamath Lake, has been recently seized upon
by the Reclamation Service, and is already practically ruined
as a breeding ground for water-fowl. This is all the more
reprehensible, since the director of the Reclamation Service has
recently admitted, after investigation, that the potential value
of these marsh lands for agricultural purposes is doubtful.’
The second of these reservations referred to, that of Malheur
Lake, seems about to undergo the same fate.

4. Aside from these branches of the federal government,
we have certain departments of various state governments
which administer more or less extensive state forests and game
refuges.

The problem before those biologists who are interested in
the aims above set forth is to develop an organization which
will be able to mediate between themselves and the various
state and national agencies through which such ends could be
accomplished. An entirely new society might be organized
for this purpose, but the general sentiment of scientific men at
present seems to be against multiplying these societies. It has
been suggested by one of my correspondents that a new section
of the American Association might be created for this pur-
pose. Another suggestion is that the National Research Coun-
cil might properly serve as a clearing-house for such efforts. I
am not in a position at this time to make a recommendation in
the mattter. The main thing at present is to induce the vari-
ous scientific societies, national and local, to take the matter
up and discuss it seriously.2 This might result in the formula-
tion of a wise plan of action and it would at least, serve a good
purpose if it succeeded in rousing from their present apathy
many of those who could be of considerable service in the
movement. Wise leadership is of course necessary, here as
everywhere.

8 Cited by W. L. Finley, state biologist of Oregon, in Portland Ore-
gonian, October 26, 1919.

®I must again urge the fact that the Ecologieal Society of America
has already made a beginning in this direction. :

248 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Two further comments seem to me worth making before I
close this rather long harangue.

One is that we should state our objects and aims with abso-
lute frankness. If we believe, as I hope we all do, that scien-
tific, esthetic and higher humanitarian considerations are
strong enough to stand upon their own feet, let us not justify
every step that we take by appeals to economic and crassly
utilitarian motives. If we favor, as perhaps many of us do,
a practically total prohibition of the hunting of harmless species
for sport, let us not league ourselves with the sportsmen them-
selves, and pretend that we are merely trying to save the
“game” for future generations of hunters. It is certainly an
unfortunate circumstance, to my mind, that most of the present
enforcement of game-laws is paid for out of funds derived
from the issuance of hunting and fishing licenses.

The second and last of my comments is a repetition of the
warning that this question is an urgent one, and that emer-
gency measures are necessary. With an increasing population,
modern implements and vastly more efficient means of trans-
portation, more destruction can be wrought in a single year
than was formerly possible in a decade. Then too, we have
recently had the inevitable raid upon our resources of all sorts
necessitated by the late war, and the equally inevitable raid
which is bound to result from the post-bellum problems of
reconstruction. <A bill is now before Congress, setting aside
five hundred million dollars from the treasury for the purpose
of “reclaiming” a large part of such usable land as has not
yet been developed agriculturally. This measure has been in-
troduced ostensibly in the interest of the returned soldiers.

I do not know how many of these deserving men have ex-
pressed any desire for farming lands. The sponsor for this
bill may have data on the point. But in any case, a certain
considerable fraction of our unreclaimed land ought to be re-
served from settlement. Such a step would be in the interest
both of science and of a truer humanitarianism which sees even
greater benefits to our race than those which may be conferred
by lumber mills and irrigation projects.

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 249

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION’

By Professor JAMES HENRY BREASTED

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

LECTURE TWO
THE EARLIEST CIVILIZATION ANL ITS TRANSITION TO EUROPE, III

S the Greek nomads ceased to wander and gradually shifted
A to asettled town life, they found Pheenician merchandise in
every harbor town. The very garment which the Greek towns-
man wore he called by a Pheenician name (chiton) as he heard
it from the Oriental traders along the harbor shores. As he
continued to receive these products of Oriental art and industry,
the Greek slowly learned the craftsmanship that produced these
things. Indeed there is every indication that there were plenty
of Phceenician workshops on Greek soil. Meantime the Pheni-
cians or their kindred the Arameans had long since devised an
alphabet, based on Egyptian writing, and were thus employing
the first system of writing made up exclusively of alphabetic
signs.2* Continuous business intercourse with the Phoenician
craftsman and merchant naturally impressed upon the Greek
what a great convenience the Pheenician possessed in his writ-
ten records of business. Thumbing the Phcenician’s papyrus
invoices, the Greek tradesman eventually learned the meaning
of the curious alphabetic signs, and then began to use them him-
self for the writing of Greek words, employing some of the

1 Delivered before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington,
D. C., April 28 and 29, 1910, as the seventh series of lectures on the Wil-
liam Ellery Hale Foundation.

28 The origin of the so-called Phcenician alphabet and its transmission
to Greece form a difficult problem, far more complicated than the above
simple statement would indicate. The solution of the problem has been
greatly furthered by the discovery of a new script in Sinai, which has been
brilliantly employed by Alan. H. Gardiner, “ The Egyptian Origin of the
Semitic Alphabet,” Journ. of Egyptian Archezol., III., Part I. (Jan., 1916),
with additional observations by A. E. Cowley, “ The Origin of the Semitic
Alphabet,” ibid. See also H. Schaefer, “ Die Vokallésigkeit des phoenici-
schen Alphabets,” Zeitschr. fiir aegyptische Sprache, LII., 1915, 95-98; R.
Fisler, “ Entdeckung und Entzifferung kenitischer Inschriften aus dem
Anfang des zweiten Jahrtausends vor Christo im Kupferminengebiet der
Sinaihalbinsel,” Biblische Zeitschrift, XV., 1918, 1-8; K. Sethe, Nach-
richten der kgl. Goett. Gesell. der Wissensch., Phil.-histor. Klasse, 1917,
437ff.; and Breasted, “The Physical Processes of Writing in the Early
Orient and their Relation to the Origin of the Alphabet,” American Journ.
of Semitic Languages, XXXII., 1916, 230-248.

VOL. x.—17.

250 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

——

MOMMA DDISTO Nooo

Fic. 117. PAINTINGS ON AN ARCHAIC GREEK VASE SHOWING THE HARLIEST
KNOWN SIGNATURE OF A GREEK VASE-PAINTER. The vase-painter’s signature is at the
extreme right end at the top of the lower row. It reads ‘ Aristonothos made it,”
and dates about 700 B.c., at a time when the Greeks were just learning to use
Pheenician writing.

signs as vowels, which were not represented in the Phoenician
alphabet.

By 700 B.c. the Greek potters were writing their names, like
trademarks, on the vases they produced (Fig. 117). But the
Greeks soon found the Egyptian paper offered them by the
Phoenician mérchants of Byblos the most convenient writing
material, and they called it byblion or biblion after the Phe-
nician port from which it came, as we call Chinese porcelain
“china” or rich textiles originally from Damascus ‘ damask.”
This word gave rise to the various words for library used by a
large part of Europe, like the French ‘“bibliothéque”; and our

INN

fl

See lf NN LLIN aren comma

Fic. 118. AN BARLY GREEK SHIP (LEFT) AND THE PH@NICIAN SHIP FROM WHICH
IT WAS MODELED (RIGHT). After the 15th century B.c; the Phoenicians seem to have
introduced a change in the earlier model of their ships (Fig. 116), altering the high
bow into a beak which was below the surface of the water. Whether this change
was of Phoenician origin or not is a little uncertain. The Phoenician model above
(right) is from a relief of Sennacherib, showing that the Assyrians adopted Pheeni-
cian shipping, as did the Persians also. A large proportion of the Persian ships at
Salamis were Phoenician. (From the author’s “ Ancient Times,” by permission of
Ginn & Co.)

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 251

Pig. 119. ARCHAIC GREEK STATUE AND EARLY EGYPTIAN STATUE BY WHICH IT
WAS INFLUENCED. The similarity, or we may say actual identity of posture, even
including the left foot thrust forward, shows clearly that this archaic Greek sculp-
ture grew up under Egyptian influence. (From the author's ‘‘ Ancient Times,’ by
permission of Ginn & Co.)

own word “Bible.” Another word then commonly used for
Egyptian paper was “ papyrus,” which with loss of the classical
ending “us,” and change of a single vowel has given us our
word “paper.” Thus after the destructive Greek invasion had
erushed out the earliest literary culture that had arisen in
Europe, both writing and its physical equipment were again

252 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fie. 120. EGYPTIAN PALM CAPITAL AND HELLENISTIC PALM CAPITAL COPIED FROM IT.
(From the author's *‘ Ancient Times,’ by permission of Ginn & Co.)

introduced into Kurope from the Orient. Such contributions
from Oriental life make it perfectly just to say that Europe was
at that time receiving civilization from the Orient for the
second time.

Meantime the Greeks had rapidly learned shipbuilding and
navigation from their Phoenician competitors (Fig. 118). In
doing so they adopted a new Pheenician model with beaked
prow, quite different from the old AYgean model from Egypt
(Fig. 84) with both ends turned up. This again illustrates
how little of the old 4Xgean culture had been able to survive the
Greek invasion. As the Greek maritime ventures extended to
all ports of the eastern Mediterranean, Greek merchants and
gradually also Greek travelers, came into direct and first-hand
contact with the vast fabric of civilized life in the Near Orient,
especially after 600 B.c. The travels of Solon, Hecatzus, Her-
odotus and Plato will occur to very reader. It should be re--
membered that in the times with which we are dealing the
Greek citizen could walk entirely across a town like Athens or
Ephesus in five or six minutes, and there was not a Greek city
in existence which could not be traversed from edge to edge in
ten minutes or less. When the Greeks first visited the Orient
all Greek buildings, including the temples, were of sun-dried
brick, and the supports or piers were of wood. As to statues,
a wooden head surmounting a post draped with clothing was
enough.

Under these circumstances it is not remarkable that archaic
Greek sculpture shows unmistakable evidences of Egyptian in-
fluence (Fig. 119). The impression of the magnificent cities of
Egypt and Asia upon the minds of travelers like Hecatezus and
Herodotus was not exhausted in literary expression alone.
Greek builders must likewise have seen these cities and added
definite impressions as well as sketches to the vague references
to the splendors of the Orient with which all Greeks were

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 253

familiar in the Homeric poems. Greek architecture then re-
sponded sensitively and promptly to the tremendous stimulus of
the vast architectural monuments of the Orient. Such tangible
examples as the Egyptian palm capital, which we found in the
pyramid temples in the twenty-eighth century B.c. (Fig. 83),
copied by the architects of Pergamum in later times (Fig. 120),
show that the diffusion of Egyptian architectural forms
Europeward is a clearly demonstrable fact. Such evidence
raises beyond doubt the Egyptian origin of the Greek Doric
column (Figs. 121-122). Puchstein long ago made perfectly
clear the Oriental origin of the Ionic column, and to such deter-
mination of the Oriental source of the individual column, Doric
and Ionic, it is of great interest to add also that of the arrange-
ment of assembled columns around an interior court. Such a
complex architectural creation is by no means an obvious con-
cept, which could arise independently on both sides of the Medi-
terranean. The ancestry of the Hellenistic colonnaded court
becomes perfectly evident when we place such a court, as found
in a Pompeian house, side by side with the Egyptian architect’s
temple court of the twenty-eighth century B.c. (Fig. 123). It
can not be doubted, either, that the Hellenistic architects re-
ceived the idea of their clerestory hall, which they called a
“basilica,” from the great colonnaded clerestory halls of the
Egyptian Empire temples (Figs. 94 and 95), which thus be-
came the ancestors of the basilica cathedrals of Europe
Chic s124):

T

5} i AES)

Wie. 121, FLUTED STONE PIERS OF AN EGYPTIAN TOMB A BENIHASAN. (19th
century B.c.) These piers, which the Egyptians never adorned with a capital, were
the ancestors of the Greek Doric column (Fig. 122).

254 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Wig. 122. THr OLD EGYPTIAN FLUTED STONE PIER AND THE GREEK DORIC
COLUMN WHICH DESCENDED FROM IT. (From the author's *“‘ Ancient Times,” by per-
mission of Ginn & Co.)

Although it carries us chronologically far down the centuries,

it is appropriate here to suggest a great architectural synthesis
which I believe has not yet been made. The outstanding fea-
_tures of the Assyrian palace front, with its imposing central
- arch and lower arches on each side, were continued in the Par-
thian palace facade (Fig. 125, No. 2). It can not be doubted
that Roman architects, seeing such structures in the Near East,
drew the Roman triumphal arch from this source (Fig. 125,
No. 3). Now when we recollect that in its nave and side aisles
the clerestory hall presents a tripartite arrangement of floor,
colonnades and roof, we see at once that the three arches of the
old Assyrian palace front will answer to the front of the clere-
story hall, part for part; the tall arch in the center correspond-
ing to the high nave of the hall, while the smaller arches on each
side correspond to the lower roof over the side aisles. In putting
up a Roman triumphal arch as the front of the basilica cathe-
dral, the architects of Europe were combining ancient Asia and
Kgypt.

It is further of great interest to observe that the tower with
which the Christian cathedral was eventually embellished was
likewise derived from the East (Fig. 126). The Hellenistic
architects had found the model of their great lighthouse tower
at Alexandria, the Pharos, in the old Sumerian temple towers
of Babylonia. From such towers both Islam and Christianity

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 255

finally drew the spires with which they adorned their sacred
buildings. Thus Christianity, itself of Oriental origin, was
housed in great sanctuaries, the fundamental elements of which
had likewise come out of the East.

In a sane historical and cultural consideration of the career
of man such indebtedness of Greek civilization to the Orient
does not in the least detract from the unchallenged supremacy
which the splendor of Greek genius triumphantly attained as
the sixth century B.C. advanced. To recognize this indebted-
ness is but to acknowledge the operation of the same cultural
processes in the AYgean, which must inevitably have been
operative, because there were no reasons why the Greeks should
be any more impervious to external influences than any other
group of peoples. The Greeks were to be the first ancient
people to gain complete freedom of the mind from traditional
conceptions, and were thus to make intellectual conquests far
surpassing the achievements of the Orient in the world of mind;
but even in this realm they were not without their debt to the

Fig. 123. THE ORIPNTAL ANCESTRY OF THE EUROPEAN COLONNADED Court,
Above is the court of the temple of Sahure (Fig. 83), and below the court of the
house of the Vetii at Pompeii, a building drawn from Hellenistic models in southern
Italy. (From the author’s “Survey of the Ancient World,’ by permission of
Ginn & Co.) ;

THE SCIENTIFIC MINTHLY

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THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION

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258 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 127, A BABYLONIAN KUDURRU, COMMONLY CALLED A BOUNDARY STONE,
BWARING EMBLEMS OF THE GODS: among them are signs later appearing in the zodiac
like the scorpion and the archer.

accumulated knowledge of the natural world which they re-
ceived from the Orient.

While we have thus followed the great drift of civilized
influence as we can discern it especially in monumental forms
which have come out of the Orient into the West, we have found
that these things suggest influences less material and not so
easily exhibited in visualized forms; just as the cathedral archi-
tecture of Europe, drawing its fundamental forms from the
Orient, suggests the Oriental origin of the religion which it
housed.

Among intellectual influences which the Greek traveler felt
as he visited the Orient nothing attracted him more than the

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 259

knowledge of the future which the Babylonian priest gained by
observation of the celestial bodies. As we shall see, the Baby-
lonian observer of the heavens did gain knowledge of the fu-
ture, but not knowledge of the future of human affairs as he
supposed and as he assured his Greek visitors. Astral religion
among the Babylonians, already in the third millennium B.c.
had led them to believe that they could read the future in the
anticipatory movements of the heavenly bodies. They early
noted the difference in the character of the planets and the
fixed stars, and they began to group the latter into constella-
tions associated with signs such as we see on the so-called
boundary stones where the scorpion and the centaur already
appear among the symbols of divinities invoked to protect the
title of a land-owner (Fig.127). But there was at first no com-
prehensive system of the skies, including all twelve of the signs
of the zodiac.

Far down into the last millennium before Christ the obser.
vations made by the priests were solely for astrological pur:
poses. They were crudely done and furnished but very vague
data. Eclipses observed long after 1000 B.C. are not even ac-
companied by a note of the year, while the hour, if added, will
be noted as one of the three watches of the night—watches
which were not of fixed length. The claim that the Babylonians
of the third millennium B.c. already knew of the precession of
the equinoxes has been completely disproven.”®

Only in the last seven centuries before Christ did the Baby-
lonians pursue the study of the heavens for chronological pur-
poses. A large body of astronomical tablets of this period
show no indication of an astrological purpose. For the first
time they contain observations including the data for both
time and space, and with the inclusion of these elements astro-
nomical science began.

The tablets of this age are of two classes, observational and
computational. While the observational tablets deal incessantly
with sun and moon and the relative positions of the two, they
record especially the positions of the planets. This is done by
noting each planet’s position with reference to the fixed stars,
but at first entirely without angular measurements, and if the
planet was not far to the east or west of the fixed star, the posi-
tion of the planet would be indicated by the phrase, “at the
place” [of star so-and-so]. Later (especially the last four cen-

°° See the work of the able Dutch astronomer-orientalist, F. X. Kugler,

“Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel”; on this careful survey of Baby-
lonian astronomical documents the above sketch is chiefly based.

260 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

**

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Fic. 128. CLAy TABLET PAGES FROM A BABYLONIAN ASTRONOMICAL ALMANAC FOR
THE YRAR 425 B.c. (= Astr.—424) NOW IN THE MUSEUM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
PENNSYLVANIA,

turies B.C.) angular measurements were made in “ cubit-degrees
and inches” (Kugler). These observations resulted in the dis-
covery of the eighteen-year lunar period, which the Greeks
called ‘‘Saros,” and with the aid of these the priestly astron-
omers constructed the first tables of the conjunction of sun
and moon (syzygy tables).

Such observations also enabled the priestly astronomers to
determine with astounding accuracy the synodic revolutions of
the planets. In a region of wonderfully clear skies during
eight months in the year, they were able to study even Mer-
cury, which we rarely see, with such precision that by calcula-
tions based on his heliacal rising and setting they computed his
synodic revolution as 115 days, 21 hours, 3 minutes and 50.9
seconds, a result which exceeds the computation of Le Verrier
by only 16.3 seconds, while that of Hipparchus is in error by
nearly a minute. In the computation of the mean synodic revo-
lution of Jupiter, the Babylonian astronomers agreed with the
results of Hipparchus within a fraction of a second.

In Fig. 128 we have before us a computational tablet of
great interest, being the oldest such tablet as yet discovered.
It is of a class called by the Greeks ephemerides, meaning the
daily predictions of an astronomical calendar. This particular
ephémeris is therefore a page from a Babylonian astronomer’s

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 261

almanac computed for the wear 425 B.c., the fortieth year of
Artaxerxes I.

Each side of the tablet, obverse and reverse, is divided into
two columns. In the left-hand column the astronomer has
entered the monthly and lunar data: in the first line the length
of the month, in the second the date of the full moon, and in
the third the date of the moon’s last visibility. There were
thus three entries for each month. In the right-hand column a
number of lines for each month predict the dates of the heliacal
rising and setting of the planets and fixed stars. On the reverse,
however, the column containing these predictions displays two
additional predictions of the greatest interest. There are four
entries for the month and they read as follows:

On the first Mercury rises.

On the third the Equinox.

Night of the 15th, 40 minutes after sunset an eclipse of the moon begins.

On the 28th occurs an eclipse of the sun. (Kugler.)

Kugler has calculated the dates of these two eclipses as
having occurred on October 9 and 23, in —424 (astronomical),
that is 425 B.c. The eclipse of the moon on the ninth of October
was visible in Babylon; but that of the sun was visible only
below the horizon of the city, and these ancient Babylonian
astronomers who predicted it, were unable to see it. They
evidently did not know beforehand that they would not be able
to see it, and it should be noted that they were not in position
to calculate the extent or place of visibility of a solar eclipse.
It is thus doubtful whether they understood the nature of an
eclipse. They were, however, able to compute the positions of
the celestial bodies years in advance, especially those of the
planets, giving dates and longitudes.

Of the instruments used in these observations, on which
these remarkable calculations were based, we know nothing;
but, however crude they were, it is quite evident that the Baby-
lonians were the founders of astronomy and meteorology, and
their amazingly industrious and discerning labors are not only
of the highest interest in the history of civilization, but they
are even of value to modern astronomy in the study of the moon.

It was into a world of researches and of astronomical knowl-
edge such as we have suggested, that Greek travelers like Hero-
dotus penetrated when they visited the east end of the Mediter-
ranean, and especially if they went as far as Babylon itself.
That the Greeks learned their astronomy in the beginning from
the Babylonians there is no longer the slightest doubt. Even
the name of the Babylonian observer and astronomer, from

262 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fig. 129. NINGIRSU, GOD OF THE OLD SUMERIAN CrTy KINGDOM or LAGASH IN
LOWER BABYLONIA, CARRYING AWAY THE ENEMIES OF HIS City IN A NET WHICH IS
SURMOUNTED BY THE LION-EAGLE EMBLEM OF THE CrTy. The emblem is the same as
that found also in Figs. 102 and 103.

whose work the Greeks drew, has in one case been identified.
A cuneiform tablet of moon data signed by the Babylonian
astronomer Kidinnu is the work of him whom Strabo quotes as
Kidénas and Pliny as Cidenas.*°

Next to science and religion and intimately involved in the
latter, the most powerful influence from the Orient. has been
the ancient tradition of the state and the place of the ruler
and the god init. It is of especial interest to note this fact now
at one of the greatest moments in the history of man, when the
last surviving traces of the Oriental conception of the ruler and
the state have suffered destruction.**

30 Bezold, ‘‘ Astronomie, Himmelsschau und Astrallehre bei den Baby-
loniern,” Sitzungsber. d. Heidelberger Akad. d. Wissensch., Phil.-hist.
klasse, 1911, 2. Abhandlung, p. 16, quoting from Schiaparelli; Cumont,
“Florilegium de Vogué,” pp. 159ff; and Neue Jahrb. f. d. klass. Alt.,
1911, XXVII., p. 8; and Kugler, BB. 122. A large mass of quotations
from the cuneiform originals has been identified by Bezold and Boll in the
astrological treatises of the Greeks (Sitzungsber. der Heidelberger Akad.
d. Wiss., Phil.-histor. Klasse, 1911, 7. Abhandl.: Reflexe astrologischer

Keilinschriften bei griechischen Schriftstellern).
31 The following paragraphs to the end are adapted from the author’s

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 2638

On one of the early Sumerian monuments of Babylonia
(Fig. 129), we see the god of the Sumerian city-kingdom of
Lagash bearing in his mighty grasp the heraldic symbol of the
state, surmounted by the eagle which was yet to cross lands and
seas to become the American eagle: yonder the symbol of an
Oriental autocracy, here that of aliberty-loving Western democ-
racy. This scene, in the transparent symbolism of the Orient,
epitomizes the early Oriental polity, picturing to us the victori-
ous state upheld in the guiding and protecting hand of the god
who was its head. Now this is of course a purely ideal scene—
one that never existed except in sculpture.

It was possible, however, to express the same relationship
between the god and the state in an actual scene, by employing
a symbol of the god instead of a symbol of the state, and by
putting this symbol of the god into the hands of a human repre-
sentative of thestate. By so doing the Oriental believed without
qualification that he was thus introducing the potent presence of
the god into earthly scenes and making him effective in earthly
crises. In sculptured representations of the battle array, we
find the Egyptians mounting a symbol of their god Amon in a
chariot and driving with it into the midst of the fray (Fig.

Fic. 130. SyMBOL OF TEE GREAT GOD OF THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE AMON MOUNTED IN A
CHARIOT READY TO BE CARRIED INTO BATTLE LIKE A MODERN FLAG.

discussion: ‘ The Eastern Mediterranean and Early Civilization in Europe,” —

Annual Report, Am. Hist. Assn., 1914, pp. 103ff.

264 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 1381. SYMBOL OF THE GREAT GOD OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE ASSUR MOUNTED IN
A CHARIOT AND CARRIED INTO BATTLE LIKE A MODERN FLAG.

130), believing that the god was thus actually present and
assisting in the conflict. We recall the similar use of the sacred
ark of the Hebrews, which they sent into battle against the
Philistines. The Assyrian sculptures exhibit the same custom
(Fig. 131). When in camp the Assyrians housed their battle
symbols of the god in a tent shrine, where the chariot bearing
them stands in one corner, and priests minister to them as to
the god of the state whose visible presence makes victory cer-
tain (Fig. 132). Such a custom was purely Oriental. The
eagle standard of Jupiter Optimus borne at the head of the
Roman legion can hardly have had any other origin.

Similarly we remember how Constantine later, thinking to
honor the newly triumphant Christian faith, made a battle
standard bearing a symbol of the Christ at the top, and this
standard led the troops into battle. He too had a portable tent
shrine for this standard, with daily ministrants attending upon
it. Was it merely an accident that that Emperor who in the
present war thought to possess Constantine’s city and conquer
the East in whose lore he was steeped—was it merely an acci-
dent that this Emperor continually reminded his troops that
the power of divinity went with them in every battle?

This visible leadership of the god in the crisis of battle in
the ancient Orient, was but one function in his guidance of the
Oriental state. For the god was the source of the king’s legal
authority as the head of the state, and I know of no monument
of the early East which so forcibly pictures this concept of the
state as the sculpture surmounting the shaft whic. bears the

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 265

laws of Hammurapi (Fig. 133). In this noble relief scene the
Babylonian king at the left is depicted receiving from the god
enthroned at the right the great code of laws which is engraved
in thirty-six hundred lines around the shaft supporting this
relief. The king thus receiving the law from the god enters
into an intimate coalition, which makes the sovereign the in-
fallible representative of the god, a representative whom no
mortal would venture to challenge.

We have here a state which is a divine institution admin-
istered by a ruler who is the recognized agent of divinity. Of
the Holy Roman Empire, in his volume on that subject, Lord
Bryce remarks: “in order to make clear out of what elements
the imperial system was formed we might be required . . . to
travel back to that Jewish theocratic polity, whose influence on
the minds of the medieval priesthood was necessarily so pro-
found” (3d ed., p. 3). Had this distinguished historian’s
studies carried him back into the remoter reaches of the ancient
Orient he would of course have recognized at once that what he
calls ‘‘ Jewish theocratic polity” was in fact only a very late
manifestation of a conception of the state already wide-spread
in the early East thousands of years before the Hebrew theo-
cratic monarchy arose. .

a y sy cH KA
= fy cry,
ges eA

fi

Fic. 132. FireLtp SHRINE OF THE PORTABLE BATTLE EMBLEM OF ASSUR, WITH PRIESTS
MINISTERING BEFORE IT AS TO THE Gop HIMSELF,

vol. x.—18.

266 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fie. 133. HAMMURAPI TEE GREAT KING OF BABYLONIA RECEIVING THE LAW FROM
THE SUN-GOD. (21st century B.c.) The king is at the left shrouded in a long gar-
ment. The god at the right is enthroned on a mount as suggested by the stones
under his throne. The flame emblems rising from his shoulders show his character
as a solar deity. The relief surmounts the shaft which bears his great code
(Fig. 108).

Men who believed in such a state accepted absolute mon-
archy as a matter of course, and never raised the question or
entered upon a discussion of the proper form of state. We can
not here follow the course of this conception of the state as
along with many other elements of the great fabric of Oriental
civilization it entered Europe in the train of Alexander’s con-
quests and, passing through the Oriental despotism of the By-
zantine emperors, infected all Europe with the doctrine of the
divine right of kings. In the person of the ablest and the most
guilty of the fallen European sovereigns, a ruler who persist-
ently proclaimed his belief in his own divine right—in the per-
son of this ruler we of this generation have been watching the
final and complete destruction of an ancient Oriental concept
of the state and the sovereign.

But this hoary Oriental concept of the state, although much
modified by democratic tendencies, did not stop on the other

THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION 267

side of the Atlantic. Its influence was still felt in the New Eng-
land town-meeting, which was as much a meeting of the church
as it was of the town; and our pilgrim forefathers little dreamed
that in the distant vista behind the venerable figure of Moses
dominating their assemblies, there loomed the remote and
colossal shadows of Cheops and of Hammurapi.

The reader will have discerned that the culture forces
issuing from the birth-lands of civilization, which we have
termed the Egypto-Babylonian group, have continued their
profound influence on Western life, even down into our own day
—a fact which is especially evident in the great historical reli-
gions, Judaism and Christianity. The particular purpose of
these lectures, however, has been to reach much further back
than is done by the historian, and in so far as such a slender
sketch would permit, to marshal some of the more graphic and
outstanding evidences which permit us to trace the rising life
of man from the cave hunters of France and Spain in the Paleo-
lithic Age, some ten or twelve thousand years ago, to the emerg-
ence of great civilized societies in the Near Orient, and the
transmission of civilization from such communities to the
shores of Europe beginning five thousand years ago. Even
before the civilization of the Near East had been made possible
by the development of writing and metallurgy, Europe had re-
ceived cattle and grain from the Orient, as indispensable pre-
liminaries to civilization (Fig. 134, first bracket). After the
first transition of civilization from the Nile valley to south-
eastern Kurope (Fig. 134, second bracket), the destructive
invasion of the early Greek barbarians crushed the earliest ciy-
ilization of Europe so that not even writing survived. The devel-
opment of the Greeks was therefore accompanied by a second
transition of civilization from the Orient to Europe, this tinie

OEEMmIBEs Ni ACM AGD 2 Sa aeal EUROPEAN TEE ADERS Ee

8000BG. 4000BC OO BC. 6thCenBC
STONE AGE IN THE ORIENT |COPPER-BRONZE AGE] | Oman
PALAEOLITHIC fyeoutiic eit

12
Ba
h
Domesticated

der
nflvences.
fvurope gains
Leadership

of the World

Western Asia
retarded by cold
3

ype er ope See aaa Fle a Eercreerser, | Earliest ciutization
EASA BO ae Ese NEOLITHIC

SmmOnNE=ssAIG Ean INE SIUROSPI PS |BRONZERAGES MRO mN An Gwe
ecco Bc 3000 8.C 1000 BC.
KEY = ORIENT =EUROPE.
Fic. 184. DIAGRAM VISUALIZING THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION IN THE ORIENT AND ITS°

TRANSITON TEENCE TO EUROPE,

268 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

from the entire Egypto-Babylonian group (Fig. 134, third
bracket). But Hellenic genius never permitted the Greeks to
remain merely passive recipients of culture from without.
Building on foundations largely Oriental, they erected asplendid
structure of civilization which nobly expressed their marvelous
gifts, and brought them an unchallenged supremacy which was
already evident in the sixth century B.c. The leadership in
civilization then passed finally and definitely from the Orient to
Greece. In recognizing this fact we have reached the culmina-
tion of that vast synthesis which we are the first generation of
men to be able to make—a synthesis which enables us to trace
the developing life of man from a creature but little superior to
the simians, through unnumbered ages of struggle and advance,
leading us from the cave savages of southern France through
the conquest of civilization in the Orient, its transition to
Europe, and thus through the supreme achievements of Greek
genius, to the highly developed life of man at the present day.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 269

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION
IN THE LIGHT OF HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT

By EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN

PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

V. THE CELLULAR BASIS OF ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY
A. GERM CELLS AND SOMATIC CELLS

1. Germ Cells the only Living Bond between Generations
and Species

MAGINE the amazement and incredulity of the naturalists of
| a former generation, who thought of evolution only as the
transformation of developed organisms under the influence of
changing environment, if they could learn that to-day the great-
est problems of ontogeny and phylogeny center in the structures
and functions of the germ cells! And yet this is strictly and
literally true. The germ cells form the only living bond not
only between generations but also between species. The germ
cells contain the physical basis not only of heredity but also of
evolution. We know little about the changes taking place in
germ cells which cause evolution, we are at present unable to
initiate and control such changes, but at least we know where to
look for them. The mechanism of evolution is at present largely
unknown, but at least we know where that mechanism is located.

2. Germ Cells and Somatic Cells are Fundamentally Alike

When once the fact of the importance of the germ cells in
ontogeny and phylogeny was appreciated there arose a belief
that these cells must be essentially different from all other kinds
of cells. Germ cells were contrasted with somatic cells and it
was supposed that there must be a world-wide difference be-
tween cells which could give rise to new individuals or new
species and those which constituted the various tissues of the
body. And yet in many respects these cells are very similar.
Both have a nucleus and a cell-body; in both the nucleus contains
chromosomes that are usually of the same number, shape and
relative size in all cells of a given species and while the cell-body
of somatic cells undergoes marked differentiations in the various

270 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

tissues these differentiations are probably no greater than the
corresponding differentiations in the germ cells. Indeed the
differentiations of a mature spermatozoon are probably as great
as those of any muscle cell or nerve cell and the differentiations
of the egg are as marked as those of any gland cell, while the
differences between the male and female germ cells are quite as
great as the differences between a muscle cell and a nerve cell.
Furthermore there are many evidences that up to a certain
stage of development cells may differentiate in one direction or
another depending upon environmental conditions. Many cells
which under certain conditions would have formed tissue cells
may under other conditions form germ cells and vice versa, and
this is especially true among lower organisms where cell differ-
entiations appear more slowly and do not go so far as among
higher forms. Such changes in the fate of a cell can not take
place after differentiations have passed a certain stage; fully
developed muscle cells or nerve cells can not become germ cells,
nor can fully developed germ cells become tissue cells except by
the process of embryonic development; but this means only that
there is a critical stage in development beyond which differ-
entiation is not a reversible process. All kinds of tissue cells as
well as germ cells develop out of germ cells and it is evident
that there is no fundamental distinction between the two.

3. Nucleus (Germplasm) and Cytoplasm (Somatoplasm)
are Fundamentally Different

But while there is no fundamental difference between germ
cells and somatic cells there is in every cell, excepting perhaps
the very simplest organisms such as bacteria, a fundamental
difference between nucleus and cytoplasm. Chemically and
physically, morphologically and physiologically these two con-
stituents of all cells are sharply distinguished. First of all there
is a marked chemical difference between the two; the nucleus
is acid in reaction, the cytoplasm alkaline; the nucleus contains
a relatively large amount of phosphorus, the cytoplasm almost
none at all; many compounds, especially nucleinic acid and
nucleo-proteins are found exclusively in the nucleus. The
nucleus is usually more dense and more highly refractive than
the plasma.

But it is in morphological and physiological characteristics
that the differences between nucleus and plasma reach a climax.
The peculiarities of nuclear membrane and linin framework, of
nuclear sap and chromatic granules, of chromosomes and

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 271

nucleoli are too well known to need emphasis. And when to
these morphological peculiarities of the nucleus are added its
physiological characteristics,—its indispensability in construc-
tive metabolism, regulation and regeneration, its control over
cell-differentiation and development, its peculiarities of division,
its unfailing continuity from cell to cell and from generation to
generation,—it will be seen that this contrast between nucleus
and plasma is fundamental. Although germ cells and somatic
cells are not essentially unlike, nucleoplasm and cytoplasm are,
and there is abundant evidence that germplasm is located in the
nucleus, somatoplasm in the cell-body.

4. Cell Division

From every point of view our knowledge of organisms has
been greatly advanced by the prolonged and extensive study
which has been devoted to cell division. The older views as to
the origin of cells by ‘‘free formation” or de novo have been
referred to in a previous section (p. 489) and these false views
have been responsible for many erroneous theories of heredity
and evolution which persist in one form or another to this day.
On the other hand the doctrine of Remak (1841) that every cell
comes from a preexisting cell by a process of division has been
found to be universally true and has greatly influenced almost
all lines of biological research.

It was at first supposed that both the cell-body and the
nucleus always divided by a process of simple constriction;
afterwards it was discovered that the nucleus usually divides in
2 much more complicated manner and although it is still gen-
erally held that the cell-body divides by simple constriction there
are evidences that this also is much more complicated than has
commonly been supposed.

Neither the nucleus nor the cell-body is a simple, homoge-
neous structure which may divide equally by simple mass con-
striction. The nucleus is really a compound structure composed
of a larger or smaller number of karyomeres or nuclear units,
while the cell-body contains many different structures; a simple
mass constriction of the entire cell could not possibly divide all
of these equally. Accurate division of a complex cell requires
a special mechanism and this is found in mitosis or karyokinesis.

(a) Mitosis or Indirect Nuclear Division.—During stages of
division there appears in the nucleus a number of deeply stain-
ing threads or rods, the chromosomes, while other threads which
do not stain readily form a spindle-shaped figure. In most

272 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

animals and in many of the lower plants there is in the cyto-
plasm opposite each pole of the spindle a star-shaped figure, the
aster, with a minute body, the centrosome, at its center. The
nuclear membrane then dissolves and its contents are set free
into the cell body; in place of the nucleus there is left a spindle
with the chromosomes gathered around its equator and with the
centrosomes and asters at its two poles. Then each chromosome
splits lengthwise into two daughter chromosomes and these
halves move in opposite directions along the spindle toward its
poles, where they unite to form the two daughter nuclei.

This process is known as mitosis or indirect nuclear division
and its chief significance is found in the fact that each chromo-
some is divided into daughter chromosomes each of which is
identically like the other.

In the meantime complicated movements are taking place in
the cell-body outside of the nucleus, which move the mitotic
spindle into a definite position in the cell, sort and localize va-
rious constituents of the cytoplasm and finally lead to the divi-
sion of the latter in a plane passing through the equator of the
spindle, thus completing the division into two eells.

(b) Persistent Identity of Chromosomes.—Although the
chromosomes constitute so striking a part of a dividing nucleus
they usually disappear entirely after division and in their stead
one finds only a single nuclear vesicle containing a clear, non-
staining fluid or gel, the achromatin, imbedded in which are the
granules or threads of chromatin. Usually no trace of chromo-
somes can be seen in such a “resting” nucleus.

However the fact that the same number of chromosomes is
usually found in every dividing nucleus of any given species,
that these chromosomes split lengthwise into daughter chromo-
somes which then unite to form the daughter nuclei, and that
at the next division the same number of chromosomes, having
the same shapes and relative sizes, come out of a nucleus as went
into it at the preceding mitosis,—these facts early gave rise to
the hypothesis that in some way or other the chromosomes pre-
serve their individuality or identity throughout the “resting”
stage between successive divisions.

This hypothesis of the “individuality of the chromosomes ”
has now been verified in a number of cases by actually tracing
certain chromosomes into the daughter nucleus and through the
“resting” stage until they emerge at the next division as typical
chromosomes. It is found that each chromosome absorbs fluid
from the cytoplasm and swells up to form a chromosomal

bo
=~]
WS

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION

vesicle (Fig.i1). These vesicles then unite to form the daughter
nucleus and usually the partition walls between vesicles disap-
pear leaving what appears to be a single nuclear vesicle, but in
certain favorable objects it can be seen that each chromosomal
vesicle persists through the whole of the resting stage and at
the next mitosis the chromatin granules within each chromo-
somal vesicle are drawn together into a chromosome which is in
all respects similiar to the one from which that vesicle arose.
Probably every chromosome exists as a chromosomal vesicle

lig. 11. SPERMATOGONIA OF Phrynotcttiz. A and B, Middle (metaphase) and
late (anaphase) stages of mitosis showing separation of daughter chromosomes,
among them the XY (sex) chromosomes. C and D, Last stages (telophase) of mitosis
passing into the resting nucleus; each chromosome is swelling up into a chromosomal
vesicle. H and fF’, Early stages (prophase) of next division, showing the reappearence
of a chromosome in each vesicle and in #f’ the longitudinal splitting of every chromo-
some. (After Wenrich.)

during the resting stage and as a condensed chromosome during
division and thus persists from cell to cell and from generation
to generation. Possibly other parts of a cell may preserve in-
definitely their individuality or identity, but in the case of the
chromosomes this is no longer a mere hypothesis but an estab-
lished fact.

A chromosome, like any living organism, undergoes many
changes in its life cycle without losing its identity. The changes
in form and staining reaction which it undergoes in passing
from the resting to the dividing stage and vice versa indicate

274 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

that persistent identity does not imply fixity of its entire organ-
ization. Nevertheless something, some part of that organiza-
tion, must persist through all the changes of the division cycle,
and it is evident that this is not the deeply-staining portion of
the dividing chromosome for in the resting stage this chro-
matic material may lose its affinity for dyes and coincidently
the nucleolus (karyosome) become chromatic, while these
changes are reversed at the beginning of mitosis. Likewise in
dessicated cells Hickernell found that the chromatic material

A RAR A

Fic. 12. SyNAPSIS (CONJUGATION) OF CHROMOSOMES IN Phrynotettixz. A, Rest-
ing nucleus at left shows indistinct chromosomes, among them chromosome X and
the pair B. At the right are 12 pairs of B chromosomes, each from a different ani-
mal, showing side by side conjugation of chromosomes of a pair and homologous

>

chromomeres (1, 2, 3, 4) in each pair. B, Similar stages in chromosome pair A.
Some of the chromosome pairs at the right show a secondary longitudinal split and
a “ crossing-over’ of the halves. ©, Tetrads (bivalent chromosomes) of chromosome
pair B, formed by shortening and thickening of the chromosome pairs and by the
appearance of the secondary split. (After Wenrich.)

moves to the periphery of the nucleus whereas in cells recover-
ing from dessication it goes back into the nucleus. Conse-
quently it seems probable that the persistent part of a chromo-
some is the achromatic framework or linin in which chromatin
is present at certain phases of the cell cycle and absent at others,
just as the persistent part of a red corpuscle is the cytoplasmic
framework which may or may not contain hemoglobin.

There is evidence that the chromosomes themselves are com-
pound structures and that just as nuclei are composed of

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 279

chromosomes or their vesicles, so the latter are composed of
smaller units, the chromatin granules or chromomeres. In the
formation of chromosomes, the chromomeres appear like beads
on a string and in the splitting of chromosomes each chromo-
mere divides into equal halves, and just as the chromosomes are
specific bodies each of which preserves its identity, so each
chromomere is probably a specific and persistent body. Wen-
rich has shown that in certain chromosomes of a grasshopper
there are specific chromomeres occupying particular positions
and that some of these chromomeres preserve their identity
throughout the resting stages and are therefore persistent struc-
tures (Fig. 12). In all probability further work will demon-
strate that every chromomere in a chromosome is a specific and
persistent body. Indeed it is probable that chromomeres are
much more constant than chromosomes. McClung and his
pupils have shown that the number of chromosomes in a given
species or in related species may not always be constant, owing
to the fact that certain chromosomes may fragment while in
other cases separate ones may unite. But whatever the number
of chromosomes may be there is apparently a constant number
of chromomeres in every species, perhaps even in all closely
allied species, and variations in the number of chromosomes are
due to the grouping of the chromomeres into a larger or smaller
number of chromosomes.

5. Panmerism

It is one of the characteristics of organisms and parts of
organisms that they are capable of assimilation, growth and
division. This is true not only of the larger units of organiza-
tion but probably also of every unit down to the ultra-micro-
scopic parts of cells and protoplasm. Indeed the larger and
more complex units may lose this property while it is still re-
tained by the smaller units. Entire organisms and organs may
lose the power of continued growth and division while it is still
retained by cells or parts of cells. By this process of growth
and division every cell comes from a preceding cell, every
nucleus from a nucleus, every chromosome from a chromosome,
every chromomere from a chromomere, every gene from a gene,
—and in general every vital unit from a preceding unit of the
same kind. So far as is known the simpler units always divide
equally both in size and quality; this is true of the units com-
posing the nucleus such as chromosomes, chromomeres, genes
and probably also of the individual units of the cytoplasm.

276 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

But entire cells or groups of cells may divide equally or un-
equally and the differentiations of development are due mainly
to this fact. Such differential divisions of cells are due in the
main to different combinations and localizations of units which
divide equally and non-differentially, and in general all forms
of differentiation, variation, and evolution are due to different
combinations of vital units, whether they be organs, tissues,
cells, plastids, chromosomes, chromomeres, genes or subgenes;
just as all forms of chemical compounds are due to different
combinations of some 80 chemical elements, and all words, sen-
tences, languages and literatures are the result of different com-
binations of a small number of letters. However the smaller
units of living organization grow and divide equally and not
differentially and this property perpetuates the identity of par-
ticular kinds of units.

But it is not necessary to assume that everything capable of
increasing its own substance is alive. Certainly many sub-
stances which are not protoplasm have this power. Ferments
which are capable of self-propagation, or substances which pro-
duce ferments which in turn are capable of producing those
substances, are known. Such reactions are called auto-catalytic
and it is probable that many phenomena of reproduction, espe-
cially among the smaller units of organisms, are autocatalytic
reactions. We do not know whether in such reactions colloidal
particles, or molecular aggregates, grow and divide, but this is
just what takes place in the parts of cells which are visible
with the microscope. These parts of cells are not alive in the
sense or to the same extent that the entire cell is; they are in-
capable of continued independent existence, and it is probably
as erroneous to hold that every minute unit of organization is
composed of living protoplasm as it would be to regard every
brick in a building as a minute house.

B. MECHANISM OF HEREDITY

The mechanism of heredity is to be found in the structure
and functions of the germ cells, for everything that is trans-
mitted from one generation to the next must be through the
germ cells. The method of studying this mechanism must be
by the correlation of particular features of the germ cells with
particular phenomena of heredity, in short by the cooperation
of cytology and genetics.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION O77

1. Chromosomes and Inheritance Units

It was pointed out on a previous page that there are many
reasons for supposing that the germplasm is located in the
nucleus, the somatoplasm in the cell body. Furthermore the
chromosomes more nearly fulfill the requirements of an in-
heritance material than any other constituents of the nucleus.
The evidence that the Mendelian factors or genes are located in
the chromosomes may be summarized as follows:

(a) General Equivalence of Germplasm and of Chromo-
somes in Egg and Sperm.—A study of heredity shows that on
the whole offspring inherit as much from one parent as from
the other and therefore as many genes must be derived from the
sperm as from the egg. But the only substances which are
known to come in approximately equal quantities from the two
sex cells are the chromosomes. The egg at the time of fertiliza-
tion contains a relatively large quantity of cytoplasm, yolk and
other substances in the cell-body. The spermatozoon, on the
other hand, is one of the smallest of all cells and usually its head
only enters the egg, leaving the tail and most of the cytoplasm
outside. The head of the spermatozoon consists almost entirely
of a condensed nucleus in which is the characteristic number of
chromosomes. In the egg nucleus also this characteristic num-
ber of chromosomes is present. The egg and sperm nuclei come
together within the egg and their chromosomes mingle but do
not fuse together nor lose their identity. The chromosomes
which come from the egg and those from the sperm are not only
equal in number and size but are also alike in shape so that in
every fertilized egg there are two sets of similar chromosomes,
one set from the egg and the other fromthesperm. The chromo-
somes are the only portions of the male and female germ cells
which are approximately equal in volume and it is therefore
probable that they are the seat of the inheritance material.

(b) Equal Distribution to all Cells—Since inherited char-
acters of one or the other parent may appear in every part of
the bodies of offspring, it must be that inheritance units from
the two parents are distributed equally to every cell. So far as
known the only portions of the egg and sperm which are dis-
tributed equally to every cell of the developing organism are the
chromosomes. At the first division of the fertilized egg and at
every subsequent division each chromosome divides equally and
its halves go into the two daughter cells. Therefore every
cleavage cell, and ultimately every cell of the adult body comes
to contain one full set of chromosomes from the egg and another

278 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

set from the sperm. Since the chromosomes are the only por-
tions of the egg and sperm which are known to be distributed
equally to every cell, it is probable that they contain the inheri-
tance factors.

(c) Conjugation and Reduction of Maternal and Paternal
Chromosomes.—lIn the last stages of the formation of the germ

ZYGOTES

9 GAMETES SGAMETES

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Fig. 13. DtAGRAM SHOWING SOME OF THE POSSIBLE DISTRIBUTIONS OF CHROMO-
SOMES OF GRANDPARENTS TO GRANDCHILDREN. Chromosomes of paternal grandfather
unshaded, of paternal grandmother stippled, of maternal grandfather with cross
lines, of maternal grandmother black. The sex chromosomes are J-shaped, a pair
being present in the female and a single one in the male. In the oocyte and spermato-
eyte synaptic pairs of homologous chromosomes are shown separating so that the
gametes contain only one of each pair. 3y the union of gametes to form zygotes the
double number is restored.

cells the two sets of parental chromosomes temporarily unite,
and in general long chromosomes pair with long ones, short ones
with short ones and those of peculiar shape with others of
similar shape; in short the members of each pair are homologous

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 219

chromosomes. This process is known as synapsis or the conju-
gation of the chromosomes, the pairs are called synaptic pairs
or bivalent chromosomes; and in some cases it can be demon-
strated that one member of each pair comes from the father,
the other from the mother (Figs. 12, 13, 15, 16).

In all ordinary divisions every chromosome splits into two
and the halves go into the daughter cells, but in one or the other
of the last two divisions leading to the formation of the germ
cells, the synaptic pairs separate, whole chromosomes going
into the daughter cells. By the separation of whole chromo-
somes in this division the germ cells come to contain only one
half as many chromosomes as the other cells of the body. The
full number of chromosomes is the diploid number (27), the
reduced number the haploid (17) and the division by which this
reduction is effected is known as the “‘ reduction division.” On
the other hand ordinary divisions, in which each chromosome
splits and the daughter cells Sone as many chromosomes as
the mother cell, are known as “ equation divisions.”

Since one chromosome of each synaptic pair is fees the
father and the other from the mother and since these chromo-
somes separate freely in the reduction division, that is each
member is free to move to either pole of the mitotic spindle, it
follows that each germ cell or gamete contains one full set of
chromosomes, some of which are from the father and others
from the mother, but only one chromosome of each pair is found
in any gamete (Fig. 13).

The correlation between these cytological facts and the phe-
nomena of heredity are very striking. All hybrids carry two
sets of factors, derived from the two parents, but in the forma-
tion of the gametes these factors separate so that every germ
cell is pure with respect to any character. In this respect the
factors, which are invisible, behave exactly as do the chromo-
somes which are easily seen. Indeed it would be impossible to
invent a more perfect mechanism for the segregation of Men-
delian factors than is found in the union of maternal and
paternal chromosomes into synaptic pairs and their subsequent
separation in the reduction division. This complete parallelism
between the behavior of the chromosomes and of the inheritance
factors is convincing evidence that the factors are located in
the chromosomes (Figs. 14, 15).

(d) Doubling of Chromosomes and of Factors in Fertiliza-
tion.—Finally in the union of male and female gametes, each
having the reduced or haploid number of chromosomes, the:

280 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

somatic or diploid number is restored. The chance combina-
tion of chromosomes in fertilization is identically like the
chance combinations of inheritance factors, and both yield the
same Mendelian ratios. Mendelian segregation and recombina-
tion of factors is exactly parallel to the reduction of chromo-
somes in gametogenesis and their union in fertilization. In
every respect chromosomes may stand as the visible symbols of
factors (Figs. 14, 15). It is highly probable therefore that the
factors are located in the chromosomes.

Fic. 14. DIAGRAM SHOWING UNION IN FERTILIZATION, CONJUGATION IN SYNAPSIS
AND SEGREGATION IN FORMATION OF GAMETES of Factors A, B, C, D of the egg and
a, b, ec, d, of the sperm. (After Wilson.)

(e) Sea-Determination and “ Sex-Chromosomes.’—Still fur-
ther evidence that the chromosomes are the seat of inheritance
factors is found in the relation of some of these bodies to sex-
determination.

The cause of sex has been a subject of speculation and
theorizing for hundreds if not thousands of years, but within
the last fifteen years it has been discovered that at least the
initial cause of the differentiation of the two sexes is inherited,
although there may be many other causes which are environ-
mental. In this respect sex does not differ from any other in-
herited character; many causes both hereditary and environ-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 281

mental are involved in the development of any inherited
character ; all that is implied in saying that any character is
inherited is that its initial differential is transmitted through
the germ cells.

In this sense it is known that in many animals and plants
sex is inherited as a Mendelian character, one sex being homo-
zygous ‘and the other heterozygous for this character and that
consequently the heterozygous sex forms two sorts of germ
cells, the homozygous but one and the chance combination of

Fertilization :
Union of Cleavage
Simplex Groups Duplex Groups
QO ABCD

ABCD abed

I

Aa. Bb. Ce. Dd.

agN Synapsis. Reduction Germ Cells
Somatic Divistons Division Simplex Groups
Duplex Groups
Fic. 15, DisGRAM OF UNION OF CHROMOSOMES OF EGG AND SPERM IN FSRTILIZA-
TION, THEIR CONJUGATION IN SYNAPSIS AND SEGREGATION IN FORMATION OF GHRM
CELLS, corresponding to the factors shown in Fig. 14. (After Wilson.)

these germ cells yields equal numbers of homozygotes and
heterozygotes, which fact explains the numerical equality of
the two sexes.

In all such instances we have a plain Mendelian case of the
crossing of a heterozygous with a homozygous form in which
one half of the offspring are homozygous and the other half
heterozygous, as shown in the following scheme:

Female (homozygous) produces Eggs of one type....... = Rs A *
x

Male (heterozygous) produces Sperms of two types...... Eee fea 3

All possible crosses result: i... )5 cis nd aasle sje in wee nein =299 :2(9)6

or the ratio of males to females is 1 : 1.
VoL. x.—19.

282 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

In the spermatogenesis of certain insects it had been ob-
served that there was an odd number of chromosomes and in
synapsis when homologous maternal and paternal chromosomes
unite in pairs one of these chromosomes was left without a
mate; it was therefore called the “odd” or “ accessory ” chromo-
some. In the reduction division when the two chromosomes of
a pair separate the odd chromosome went entire to one pole of
the mitotic figure and there was no corresponding chromosome
at the other pole; consequently, one of the two gametes formed
by this division had one chromosome more than the other and
two types of spermatozoa were formed in equal numbers,—one
type with and one without the “odd” chromosome (Fig. 16).

Protendr Trype

Oocyte Reduction Ova Fertilized Egg
Division

2( a) o*)

@ @-G)

Spermatocyte Reduction Spermatids
Division

Fie. 16. DIAGRAM OF CHROMOSOMAL DETERMINATION OF SEX IN Protenor (XO
TypPH). The oocyte contains 6 chromosomes, 2 of them being sex chromosomes (X),
|the spermatocyte contains 5, there being only 1 X; after reduction each egg contains
1 X and 2 ordinary chromosomes; half of the spermatozoa contain 1 X and the other
half lack it; if an egg is fertilized by a sperm with an X a female results, if by one
without the X a male is produced. (After Wilson.)

Since the 1:1 ratio of these two types of spermatozoa cor-
responds to the usual sex ratio, McClung suggested that this
“odd” chromosome was a sex determinant. Wilson and
Stevens then found that all eggs contain this ‘‘odd” chromo-
some, which was therefore called the “‘ sex”? chromosome, or the
“X” chromosome, and that any egg fertilized by a sperm con-
taining this chromosome produced a female, whereas if fer-
tilized by a sperm without it a male was produced, as is shown
in the following diagram:

Chromosomal Constitution of Male (4) Zygote XO, of Gametes. me 5
of Female (9) 0 8°! ex, ee
All posible combinations of these Gametes 2XX (P) : 2XO(d)

(indicated by arrows)

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 283

Later Wilson and Stevens discovered that in the males of
certain other insects the “odd” chromosome had a mate which
was small or rudimentary and which they called the “Y”
chromosome. Consequently the sex chromosomes of the male
were in these cases X and Y, while those of the female were
X and X and the chance combinations of the gametes formed by
these animals yielded equal numbers of the combination XY (¢)
and XX (9) (Fig. 17).

At present it is known in more than one hundred species of
animals and plants that with respect to the sex chromosomes
two types of spermatozoa occur and but one type of ova, that

Tenebrio .Type
Reduction Fertilized
Oocyte Division Ova Dgg

Spermatocyte Reduction Spermatids
Division

Fie. 17. DIAGRAM OF CHROMOSOMAL DBTERMINATION OF SEX IN Tenebrio (XY
Typp), showing 5 synaptic pairs of chromosomes (there are actually 10 pairs). In
the oocyte the sex chromosomes (XX) are equal in size and after reduction each oyum
contains 1 X; in the spermatocyte these chromosomes are unequal (XY) and after
reduction half of the spermatozoa contain a large X and half a small Y; sex is
determined by the chance union of one or the other of these types of spermatozoa with
the single type of ova.

eggs fertilized by one type of sperm produce males and by the
other type females. In a few cases among Lepidoptera and
birds there is evidence that the female is heterozygous for sex,
the male homozygous, and that correspondingly two types of
ova are produced and but one type of spermatozoa; but this
does not affect the general principle that sex is determined by
the chance union of gametes bearing particular sex chromo-
somes.

This correlation between the presence or absence of a whole
chromosome and of a developed character such as sex, is the
only case of the kind that is known and more than anything else -
it has served to prove that the chromosomes contain the Men-

284 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

delian factors. The absence of a whole chromosome is plainly
visible under the microscope, whereas the absence of a single
factor or gene from a chromosome would never have been seen.
These fortunate cases in which the male lacks a whole chromo-
some give ocular proof of the chromosomal theory of heredity.

Environmental Influences.—It should be said that a number
of apparent exceptions to the chromosomal determination of
sex are known. In some of these cases environmental conditions
change the usual 1:1 sex ratio or lead to the development of
“intersexes” which are more or less intermediate between
males and females. Departures from the normal sex ratio are
sometimes due to the early death of one type of gametes or
zygotes; “‘intersexes” may be caused by a balancing of male-
producing and female-producing factors in the zygote, or of
conflicting genetic and environmental factors in development.
These cases illustrate the necessity of distinguishing between
the hereditary determination of sex and its ontogenetic de-
velopment.

Probably in every case these apparent exceptions to the
chromosomal determination of sex may be explained in con-
formity with that theory; in any event this theory is now so
well established in so many different cases that it may be ac-
cepted as the usual if not the only method of sex determination.
But this means only that the initial factors for sex determina-
tion are carried in a particular chromosome. Doubtless there
are many other factors in the development of sex, some of which
are germinal and others environmental.

The male or female condition may be regarded, therefore, as
the result of the dominance of male-determining or female-
determining factors, and the condition of ‘“‘intersexes” as the
result of the partial dominance of one or both of these factors.
This applies of course to the primary sex characters, such as
ovaries and testes, and also to secondary characters which are
associated with one or the other sex, such as peculiarities of
size, color, hair or feathers, mammary glands, voice, instincts
and habits, etc. The full development of these secondary sex
characters is usually limited to one sex or the other; they are
known as sex-limited characters and their development is de-
pendent upon the dominance of the male-determining or the
female-determining factors, whether those factors be hereditary
or environmental.

Sex-linked Characters.—Another class of characters which
Morgan has called sex-linked are inherited in the same way that
sex itself is and for the reason, as he has proved, that their

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 285

genes are located in the sex-determining chromosome. These
characters may have nothing to do with sex itself but their
genes are linked with those of sex. Morgan has found a large
number of such sex-linked characters in the pomice fly, Droso-
phila melanogaster, among them eye-color, body-color, wing
characters, etc. Other well-known cases are Daltonism or color
blindness and hemophilia or slow clotting of blood in man.
Such sex-linked characters are like recessive ones in that
they do not develop when balanced by a normal allelomorph.
Consequently they do not develop in females unless they are
inherited from both parents, their genes being present in both

Eyes ° Chromosomes

Se <o- XO KX Parents

ink = ee ee
: feo | Guimetes

Fi
aoe Lab
| Gametés
Xan 4

a a Ag as isa
<C> <> <> @w@ XX XX XO XO Fe
Bah ate Ns lady inthe <1). |e ae ana 8
~ @)
Fig. 18. DIAGRAM OF SEX-LINKED INHERITANCE OF COLOR-BLINDNESS (DALTON-
IsM). A color-blind male (here black) transmits his defect to one half of his grand-

sons only. The corresponding distribution of the sex chromosome containing the
gene for this defect is shown on the right. (After Morgan.)

X chromosomes, whereas in males they are always inherited
from the mother only since the single X chromosome of the
male always comes from the mother. All the sons of a color-
blind father and normal mother are normal since the single X
chromosome which they have comes from the mother and ecar-
ries the gene for normal vision. All the daughters of such a
cross appear normal, although carrying the paternal gene for
color-blindness, since they also have from their mother the gene
for normal vision. Half of the germ cells of these daughters
carry the gene for color-blindness, half for normal vision and:
if one of the former kind is fertilized by a male-producing

286 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

sperm it gives rise to a color-blind male since in this case the
gene for color-blindness is not balanced by a normal allelo-
morph; consequently half of the sons of the F, generation will
be color blind (Fig. 18).

(f) Abnormal Distribution of Chromosomes and Factors.
—Experimental evidence that the chromosomes are the seat of
inheritance factors is found in the correlation between the ab-
normal distribution of chromosomes and the development of
abnormal characters in the embryo or adult. An abnormal dis-
tribution of chromosomes to the cleavage cells may be caused
in a variety of ways but one of the least injurious methods of
accomplishing this is by causing two spermatozoa instead of
one to enter an egg. In such doubly fertilized eggs Boveri dis-
covered that different cleavage cells receive a different number
of chromosomes and in general those cells which receive the
largest number develop most typically, while those which re-
ceive a small number develop atypically. By a skillful analysis
Boveri proved that normal development depends not so much
upon the absolute number of chromosomes in a given cell as
upon a complete set of all the different kinds of chromosomes,
and when a complete set was not present certain characters
were lacking in development. By this means he showed that
different chromosomes of a set differ in hereditary value, as, for
example, the fingers of a hand differ from one another, and that
two chromosomes of one kind could not make up for the lack of
one of another kind, any more than two thumbs could make up
for the loss of a little finger.

A still more detailed correlation between the presence or
absence of a particular chromosome and the presence or ab-
sence of particular characters in the developed organism has
been described by Bridges (1916). In his study of the pomice
fly, Drosophila melanogaster, he found that the occasional ap-
pearance (1 in 1700) of a matroclinous daughter or patro-
clinous son was due to the fact that the XX pair of chromo-
somes fail to separate in the reduction division of the egg so
that both XX’s are included in the egg (Fig. 20, C) or both are
extruded in the polar body, or the XY pair fail to separate in
the reduction division of the sperm so that one sperm may have
both and another lack both of these chromosomes. This phe-
nomenon he calls “non-disjunction”’ and it results in the pro-
duction of matroclinous daughters or patroclinous sons, and in
many other irregularities of inheritance which follow precisely
the abnormal distribution of these chromosomes. A patro-
clinous son is the result of the fertilization of an O egg by an X

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 287

sperm; such an XO son is sterile whereas the normal XY:son
is not, thus showing that the chromosome Y has some function
though apparently it does not contain any of the genes; fer-
tilization of an O egg by a Y sperm produces a combination
(YO) which is non-viable. Fertilization of an XX egg by a Y
sperm produces a matroclinous daughter (XXY), whereas
fertilization of an XX egg by an X sperm produces a combina-
tion (XXX) which is non-viable. These relations are shown
schematically in the accompanying diagrams (Fig. 19).
Finally the most notable correlation between abnormal dis-
tribution of chromosomes and the development of abnormal

Primary Non-Disjunction in Male, Primary Non-Disjunction in Female.

Secondary Non-Disjunction in Female«
i (ex)

Fic. 19. DIaAGRAM OF NON-DISJUNCTION OF SHX CHROMOSOMES (BRIDGES) IN
THH MATURATION OF THE EGG AND SPERM AND THE RESULTING TYPES OF ZYGOTES.

characters has been found by Morgan in gynandromorphs or
sex-mosaics of Drosophila in which one portion of the body has
the characters of the male and another those of the female.
Such sex-mosaics are evidently due to the fact that in the ordi-
nary somatic cell-divisions the pair of XX chromosomes in the
female or of XY chromosomes in the male do not go into every
daughter cell but are so distributed that two Xs (female con-
stitution) occur in some cells and one X (male constitution) in
other cells.

All of these cases of abnormal distribution of chromosomes
coincide exactly with the subsequent abnormal distribution of

288 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

characters in the developed animal and they prove that the in-
herited factors for these characters are located in the chromo-
somes.

(g) Linkage of Characters and Chromosomal Localization.
—Finally the study of characters which are linked together in
heredity, joined with the study of the chromosomes and their
distribution in the maturation and fertilization of the germ
cells, has not only confirmed the chromosomal theory of heredity
but has also shown that certain chromosomes carry the genes
for certain characters and has even indicated the relative posi-
tions of different genes in the chromosomes.

In higher animals and plants the number of chromosomes is
small as compared with the number of their Mendelian factors,
and therefore if these factors are located in the chromosomes
each must contain several of them. Since chromosomes gen-
erally preserve their identity or individuality the factors which
they contain should be linked together and developed characters
should be inherited in groups corresponding in number to the
different chromosomes.

It has been known for a long time that certain characters
are correlated so that they usually go together although they
may have no evident dependence upon one another. Thus
Darwin mentions the fact that male albino cats with blue eyes
are usually deaf and have defective teeth. Many other cases of
the association of peculiar characters were reported by earlier
and later observers but the causes of such correlations were
wholly unknown.

Since 1910 Morgan and his associates have discovered more
than one hundred new characters, or mutations, in the pomice
fiy, Drosophila melanogaster, which are linked together into
four groups, corresponding to the four pairs of chromosomes
in this species. Up to 1916 they had located in the first group
47 different characters, in the second 27, in the third 22 and in
the fourth 2.

Corresponding with the number and size of these groups
there are four pairs of chromosomes in Drosophila, three of
which are large and one is very small (Fig. 20). The sex
chromosomes (XY in the male, XX in the female) constitute
one of the large pairs and the genes of the characters which are
sex-linked are located in these chromosomes; the genes of the
second and third groups of characters are presumably in the
other large chromosomes, while the fourth group of only two
characters probably have their genes in the very small chromo-
somes. If this interpretation is correct, linkage is due to the

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 289

grouping together of certain genes in certain chromosomes,
there are as many groups of characters as there are pairs of
chromosomes and as long as the chromosomes preserve their
individuality the linkage of genes in the chromosomes and of
characters in the developed organism will persist.
“Cross-Overs.”’—But linkage of inherited characters is
not quite so simple as this statement would indicate for an ex-
tensive study of this phenomenon in Drosophila has shown that
while characters are usually inherited in the same groups this
is not always true. For example, Morgan has found that when
a female fly with white eyes and yellow wings is crossed to a
male with red eyes and gray wings all the sons are yellow and
have white eyes while all the daughters are gray and have red
eyes, but when these latter are crossed 99 per cent. of the off-
spring show the same linkage of the colors yellow-white, gray-
red, but in 1 per cent. the linkage is yellow-red, gray-white.

A B C

t ’ t* AI \V
A \. x / % | ci
Fic. 20. CHROMOSOMES (DIPLOID NuMBER) OF Drosophila melanogaster. A,

Female with 2 X chromosomes; B, Male with 1 X and 1 Y; C, Matroclinous female
resulting from non-disjunction of the 2 X chromosomes of the egg. (After Morgan.)

This interchange of characters in the two groups, or “ cross-
over ”’ as Morgan calls it, may be explained by assuming that
there has been an interchange of genes between the two sex
chromosomes of the female; “ cross-overs” do not occur in the
male of Drosophila. Janssens has found that when the paired
chromosomes lie side by side in synapsis they sometimes twist
around each other and in their subsequent separation each
chromosome sometimes breaks at the point where the two cross
and a portion of one chromosome is thereafter joined to the
other one. In this “chiasmatype” of Janssens we have a rela-
tively simple explanation of the interchange or “ cross-over ”’
of genes and consequently of the breaking up of old groups of
characters and the establishment of new ones. Similar re-
grouping of characters takes place in each of the other three
groups of Drosophila and can be explained in the same way -
(Fig. 21). If chromosomes of a pair are twisted round each

290 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

other at more than one place and are then broken at these points
we get double or multiple crossing-over and a corresponding
re-grouping of genes and of characters. Unless a pair of chro-
mosomes are very tightly twisted two cross-overs will not occur
near together and in general the farther apart points are in a
chromosome the more likely is a cross-over to occur.

All genes which are linked to each other lie in the same
chromosome and Bridges (1914) has shown that the farther
apart in a chromosome any two genes lie the greater is the

allt Ae 24

Wie. 21. DIAGRAM OF THE PROBABLE MECHANISM OF ‘‘ CROSSING-OVER.” Pairs
of homologous chromosomes, one from the father the other from the mother, are
shown in synapsis; on the left they lie parallel to each other and when they separate
they remain as they were before union; in the second column they are shown crossing
each other one or more times; in the remaining figures are shown the results of the
chromosomes breaking at the points of crossing, thus interchanging sections of the
two chromosomes. Letters indicate loci of homologous genes in the two chromosomes
of a pair. (After Wilson.)

amount of crossing-over between them. Morgan takes 1 per
cent. of crossing-over: as the “ cross-over value” and in general
this may be used as the unit of distance between genes in the
same chromosome. If cross-overs between two genes take place
only: in one case out of a hundred (1 per cent.) the genes are
supposed to be separated by only one (1) unit of distance; if
in thirty cases out of a hundred (30 per cent.) they are sep-
arated by thirty (80) units, etc. And when the relative num-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 291

bers of all cross-overs are considered it is possible to construct
a “map” of the chromosomes, as Morgan has done, showing
the relative positions and distances apart of all the genes con-
cerned.

Such a map represents only an approximation to the truth
since certain conditions may change the percentage of cross-
overs; thus Sturtevant has found that “factors for crossing-
over” may be present in certain cases which modify the ex-
pected percentages, and Plough has shown that crossing-over
may be increased by high temperatures, and that it takes place
only in the early oocyte stage when the chromosomes are fine
threads. Nevertheless these modifications of the percentages
of cross-overs do not appear to invalidate the calculations as to
the relative positions of genes in a chromosome.

Castle (1919, 1920) maintains that Morgan’s evidence does
not support the hypothesis of the linear arrangement of genes
in a chromosome and he attempts to show that an arrangement
of genes in three dimensions of space around the chromosomes
is a more likely hypothesis. Without entering into the details
of his argument it may be said that the longitudinal splitting
of chromosomes, the equal division of genes, and the union of
chromosome pairs in synapsis during the slender thread stage
seem to admit of no other explanation than a linear arrange-
ment of genes in the chromosome.

This work of Morgan and his associates on the localization
of genes is in all respects the most remarkable work which has
ever been done in this field; for the first time it gives us a de-
tailed picture of what Weismann called the “ architecture of the
germplasm ”—for the first time it assigns to different genes “‘a
local habitation and a name.”

(To be continued)

292 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

A GRAPHIC METHOD OF MEASURING CIVILI-
ZATION, AND SOME OF ITS APPLICATIONS

By ROLAND M. HARPER
UNIVERSITY, ALA.

N his interesting book, “Civilization and Climate” (Yale
University Press, 1915), Dr. Ellsworth Huntington has
essayed to map the degrees of civilization of the whole world,
and the United States in particular, and to correlate these with
certain rather complex climatic factors which he had ingen-
iously worked out. He used several different methods for meas-
uring civilization, but relied chiefly on a sort of composite pic-
ture of the opinions of fifty correspondents of wide experience
in various parts of the northern hemisphere, supplemented by
his own observations in many lands, and some independent sta-
tistical data.

Each collaborator was asked to assign a sort of percentage
rating in the scale of civilization to each of the principal geo-
graphical unit areas of the world (185 in number), and the
results were then averaged and mapped. These individual
opinions were doubtless based on general impressions of char-
acteristics not easily weighed or measured, and the emphasis
given to each characteristic naturally varied with different col-
laborators. One of them took the trouble to tabulate his esti-
mates for a few countries in considerable detail, mentioning
such attributes as initiative, inventiveness, ability to carry out
large projects, attention paid to education, hygiene and
morality, and appreciation of the beauties of nature, art,
and literature.

For the United States alone (presumably because similar
statistics were not available for many other countries) Dr.
Huntington supplemented the opinions of his correspondents
with statistics of mortality, illiteracy, school attendance, and
distinguished persons,: and suggested the possibility of using
for the same purpose criminal records, railway mileage, postal
business, and manufacturing. For comparing the efficiency of
whites and negroes in one of the early chapters he set forth the
results of certain psychological tests of school children, earn-

1 An interesting early contribution to this subject is an article by Hon.

Henry Cabot Lodge on the distribution of ability in the United States, in
the Century (20: 687-694) for September, 1891.

MEASURING CIVILIZATION 293

ings of workers in specified industries, and certain census data
for the farms of the two races in selected groups of states, some
northern and some southern.

The final results in each case agree reasonably well with
each other and with what a well-informed reader perusing the
book for the first time might expect, as well as with the climatic
factors used. But in the discussion of the civilization maps the
reader is left in doubt as to whether any or all of the fifty col-
laborators took into consideration the whole population of each
country or only the upper strata.

One would not have to go very far afield to find communi-
ties in which the adult population is relatively homogeneous
with respect to the characters that make up civilization, anal-
ogous to a prairie in which most of the mature plants are of
about the same height, and others with considerable numbers
of both celebrities and “‘ undesirable citizens,” a condition anal-
ogous to a forest with tall trees, lowly fungi, and various inter-
mediate forms.2 Every large city has its cultured aristocracy
and its slums, and a person relying on statistics of. illiteracy,
pauperism and crime for measures of civilization might rate
such a city lower than a thriving rural community, while one
looking only at the achievements of the most prominent citi-
zens would put the city the higher. In some of the southeastern
states a century ago about half the population consisted of
illiterate slaves, but the “ quality folks” gave these same states
a higher standing in the eyes of the world than the more newly
settled middle western or north central states, with their then
much more homogeneous population.

It is evident therefore that in order to get a fair measure
of civilization we must eliminate personal opinions as far as
possible and find one or more rational tests that can be applied
to the whole population or the greater part of it; or better still,
instead of merely taking averages, devise curves to show the
range of variation in each community or group studied. For
most such data we must look to the government census reports,
but some are more readily obtainable from other sources, and
some not at present available at all except for a few small
groups may possibly be returned by future censuses.

The statistics that may be used as criteria of civilization
might be divided roughly into two classes, namely, institutional
and individual. The former are obtained from corporations,
organizations, public officials, etc., and include such matters as

2See article on plant sociology in the SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY (4: 456—
460) for May, 1917.

294 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

aggregate and per capita wealth; manufacturing, banking and
insurance; railway mileage, number of newspapers, telephones,
automobiles, libraries, etc., per capita or per square mile;
church membership, school attendance, pauperism and crime.?
Individual statistics are based on inquiries made of or about all
individuals (or at least all adults, voters, or heads of families),
and may include, among other things, number of persons per
unit area, distance of residence from birthplace, age, marital
condition, education, and occupation. (Wealth and church
membership could indeed be ascertained from individuals, but
our census has never been so inquisitorial.) The statistics of
agriculture occupy an intermediate position, for the average
farm is commonly a one-family institution.

Almost any of the kinds of institutional statistics could be
used as a rough measure of civilization, but different kinds
might conceivably give quite divergent results. Some very sig-
nificant data about the civilization of rural districts can be
obtained from agricultural statistics, such as the value of farm
buildings, the proportion of farm land that is cultivated, the
value of crops per acre, etc., but that tells us nothing about con-
ditions in cities, and need not be considered further at present.

Some of the individual statistics, such as those of age and
marital condition, do not vary much with the progress of
civilization, while others, like illiteracy, give us only one aver-
age (or aS many averages as there are groups used), without
telling how far any individuals depart from that average. If,
however, we have criteria in which each individual is given a
rating, and the number of persons between any two points on
the scale is known, we can look at the matter in a two-dimen-
sional way and construct characteristic curves for each com-
munity or group. The census has long been giving us informa-
tion of this sort about the ages of the population, but as just
stated that is of little or no service in measuring civilization,
the age curves for all sufficiently large populations being
very similar.

The two most promising criteria for making civilization
curves seem to be education and occupation; but unfortunately
the treatment of these in our censuses hitherto has not been
very satisfactory. About the only inquiry on existing census
schedules about the education of the adult individual is whether
or not he can read and write. It would seem perfectly feasible
and very desirable for the census demographers to recognize

3It has been suggested, though perhaps not altogether seriously, by

some chemists that the amount of soap or of sulphuric acid used by a
nation is a pretty good measure of its civilization.

MEASURING CIVILIZATION 295

several grades of education instead of only two, separating
those who have been through high school or college from those
who have not, and so on, or simply to ascertain how many years
of schooling each person has had. If errors were made by the
enumerators they would balance to a considerable extent in the
final summing up, and even if many individuals remained wholly
unclassified as to education, significant ratios could still be
worked out from the returns for the others. The results of such
an inquiry could of course be further segregated according to
race, sex, and age, like the present illiteracy data, or restricted
to adults if desirable.

As far as occupation is concerned, recent censuses classify
workers minutely enough by industries, but not very satisfac-
torily by grades of work, so that one would have trouble in de-
termining from the returns the number of idlers, unskilled and
skilled laborers, clerks, foremen, proprietors, etc., in a given
community. There should be no special difficulty, however, in
preparing schedules that in addition to classifying the workers
by industries as heretofore would put each individual into a
certain grade. If we fix the number of grades at ten for con-
venience they might be divided as follows:

0. Persons who are a burden to society, such as criminals,
imbeciles, mendicants, vagrants, and paupers.

1. Unemployed but harmless persons, such as children, stu-
dents, invalids, gentlemen of leisure, and aged people.

2. Unskilled laborers, who work mostly in gangs, under
more or less constant supervision, with a minimum of respon-
sibility.

3. Here may be put three fairly distinct groups, which are
of approximately equal rank, but could be separated if more
than ten grades were used. First, men who require no more
education than the unskilled laborers, but have more responsi-
bility, and work much of the time alone, and thus have oppor-
tunity to cultivate their powers of observation and develop re-
sourcefulness. H.g., woodsmen, fishermen, farm hands, miners,
cowboys, teamsters, boatmen, trainmen. - Second, semi-skilled
laborers, who require usually a few weeks to become proficient
in their work, such as factory operatives, motormen, chauffeurs,
locomotive firemen, and house-painters. Third, persons who
have some responsibility, financial or otherwise, but little or no
authority other than that involved in keeping order or guarding
property, and do not need much education. Examples are
clerks of various kinds, agents, salesmen, small merchants,
policemen, city firemen, soldiers, and janitors.

4. Skilled laborers, who have learned a trade by a period of

296 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

apprenticeship, or by a few months of study. Some of the less
obvious examples are stenographers, bookkeepers, telegraphers,
locomotive engineers, pilots, musicians, cooks, interpreters,
printers, sign-painters, and photographers.

5. Persons in authority, having some executive ability, but
not requiring any originality or higher education, and not
elected by the people. E.g., foremen, managers, chief clerks,
sea-captains, manufacturers, contractors, bankers, capitalists,
and proprietors of hotels, large stores, plantations, etc.

6. Professional men and experts, mostly college graduates,
who have qualified for their work by a special course of study
lasting a year or more; such as lawyers, architects, civil engi-
neers, foresters, chemists, and physicians. Many if not most
of these do not work on a salary basis, but get their remunera-
tion irregularly from a large number of clients or patients.

7. Altruistic public servants, who work for several or many
people simultaneously, and influence them for good at little or
no cost to each individual benefited. To this class belong most
if not all educators (perhaps excluding young teachers of
limited experience who are not making that their life work),
clergymen, missionaries, journalists, lecturers, and philanthro-
pists. In education they rank about equally with those in class
6, but their ideals are usually higher, and their remuneration
less in proportion to the value of their services than in any of
the preceding classes.

8. Public officials and statesmen, elected by the people, or
holding high appointive positions, like judges, ambassadors,
commissioners, and cabinet members. Perhaps presidents of
colleges, railroads, large corporations, etc., and elected officers
of nation-wide organizations, should be included in this class,
and officials of small communities, who have some other busi-
ness that takes up most of their time, excluded.

9. Persons whose chief occupation is adding to the sum of
human knowledge, or writing or doing things that have not been
said or done before,‘ such as investigators, explorers, inventors,
scientists, poets, novelists, humorists, cartoonists, composers,
artists, ‘empire builders,” and perhaps even holders of world
records in athletics. It is on this small class, constituting (in
the United States something like one ten-thousandth of the
total population, that the progress of civilization mainly depends.

4 New ideas, methods or principles should be the test rather than mere
new facts, otherwise newspaper correspondents, detectives, crop reporters,
census enumerators, tax assessors, surveyors, etc., would have to be put
in this class. But almost every one who habitually writes books or maga-

zine articles (other than mere hack-writers) or composes music or poetry
er turns out inventions or works of art belongs here.

MEASURING CIVILIZATION 297

There will doubtless be some difference of opinion as to the
relative rank of some of the occupation classes just outlined, but
in a general way those in the higher classes have the most edu-
cation and the widest spheres of influence, and are fewest in
number, as will be shown by some of the curves selected for
illustration farther on.° As a rule persons in any one of the
grades have passed through some or most of the grades below
it before attaining their present positions; but this is not a
strict linear sequence like the educational grades, for classes
0, 4, 6 and 8 are more often side branches with no outlet than
stepping-stones to something higher. Or to put it in another
way, Many persons reach groups 5, 7 and 9 without passing
through those immediately below.

Of course it is impossible to draw sharp lines between the
different occupation groups, on account of the endless variety
of occupations in our complex civilization,’ and also because
there are at all times large numbers of persons in a state of
transition from one group to a higher one. But such difficul-
ties are inherent in almost all classifications, and need not be
regarded as insurmountable. (Very similar difficulties are en-
countered, for example, in defining the zones of vegetation on
the slopes of a high mountain; and in the case of a complex
mountain system, with a considerable variety of soil and ex-
posure conditions, it may not always be certain which of two
non-contiguous zones is the higher.)

To apply the criteria here proposed to the measurement of
civilization, let us suppose that each individual in the com-
munity and group under consideration (be it total population
or only adults, natives, whites, males, or some other restricted
group) has been given a decimal rating in education and occu-
pation.’ The sum or average of the two might be called his
civilization number or coefficient. A curve could then be con-

5 The results of a psychological rating for United States soldiers
taken from a number of different occupations in civil life, published in
Science for March 14, 1919 (page 358), agree pretty well as far as they go
with the sequence here adopted. Even the Russian Bolsheviki are reported
to have grouped the workers of that country a few months ago into about
thirty categories in ascending order, with fixed salaries for each, ranging
from 370 rubles per month for apprentices and beginners to 2,200 for cer-
tain public officials. Their classification, as published in some of our daily
papers, bears some resemblance to the one here proposed (which was
worked out in nearly its present form in the summer of 1917, but not pub-
lished until now). Confucius is said to have divided the workers of China
into four grades over two thousand years ago.

6 The last United States census recognized about 17,000 different occu-

pations for purposes of enumeration, and assembled them in 428 groups in
the published returns.

VOL. x.—20.

298 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

structed having for its ordinates the civilization numbers, and
for its abscissas the number or percentage of persons ranking
at and above any given number. With a decimal rating in two
different lines we would of course have instead of a curve a
series of twenty steps of the same height and varying width,
but if the number of grades were increased the steps would
approach more nearly to a smooth curve, steepest among the
higher grades, like a similarly constructed curve for the ages
or wealth of the population, cities or farms arranged in order

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of size, species of trees in a forest in order of abundance, and
many other things easily called to mind.

To illustrate the workings of the system two graphs are
presented. As there seem to be as yet no available data giving
both education and occupation simultaneously for any consid-
erable portion of the population, the two kinds of ratings are
treated separately.

“If it were possible to add psychological tests to the educational and
occupational inquiries here proposed we might have a still more satisfac-
tory measure of civilization.

MEASURING CIVILIZATION Zis}S)

In both graphs horizontal distances represent percentages,
and the vertical lines divide the figures into ten equal parts to
facilitate measurement. On any horizontal line the distance
from the point where a given curve intersects it to the right-
hand edge of the figure represents the percentage of the total
number who rank above that point, and vice versa. The aver-
age rank of any curve is of course proportional to the area be-
tween it and the base. Nearly all the persons on which these
curves are based are adults; but if the total population of any
normal community were graded in this way the large number of
children would probably make the uneducated and unemployed
classes the largest.

The first graph rates according to education two groups far
apart in the social scale, namely, 3,648 rural and village teach-
ers (including both white and colored) in Alabama, and 2,500
inmates of the Indiana State Prison. The figures for teachers
are taken from Bulletin 41, 1919 series, of the U. S. Bureau of
Education, and those for prisoners are from a newspaper ab-
stract, published last spring, of an article by Dr. Paul E. Bow-
ers of the institution named.*

Vertical distances in the education graph represent the
amount of schooling, on the assumption that a normal indi-
vidual who goes through college enters school at the age of six
and spends four years in each of the four divisions indicated,
graduating at twenty-two. Each curve in this case represents
a single occupation group (number 7 in one case and 0 in the
other), so that if education and occupation were being rated
simultaneously the curves would still be of the same shape, but
farther apart.

SVery likely some additional data of this kind could be found, but
these are all that have come to the writer’s notice recently. There are
some educational statistics in “ Who’s Who in America,” but they give only
two or three points on the educational curve, and about half the persons
listed in that work are college graduates, not further classified as to
education.

If we could construct an education curve for the whole adult popula-
tion of the United States it would doubtless lie between the two shown in
Fig. 1. As pointed out above, the census gives us only one point on such
a curve, namely, the percentage of illiterates. In 1910 the illiteracy per-
centage for adult males of all races and nativities was 8.4 in the whole
United States (24.3 in Alabama and 4.1 in Indiana). The number of
college graduates for the whole country—but not for single states—can be
estimated approximately from the table of colleges in the New York World
Almanac. From that it appears (after making due allowance for omis-
sions) that there are something like a million living college graduates in
the United States, which is about 1 per cent. of the total population or 2
per cent. of the adult population. Or if the sexes were separated it would
probably be found that about 3 percent. of the men in this country are
college graduates.

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THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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Fic. 2. OCCUPATION CURVES FOR THE FOLLOWING T’'WELVE GROUPS.

First 1,000 names in ‘‘ Who’s Who in America,’ 1916 edition, excluding a few
cases difficult to classify.

373 graduates of the University of Alabama, 1832-1865.

674 graduates of the University of Alabama, 1870-1895.

586 non-graduates of same, 1832-1860.

1005 non-graduates of same, 1870-1895.

959 white persons in Birmingham, Ala., whose names begin with A. (1913.)

527 negroes in Birmingham, Ala., whose names begin with A. 7
(The Birmingham curves are dotted lines.)

564 white persons (including Jews and Creoles) in Mobile, Ala., selected from first
part of alphabet.

. 281 supposed Jews in Mobile.

156 Creoles in Mobile.

. 749 negroes in Mobile, selected from first part of alphabet.
. 5,807,847 free males over fifteen years old, gainfully employed in the United

States, 1850.
The numbers at the sides correspond with the occupational groups defined in
text.

MEASURING CIVILIZATION B01

The second graph is based on occupation only, and includes
twelve different curves. The vertical distances correspond with
the ten occupational grades above outlined, and are numbered
accordingly. For the sake of simplicity it is assumed that each
step on the occupational ladder is of the same height, there
being apparently no rational method of determining how much
they should differ, if any.’ And for the sake of appearances all
the curves are drawn as smoothly as possible, on the assumption
that no two persons are of exactly the same rank, and that there
are all gradations between the highest and the lowest. For any
one curve the number of persons in any occupational group is
measured by the horizontal distance between the points where
it cuts the upper and lower boundaries of the group; so that
gentle slopes indicate large numbers and vice versa.

The uppermost curve in this graph is based on the first thou-
sand names in the 1916 edition of “‘Who’s Who in America,”
and probably does not differ noticeably from that which might
be derived from the last thousand or any other large number in
the same work. It would have been comparatively easy to con-
struct separate curves for men and women, married and single
persons, natives and foreigners, persons with German, Jewish,
Irish or Scandinavian names, different age groups, residents
or natives of different states, or of cities and rural districts, and
those with different religious or political affiliations (where
such are indicated), but that would have taken considerable
time and complicated the graph too much.

The next four curves are based on graduates of the Univer-
sity of Alabama, and matriculates who did not graduate, both
living and dead, in two different periods of approximately equal
length, before and after the Civil War. The data are taken
from an alumni catalogue published in 1901. Those whose oc-
cupations were unknown to the compilers of the catalogue, or
who died before embarking on their life work, have been left
out of the calculations, so that practically none falls in the unem-
ployed class except a few retired business men.

The higher rank in civilization of graduates as compared
with non-graduates is just what one would expect, and illus-
trates graphically the effect of higher education. The higher

9 Tt is possible, however, that it would be nearer the truth to make the
upper steps wider, for there seems to be greater diversity of ability among
the higher classes than among the lower. For example, one unskilled
laborer is about as good as another, which can not be said of managers,
teachers, or scientists. And it is easy to prove by means of statistics of
illiteracy, farm building values, etc., that in those parts of the United
States having a large colored population there is more variation among

the whites than among the negroes, even where the latter are decidedly
in the majority.

302 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

rank of the ante-bellum students, both graduates and non-
graduates, may be due to more than one cause, but the prin-
cipal one is doubtless that at the time the record was made, in
1901, many of the students of 1870 to 1895, especially the later
ones, had not reached as high a station in life as they did later.
This is borne out by the comparatively large number of public
officials among the ante-bellum graduates—for one does not
usually get elected to public office until middle life—and by the
number of post-bellum non-graduates still in the clerk and book-
keeper classes in 1901.

The continuous curve below the middle of the graph is for
all white and free colored males over fifteen years old in the
United States returned by the Seventh Census as having gainful
occupations in 1850; they are 5,371,876 in number, from which
however have been deducted 64,529 that are hard to classify.
That census recognized 325 different occupations, most of them
designated by only one or two words, and all arranged in an
alphabetical list with the number of workers assigned to each.
(Similar data were also given for each state.) With occupa-
tions so briefly characterized it is often difficult to determine the
proper rating, and it is pretty certain that two or three differ-
ent grades are sometimes combined under a single word, such
as agents, dealers, farmers, jewelers, lumbermen. But the
errors of judgment tend to balance each other to a considerable
extent when so many are involved, and the resulting curve har-
monizes very well with others near it. Similar curves could be
constructed for separate states and later censuses, thus afford-
ing opportunities for some interesting comparisons.

The remaining six curves are derived from the 1913 direc-
tories of Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama, both published by
the same company.'’ In order to make these curves comparable

10 R. L. Polk & Co., of Columbus, Ohio. A city directory usually lists
about a third of the total population, mostly adult males. Wives are not
mentioned at all in the Mobile directory, but in that for Birmingham their
existence is indicated by their first names in parentheses following the
husband’s names (in the case of the white population; among the negroes
the married men are indicated by a special symbol, but the wives’ names
are not given). In both directories the occupation, if any, of each person
listed is given in a word or two (usually abbreviated), and even less ex-
plicity than in the 1850 census above mentioned, so that there is room for
many errors of judgment; these, however, must neutralize each other to
a large extent in the final summation. Persons whose occupations are not
given seem to be mostly widows keeping house for their children, and young
ladies not employed outside their homes.

The criminal class of course does not figure as such in these direc-
tories (or in census enumerations), because some of them have unmen-

tionable occupations, some have no fixed habitation and thus escape
enumeration, and some are confined in penal institutions.

MEASURING CIVILIZATION 305

with others the unemployed persons are disregarded, for there
is no sure way of distinguishing between the busy housekeepers
on the one hand and the debutantes, society women and super-
annuated people on the other.

The Birmingham directory puts all names in a single alpha-
betical list, designating negroes by a star before the name. The
Mobile directory lists the two races separately, and in the list
of whites uses a special symbol for the Creoles, who constitute
a little more than 1 per cent. of the whites or about 34, of 1 per
cent. of the total population (but have never been distinguished
in census reports). The curves for whites and negroes in both
cities as presented here are based on only a few hundred names
at the beginning of the alphabet, but the results are probably
accurate enough for present purposes.

For Mobile there are given here two additional curves, one
for Jews and one for Creoles. The number of Jews in this or
any other American directory can not be estimated very accu-
rately, but they were identified as far as possible by their
names, all the way through the alphabet.'! And even if a large
number were overlooked in the count that should make no par-
ticular difference in the occupation percentages. The count of
Creoles aimed at completeness. The whole number of them
found in the directory was less than 200, and eliminating those
whose occupations were not given left only 156, rather a small
number for accurate results, but the curve lies between those
for whites and negroes in the same city, as we should expect.
The curve for Jews also fulfills expectations in being strong in
proprietors and clerks, and weak in skilled and unskilled labor-
ers and public officials.

The contrast between whites and negroes in the proportion
of unskilled laborers is very marked, as would be expected. Of
course none of the college men or celebrities are in that class at
all. One would have hardly expected so much similarity be-
tween the curves for the ancient seaport of Mobile and the mod-
ern manufacturing city of Birmingham, scarcely forty years
old. The fact that the different curves do not cross each other
much is rather significant.

A city directory naturally gives no direct information about
the educational equipment of individuals, but even if it did and
that had been utilized in constructing these curves—as should
be done whenever it becomes possible—it probably would not
change their shape much, for persons in the higher occupations .
commonly have the most education, as already stated.

11 By this means it was estimated that Jews constitute about 2 per

cent. of the white population or a little more than 1 per cent. of the total
population of Mobile.

504 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

It is interesting to note that if the space for class 2 in the
occupation graph were bisected by a horizontal line that would
cut each curve at a point corresponding approximately to the
illiteracy percentage of the group represented thereby ;!2 which
would harmonize very well with an assumption that half the
unskilled laborers but very few of those belonging to the higher
classes are illiterate.

Although the occupation data have been compiled rather
hurriedly, without any attempt at extreme accuracy, the curves
serve very well to illustrate the differences between several
diverse population groups in a new way, and to demonstrate
the validity of occupation as a test of civilization. If we had
such curves for many different countries the knowledge should
be extremely valuable for many purposes. For example, it
would shed new light on the question of which nations are fitted
for a popular government and which should remain monarchies
or dependencies for some time to come. For a country or com-
munity with not more than half of its adult male population
above the rank of unskilled laborers—a condition approximated
by the two lowest curves, and probably also by Liberia, Haiti,
Mexico, and several other tropical countries—could not be ex-
pected to govern itself very well if all the men had an equal
voice in public affairs.

Some such point of view would have been useful in this
country about two years ago, when large numbers of men were
being classified for military service. Many of those shown by
psychological tests or otherwise to be too low in intelligence
were excused,'* but little or no allowance was made for the few
at the other extreme, men of higher grade than the lawmakers
and military authorities (and therefore presumably too valuable
for military service), except in the case of those above the age
limit and a few special easily defined classes like clergymen and
public officials."

At various times in the last century or two, particularly in
Russia since 1917, and in this country since the close of the
recent world war, groups of men in occupation classes 2 to 4
(who are naturally not well grounded in the fundamentals of
economics and sociology) have sought to divert by one means

12 There are of course no illiterates among the ‘‘ Who’s Who” people
and college men, and probably very few among the Jews, in the South at
least. The illiteracy percentage for white and free colored persons over
twenty in the United States in 1850 was given by that census as 10.35.
That for adult males in 1910 in Birmingham was 2.38 for whites and 23.0
for negroes, and in Mobile 1.1 for whites and 25.1 for negroes.

13 See Science, II., 49: 538-61, 221-226, 251-259, 1919.

14 See B. E. Livingston, Science, II., 49: 202, 203, February 28, 1919.

MEASURING CIVILIZATION 305

or another to their own use some or all of the share of the profits
of industry that rightfully belongs to the small minority of
“bourgeoisie”? who supply the brains or the capital, on the
theory that those who work with their hands should have all the
proceeds of their labor, and that mere numbers should dominate
irrespective of ability, and regardless of how much inconveni-
ence or injustice to innocent parties results from their selfish
demands. Such attempts are rarely completely successful, how-
ever, for the obvious reason that civilization without competent
leadership (classes 5 and upward) is impossible.!®

When census methods become sufficiently refined so that
civilization can be studied graphically in some such way as that
here proposed for a long period of years, it will probably be
found that the average rating of any one community, unless it
is small enough to be affected materially by immigration and
emigration, changes very slowly; although conceivably the
shape of its characteristic curve might fluctuate locally or tem-
porarily in response to educational and child-labor legislation
or other influences. Although we seem to have made phe-
nomenal. progress in some lines in recent decades, it is chiefly
in the sum total of human knowledge—that can be stored up
and disseminated by means of the printing press, which did not
exist a few centuries ago—rather than in individual efficiency.*®

Some caution should be used in making comparisons by this
method between different countries, or even different sections
of a large country like ours, for it might not be fair to measure
such different types of civilization as American and Japanese,
or Yankee and Southern, by the same standards, at least until
some more refined system is devised. But persons who have the
time and inclination can easily give the plan a further trial with
various city directories, alumni catalogues, biographical dic-
tionaries, etc., without waiting for the census to take it up; and
very likely many improvements can be suggested.

15 Tf it was at all practicable it would be an interesting experiment to
turn over to these insatiable toilers (some of whom have long been earning
more than brain-workers who have far more education and experience and
could make much better use of the money if they had it) for a time a few
mines, newspapers, factories, railroads or islands, and see how long they
could run them successfully without foremen, proprietors, experts, teach-
ers, editors, lawmakers, inventors, writers, ete. Very likely sooner or later
men would arise from the ranks of the laborers to fill these higher posi-
tions, but if so conditions would then be essentially the same as before the
beginning of the experiment.

16In this connection see the abstract in Current Opinion (67: 106—
107), for August, 1919, of a newspaper article by Dr. Charles Gray Shaw
on knowledge as the cause of inefficiency.

306 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

FINIS CORONAT OPUS

By FRANK V. MORLEY

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE, MD.

HE evening vigil may be approached in many ways.
Perhaps the pleasantest of all is to fortify the soul with
plenty of tobacco, a canister of crackers and something potable
to fall back upon, and a volume of the inimitable Robert Burton.
But failing the “merry companionship” of the younger Demo-
critus, we should be prone to choose the scientific remains of a
poor, neglected, and forgotten scholar whose name was also
Robert, but who was earlier in his unhappy life at Oxford by
some fifty years.

It is scarcely unjust to say “‘forgotten’”’; save for a very
occasional mention as the first in mathematics to use our
present symbol for equality (and that is doubtful tenure upon
fame!), who nowadays ever hears of Robert Recorde? Yet
in its day ‘The Whetstone of Witte”? was a famous book, the
first treatise in English on arithmetic. It is affirmed that with
the time of Recorde the English became conspicuous for numer-
ical skill, and that after him the higher branches of mathe-
matics began to be studied. But we can hardly say this was
because of Recorde’s work. As he prepared his book there was
preparing another potent whetstone to activity, the Spanish
Armada; his treatise was launched into a rising sea of intel-
lectual interest, and the numerical skill of his contemporaries
may have been due to their practise in dead reckoning and the
impulses of trade, rather than to the direct influence of
Recorde.

The generations which gave us Shakespeare and Spenser
did not, however, give us much of scientific worth. Perhaps
the interests were as yet too speculative, and the ideas too
tenuous to avoid burial in argument. Until a statement is re-
ducible to algebra, there will be no lack of polemics pro and
con; and in those days algebra was treated as an empiric rather
than an aid to thought. So Recorde, though he had a clear
field ahead of him, yet handicapped himself by agreeing with
his times.

But even among the scientists of his own day, Recorde
stands nowhere as a creative figure. The restless and dis-

FINIS CORONAT OPUS 307

cursive Cardan, the silent Tartaglia, and the brilliant but lazy
young Ferrari, were in an atmosphere far keener in research.
Among teachers, many were better than our Oxford scholar.
His reach was not great, and his mental footwork far from
perfect. As a mathematician and as a medical man, we may
let him pass; his contributions are hardly memorable enough
for passage through the crowded centuries, save for their per-
sonal note. But here they breathe a sweet and a pathetic
fragrance. His quaint and now archaic dialogues, the nice
imaginary courtesies between the Master and the Scholar, his
appeals to all those that love “ honeste learnyngo,”’ and above
all, his sorry ending, make his a worthy case to ponder in the
midnight hours.

There are various ways in which men have been done to
death in their following of intellectual pursuits. There is a
considerable band who suffered from an overdose of study,
conspicuous with their young leader, Henry Kirke White. It
was Henry, we remember, who was kept after school as a boy
and consequently wrote

How gladly would my soul forego
All that arithmeticians know, . .

When he went to Cambridge he was ranked as the best man of
his year, in spite of the condition of his health, and mathematics
was his only weakness. In mistaken kindness his tutors de-
cided to keep him at work all summer on mathematics, instead
of granting him the holiday which his epileptic case bespoke.
And in July, while at work on logarithm tables, he was over-
taken by a sudden fainting fit, with death following shortly
after. Was anybody prosecuted for the flagrant case of
homicide?

It was not overstudy which made an end of Robert Recorde
in 1558, but rather what he calls the ‘‘ sodaine unquietnesse”’ of
the time. There is something appealing in the abrupt ending
of his book. An abstruse discussion of universal roots is sud-
dently thus interrupted.

Master. You saie truth. But harke, what meaneth that hastie
knockyng at the doore?

Scholar. It is a messenger.

Master. What is the message? Tel me in mine eare.

Yea, sir, is that the matter? Then is there no remedie, but that I
must neglect all studies and teaching, for to withstande these daungers?
My fortune is not so good, to have quiete tyme to teache.

Scholar. But my fortune and my fellowes is much worse, that your
unquietnes so hindreth our knowledge. I praie God amende it.

308 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Master. I am inforced to make an eande of this mater: But yet will
I promise you, that whiche you shall chalenge of me, when you see me
at better laiser: That I will teache you the whole arte of universall
rootes. And the extraction of rootes in all square surdes: with the demon-
stration of theim, and all the former woorkes.

If I might have been quietly permitted to reste but a little while
longer, I had determined not to have ceased till I had ended all these
thinges at large. But now, farewell. And applie your studie diligently in
this that you have learned. And if I maie gette any quietnesse reason-
able, I will not forget to performe my promise with an augmentation.

Scholar. My harte is so oppressed with pensivenes, by this sodaine
unquietnesse, that I can not express my grief. But I will praie, with all
theim that love honeste knowledge, that God of his mercie will sone ende
your troubles and graunte you suche reste as your travell doth merite.
And all that love learnyng say thereto, Amen.

Master. Amen, and amen.

These were the last words he printed. The message was
a simple one, and familiar to teachers in all ages. It was a
summons to the Fleet for debt. In days of pestilence and
plague, this was equivalent to sentence to death by slow torture.
Within the year disease had played its part, and he died among
the miserable surroundings.

Poor Robert! He never got the “‘quietnesse reasonable”
or the “better laiser’”’ for performing his promise ‘“‘ with an
augmentation.” Nor did the charming affection shown by his
scholar ever bear the fruits of future pupils. “God of his
mercie” ended his troubles soon enough in death, but his gentle
moan lives through the years as evidence of the passing of a
kindly spirit, not a great one.

Half a century later, it is recorded in the Will of the other
Robert that we spoke of, Robert Burton, that he gave a hundred
pounds to his nephew, ‘‘nowe Prisoner in London, to redeeme
him.” Robert Recorde had no kindly uncle to play Democritus,
and help him out. Well indeed might he have cried, O viveret
Democritus.

Or, for that matter, well might we, nowadays.

ON RHYTHM 309

ON RHYTHM.

By Professor D. FRASER HARRIS, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.C.

DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY, HALIFAX, N. S.

PHENOMENON which may be called rhythmic is one
A that recurs at equal intervals of time or at any rate not
at cognizably unequal ones. The dripping of water from a
leaky tap is rhythmic, but the murmur of the brook is not. The
universe is full of rhythms. The succession of the seasons, the
alternation of day and night, the phases of the moon, the ebb
and flow of the tide, the recurrence of spring and neap tides,
the November flight of meteors, the yearly rise of the Nile, and
so forth, are all examples of cosmic rhythms. The magnitude
of the time interval or period of the rhythm is not of the es-
sence of rhythmicality. Thus, the behavior of the ether in
transmitting light waves is rhythmic, the frequency being only
some billionths of a second; whereas the return of a comet such
as Halley’s to our solar system, although a matter of seventy
years or so, is just as rhythmical; its reappearance is periodic.

Music is essentially rhythmic; in fact, it is the periodic char-
acter of the vibrations of the air that constitutes music as op-
posed to noise. The vibrations of the air objectively consti-
tuting noise are highly irregular or arhythmic.

A clap of thunder is not rhythmical. In a rhythm something
recurs at equal intervals of time; if this something recurs at
unequal intervals, the rhythm sometimes is spoken of as irregu-
lar. This usage would make the word “rhythm” synonymous
with regular rhythm, which is the general acceptation and the
one in which the term will be used in what follows. It is owing
to the regularity of recurrence of eclipses, the equinox, meteors,
comets, etc., that these phenomena can be predicted with an
accuracy that makes astronomy as an exact science so justly
admired. The periodicities of rhythms in the non-living world
may be matters of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes,
seconds or fractions of a second.

Coming now to the realm of Life, we find rhythms perva-
ding everything. The plants, with striking regularity, have their
own times each year for putting forth the buds, unfolding th~-
leaves, bursting into flower and finally allowing all the per-
fumed beauty of the flower to fade in order that the fruit shall
be formed as a life in death. Thus the poetess sang,

310 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

“ Leaves have their times to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath;
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death! ”
In plain prose, there is no rhythm about Death.

“Chestnut Sunday ” is approximately the same Sunday, and
“ Apple Blossom” week is practically the same week each year.
The opening and closing of flowers is rhythmic, the rhythm de-
pending on the waxing and waning of the intensity of daylight.

Doubtless the most familiar rhythms are in the world of
animal life. Here we have rhythmic actions of animals as in
flocks and herds, of animals as individuals, and of the organs,
tissues and cells of the animal body. The migration of birds
is annual in rhythm. It is only part of the truth to tell us that
the waning light and diminished heat and food are what con-
strain the birds to leave us: they know when to leave us. Mi-
gratory birds which have spent all their lives well-fed in the
captivity of Regent’s Park, nevertheless become restless at the
approach of autumn. Again, those animals which hibernate
during the winter know when to betake themselves to their hid-
ing-places, whence they come not forth until the spring.

The rhythm of the sexual activities of birds is one of the
most characteristic things about their behavior. It is only in
the spring that the ‘“lovelier iris gleams upon the burnished
dove,” but it is every spring. Even a brainless (decerebrated)
pigeon will “coo” energetically at the breeding season, al-
though if the hen bird be placed near him he will take no notice
of her. The sexual rhythm is inherent in the lower parts of the
nervous system, but in the absence of the brain it is a meaning-
less and mechanical rhythm.

Practically all the activities of one’s daily life are rhythmic;
the most obvious perhaps being the regular alternation of wak-
ing and sleeping. There is a well-marked rhythm in our diges-
tive organs, in the organs of excretion, and most pronouncedly
in the beating heart.

Rhythm pervades the world of animal life: just watch that
transparent jellyfish in the limpid summer sea, and you will
notice how the edges of the umbrella contract or pulsate with
slow and regular rhythm (about 30 in the minute). Equally
obvious rhythms are those of the wings of birds and other fly-
ing things; of the legs in walking and dancing; of fins in swim-
ming. Large birds fly with slow, leisurely rhythm, small birds
with a fast one; just as tall men have a slow stride, short men a
more rapid step. Regular rhythms are everywhere; if Nature
abhors a vacuum, she also abhors fits and starts: living Nature
does everything “ decently and in order.”

The periodicity of the heart’s action is an excellent example

»

ON RHYTHM 511

of a rhythm of animal origin. Seventy-two times in the minute
this wonderful hollow muscle contracts (systole) on the con-
tained blood forcing it out into all the arteries of the body, and
seventy-two times in the minute does it dilate (diastole) and
suck blood in from the veins leading to it. The duration of its
cycle is therefore eight-tenths of a second (60/72), and in health
during the many years of a long life it practically does not vary
from this value. If, for more than a few minutes, the heart’s
rhythm remains distinctly irregular, then we conclude that
something is amiss with this wonderful organ within our
breast.

Sometimes we come across a heart with a congenitally fast
rhythm, a condition called tachycardia, and sometimes one with
an abnormally slow rhythm, a condition called bradycardia.
Whereas the rhythm of the heart-beat is for each individual a
certain average rate, it varies in different individuals according
to height and age. Thus, tall persons have slower hearts than
short people; and infants have a heart rate about twice as fast
as adults. The whale and the elephant have very much slower
heart-beats than the mouse or the sparrow. The heart-beat in
these smal] animals is so fast that the pulse can not be counted
in the usual way: until recently we had no reliable information
about it, but by an electrical method used by a physiologist,
Miss Buchanan, D.Sc., working in Oxford, it has been ascer-
tained with great accuracy.

The pulse-rate, which is the same thing as the heart-rate, is
very much slower in the cold-blooded than in the warm-blooded
animals. Thus, in a fish or frog the heart contracts only about
forty times in the minute, or about half the mammalian rate.
This relatively slow rate can be quickened by making the heart
beat in warm salt water, when the rate can be made to exceed
that of the normal mammalian heart. A further study of the
warm-blooded heart proves to be full of interest. It can be ac-
celerated by warmth and slowed by cold; but it is its affectabil-
ity by nerve impulses which is so remarkable. It is a matter of
common knowledge that the heart can be made to beat much
faster at one time and slower at another through nerve impulses
alone. Everybody knows that emotions can influence the heart
very markedly. Thus, of course, it has come about that “the
heart”’ and certain emotions are taken as synonymous. Certain
emotions “‘ disturb it” in that some cause it to beat more rapidly,
and some slow it and enfeeble it.

Now physiologists have discovered two distinct sets of
nerves which influence the heart-rate; the one set on being
stimulated makes the heart faster and stronger (accelerator and

312 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

augmentor nerves), the other set on being stimulated makes the
heart beat more slowly or may stop it altogether (inhibitory
nerves). Evidently the former set arouses the heart to greater
activity, the latter set induces in it less activity than normal.

The rhythmicality of the heart is not conferred on it by the
action of nerves or by the presence of blood or the temperature
of the blood, or by any other ‘“ external” condition: its rhyth-
micality is inherent in it, is spontaneous (autogenic). The
rhythm of the heart is of the essence of its life: the microscopic
cells of the embryo heart beat with a rhythm as soon as they are
perceptible at all, and long before nerves have reached them or
any blood has been formed.

Spontaneous rhythmicality is the great mystery of life, the
central puzzle in biology: if we knew what rhythm really was,
’ understood it “all in all,’”’ we should ‘‘ know what God and man
is.” The heart is not the only rhythmic portion of the circu-
latory system. In all animals, portions of the large veins have
the power of rhythmic contraction—in the bat sixteen times
per minute—and in some animals (frogs, for instance) there
are pulsatile sacs or lymph-hearts, dilatations of the lymphatic
vessels beating visibly under the skin of the back.

Many other organs exhibit rhythms. The activity of the
stomach is rhythmic, also that of the intestines; over which
waves of contraction pass at short intervals, the activities also
of the gall-bladder, the urinary bladder, and the uterus are all
rhythmic.

An interesting thing about rhythmic organs is their inability
to have the rate of their rhythm forced beyond a certain limit.
No amount of stimulation of the accelerator nerves can increase
the rate of the heart-beat beyond a certain limit. Similarly,
heating the heart will raise the rate of the rhythm, but only up
to a particular figure which can not be exceeded. Working with
the pigeon, the author found that the greatest number of beats
per minute which the heart (auricle) could give was 300, or five
a second; and beyond that it was not possible to force it. Not
only, then, is rhythmicality inherent in the living substance of
the heart (cardiomyoplasm), but also a power of resisting all in-
fluences to accelerate it beyond a certain limit, a kind of “‘ func-
tional inertia,” as the author has called it.

Let us now take another example of rhythmic activity as
seen in the cilium. A cilium is a minute, whip-like process of
living protoplasm projecting from the surface of the cell. There
are millions of these cilia covering the mucous membrane of
nose, throat and bronchial tubes, where they are for the purpose
of lashing mucus, dust and germs towards the nostrils and
mouth, respectively. Now, these cilia lash backwards and for-

ON RHYTHM 515

wards at a characteristic rate of ten to twelve times in the sec-
ond. Just as the heart makes 72 systoles and 72 diastoles in a
minute, so the cilium bends forwards ten times and backwards
ten times in a second, or six hundred times a minute, about
eight times as fast as the heart. Otherwise put, the period of
ciliary oscillation is one tenth of a second instead of eight tenths.

But the rhythmicality of the cilium is as inherent as that of
the heart. The cilia receive no nerves, therefore not being in-
nervated they can not possess any rhythm conferred on them
from outside by nerves (neurogenic). The cilia are, however,
easily influenced in their rate of vibration by changes of tem-
perature and by drugs and poisons. By warming the cilia they
lash faster and faster until they attain a speed of about! twenty
a second, beyond which they can not go; one more example of a
limit set. Conversely, cold and narcotics like chloroform slow
and finally stop the action just as they do in the case of the
heart.

Let us now enquire into the rhythms exhibited by muscles
and nerves; almost everybody knows that muscles act (contract
or shorten) by having nerve-impulses sent into them either by
the will or in an involuntary manner. Soldiers who were
wounded in the late war soon came to be aware that if one of
their great nerves was cut, they had no longer any power to
move certain muscles which they learned to call “‘ paralyzed.”
Now, these nerves all come from the central nervous system, so
that the impulses they transmit must also have their origin in
that system. The nerve cells which give rise to these nerves
and nerve-impulses are called nerve-centers, and it is these
centers which emit impulses to the muscles in a definite rhythm.

Let us take the case of breathing. Normally, an adult
breathes about sixteen to eighteen times a minute, that is to say,
in a wholly unconscious fashion his diaphragm—the great,
curved muscle between the chest and the abdomen—descends
eighteen times and rises eighteen times in the minute. There
is, therefore, a respiratory rhythm just as there is a cardiac
and aciliary. Now, the diaphragm would not make any descents
were it not that it was receiving nerve-impulses through its
nerves (phrenics). After these nerves have been cut, the dia-
phragm is absolutely still. Clearly, then, the rhythm of the
activity of the diaphragm is not inherent, but, on the contrary,
is conferred by nerves or is neurogenic. The rhythm of 18 to
20 a second must be the rhythm of discharge of nerve impulses
from the nerve cells or centers from which the phrenic nerves.
come. It is the nerve cells that have this rhythm, not the
nerves as conductors and not the diaphragm as a muscle.

VOL. X.—21.

514 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

The actual cells from which the phrenic nerves proceed are,
however, not the breathing center, which, situated further up
in the central nervous system, constrains the phrenic centers to
issue their periodic discharges of nerve-impulses. It is the chief
respiratory center, therefore, that has the real respiratory
rhythm, which, like the heart’s, varies with age and other cir-
cumstances. We know very well that the rate of breathing can
be profoundly altered by emotional states; some conditions,
states of excitement, greatly increase the rate, others slow it
or stop it for a time, as in the phrase, “it fairly took my breath
away.”

Experiments have shown that heated blood accelerates the
breathing and cold slows it, and there are drugs which have
analogous actions. Further, the will can, for a time, abolish the
rhythm altogether. Divers are able intentionally to “hold
their breath”; on the other hand the will, if we so wish it, can
hurry up the rhythm beyond the rate of the normal. This
faculty of having a rhythm which can be altered by the will is
quite a rare one amongst the centers of the nervous system.

The normal respiratory rhythm is, then, an additional ex-
ample of a rhythm inherent in something—in this case in the
cells of a nerve center—but capable of responding to outside in-
fluences. And again, there are limits set, for neither by the
will, nor by emotion, nor by heated blood, nor by drugs, can the
rate of the breathing center be forced beyond a certain maxi-
mum value.

Breathing is to all intents and purposes an involuntary, un-
conscious activity: the diaphragm rises and falls throughout
life whether we wake or whether we sleep with a regularity
that is as constant and with efforts that are as untiring as those
of the heart itself. In a word, the rhythm of breathing is not
voluntary, although we can interfere with it voluntarily.

But, of course, the nervous system can give us plenty of
examples of rhythms of voluntary origin. Take the very simple
case of tapping one’s finger on the table or on an electric key.
I can tap my forefinger once a second, twice a second, three
times a second, and so on, until I am tapping it so fast I can
barely count it. When this rate is reached, an instrument of
simple construction can prove that the finger is being flexed
and extended at about ten to twelve times a second. We may
note in passing that this is exactly the same as the ciliary rate.
Now the instrument will show that beyond ten to twelve a sec-
ond the ordinary person can not go, although it is possible to
train musical technicians to “trill” at a considerably greater
rate than that of ordinary people. Still even for experts a limit

ON RHYTHM O15

is soon reached. The rhythm of the cells of the centers giving
rise to the nerves to the fingers is evidently of this sort that
whereas the cells can be made by the will to assume any slow
rhythm from one to twelve a second, they can not be forced
beyond that limit.

What, then, is the rate of inherent rhythm of these centers?
Probably ten to twelve a second; although all physiologists are
not agreed on this figure, and the point is one not suitable for
discussion in the present essay. It is reasonable to suppose
that these cells have a normal, natural, inherent rate of dis-
charge which may be one and the same as their maximal rate.
Neither by the will nor by artificial stimulation can this maxi-
mum be exceeded, not even when the rhythm of the artificial
stimulation is much higher than twelve a second. The nerve
cells have physiological inertia towards rates of stimulation
greater than that of their own maximal rhythm. The respira-
tory center, on the contrary, we saw, had a normal rate which
was not also its maximal.

Rhythm or intermittency pervades the nervous system. It
has been ascertained that we can not utter syllables (articulate)
at a greater rate than ten to twelve a second. What we may call
the articulation center has its upper limit set at that figure
which we have so frequently met with. The numerical identity
of the rhythms of cilium, musculomotor nerve-center, and articu-
lation center can not be accidental.

The periodicities of insects’ muscles are of the following
orders: The wings of the dragon-fly vibrate at 28 a second, those
of the wasp at 110, of the bee at 190, and of the house-fly at 330
ver second. The late Professor Mosso asserted that the pitch
of the note of a bee setting out on its day’s rounds was per-
ceptibly higher than that of the note heard at the close of the day.

It is probable that the receiving or sensory portions of the
brain are constructed in such a manner that they, too, have
limits in dealing with rhythmic or intermittent presentations.

The spokes of a slowly rotating bicycle wheel can be per-
ceived as separate bright lines, but when the wheel is revolv-
ing rapidly the individual spokes fuse into one bright metallic
surface, just as the separate slats of a paling viewed from an
express train fuse into one continuous surface. The grooves
of the milling on the edge of a metal disk spun rapidly under the
finger are perceived as constituting a rough but continuous sur-
face. The fusion of the members of a series of instantaneous —
photographs of moving objects presented in very rapid succes-
sion to the eye, as in the kinematograph, is due to this incapacity

316 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

of the brain to resolve as distinct in consciousness the separate
components of the physical series. If the interval between the
successive impressions is longer than about 1/40th-1/50th of a
second we do not get fusion, but the well-known and disagreeable
state of “ flicker.”” These and many other cases prove that there
are strict limits to the perception of rhythms by our brains.

The causes of vital rhythms and periodicities are virtually
unknown. Physiologists can describe vital rhythmic actions in
their own precise language, but that is all. To say that the
cardiac cycle is constituted by the two alternating and opposite
phases of katabolic systole and anabolic diastole does not bring
us any nearer an understanding of the cardiac rhythm. Proto-
plasm in general tends to act intermittently. Just as a single
tap given to a jelly or to a spring will make these oscillate or
vibrate for some considerable time thereafter, so a single or
continued stimulus given to living matter will cause it to dis-
charge energy in a vibratory or oscillatory manner.

Nor do we comprehend any better the significance of the par-
ticular time-duration of the interval between the recurring
events which are being studied. Why, for instance, should the
heart beat 72 times a minute and not 7 or 700? Why should we
breathe 18 times and not 8 or 80 times a minute? Why should
the cilium bend 10 times a second as its normal rate and just
twice as fast, but no more than that, when urged to do its ut-
most? These things are mysteries. The rhythms of functional
activity in the female reproductive organs are familiar facts of
physiology, but what induces the rhythm and why the periodicity
should be as it is are problems at present entirely unsolved.

Probably the necessity of rest to prevent fatigue or exhaus-
tion is one of the purposes of vital rhythms. The heart, for
instance, can continue to beat so indefatigably just because the
duration of its time of rest (diastole) in the cycle is longer than
that of its activity (systole). We sleep by night in order to be
active by day. All work and no rest is a physiological outrage:
rhythm is an expression of that physiological normality in
which work alternating with rest is most economically per-
formed.

It is the most familiar things in life that stand most in need
of explanation. Rhythmic action is very familiar, but great is
the mystery of rhythmicality. That the heart should exhibit its
livingness by phasic activity, that the periodicity of these phases
should be controlled by nerves and influenced by certain en-
vironmental conditions, are the very A, B, C of physiology, but
they are also the alpha and the omega of physiological problems.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE CRITICAL SITUATION OF
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

THE present year is a critical
point in the development of science.
The present fluid state of research
may congeal into static frigidity or
it may develop energy to transform
the world. The events of the last
years—to draw on biological as well

as physical science for a metaphor—

may have resulted in leaving as
their offspring infertile hybrids or
in a cross-fertilization leading to un-
exampled productivity. To com-
plete the circle of the sciences, it
may be urged that the result de-
pends primarily not on the existing
environment or in the inherited
organisms, but on the reactions of

the latter to the former, and thus’

on conditions which are to a certain
extent under our own control.
The continental nations of Europe

must for a generation devote their |

energies largely to the repair of de-
struction, and this holds to a certain
extent for England. We have suf-
fered serious losses of men and of
wealth, but have only drawn upon
an available surplus. We are thus
free, as most other nations are not,
to control our future. Some two bil-
lion dollars a year, for example,
will accrue from enforced savings

through the suppression of the sale |

of alcohol.

This money can be con-.

sumed on luxuries for the rich, it)

can add three per cent. to the com- |

forts of the great mass of the peo-

ple or it can be used for invest-|

ments, the most productive of which
are education and scientific research.
There has probably never been a

period or a nation in which educa- |

tion and science were more highly
regarded than at the present time in
the United States. It is generally

understood that the aggression of
Germany in the war was so formid-
able on account of the development
of its industrial civilization based on
the applications of science and the
thorough training of the people.
Russia was helpless before such an
enemy; England and France could
reply with somewhat similar wea-
pons, but it required the United
States to turn the balance. Equally
in time of peace, national prosperity
depends on science and education.
An autocracy, such as formerly ex-
isted in Germany, may realize this
fact more promptly and apply its
knowledge more effectively in prac-
tise than a democracy which leaves
higher education and scientific re-
search to private initiative or unor-
ganized public support. It is our
business to see that the conditions
become equally favorable in our
social and political system.

At a time when it is important
for us to assume leadership in edu-
cation and research and the people
of the country realize the fact, it is
most unfortunate that what may be
regarded as an economic accident,
has intervened to cause serious diffi-
culty. The depreciation in the pur-
chasing power of money is working
serious injustice to many individ-
uals, but in no other case has it done
such harm to society as in reducing
to nearly half the salaries paid to
teachers and to scientific men. They
may submit to suffer as a part of
the cost of war, but the injury to
the nation must be remedied. It is

consequently a satisfaction to note

that action has recently been taken
by the scientific and professional
men in the service of the govern-
ment and by the National Education
Association to make known the situ-

318

ation. We give extracts from the
reports of the two groups.

THE CONDITIONS IN THE GOV-

ERNMENT SERVICE

The committee representing the
scientific, technical and professional

services report that existing condi-|

tions in the federal government
service disclose the fact that ade-
quate standards of personnel and of
performance are not being main-
tained, that the situation is becom-
ing worse instead of better, that a
force which was depleted by the de-
mands of war has become still fur-

ther depleted since the cessation of |

hostilities and that this depletion is

proceeding at a constantly increas-|

ing rate, until it is only a matter of
months before it will be humanly
impossible for the experienced per-
sonnel remaining to perform ade-
quately the duties devolving upon
them. While a certain percentage
of turnover in an organization is not
harmful and may even be desirable,
an annual turnover of 25, 50 or even
100 per cent. and more which is
occurring at the present time in the
federal government service is dis-
ruptive of the organizations, reduces
the efficiency of the work and largely
increases its cost. It is sufficient
here merely to cite examples.

Since July 1, 1918, the Forest
Service has lost over 700 employees,
or 28 per cent. of its total force, in-
cluding 460 of its technical person-
nel. The Coast and Geodetic Sur-

vey in the same period lost 33 per:

cent. of its technical force. The
Bureau of Standards lost 16.3 per

cent. of its permanent staff in the.

District of Columbia in 1915-16,
27 per cent. in 1916-17, 48.6 per
cent. in 1917-18, and 50.1 per cent.
in 1918-19, a total of 840 resigna-
tions in four years out of an aver-
age force of 535. The separations
from the combined technical staffs
in Washington and Pittsburgh ag-

THE SCIENTIBIC MONTHLY

| gregated 1,400 in the four years, out
of an average personnel of 478,
“making an average annual turnover
of 85 per cent. with a maximum in
_ the fiscal year 1918-19 of 145 per
| cent.

These services require men of spe-
cialized training and years of ex-
perience in the work to be performed
before they reach their full effi-
ciency. It is self-evident that the
technical work of the government
can not be efficiently or economically
performed under such circumstances.
It would not be done even if the re-
placements were by individuals of
equal ability, but it is not possible
to maintain previous standards in
such replacements. Individuals of
equal ability will not accept the po-
sitions offered, and there must be in
consequence a constant reduction of
standards in order to fill the vacan-
cies. Not only does the excessive
turnover result in reduced amount
of work for the same number of em-
ployees, and in reduced quality, but
it also results in increased cost per
unit of work performed. Studies
made by the Coast and Geodetic
Survey, in relation to its commis-
sioned personnel, show that the ag-
gregate cost during the fiscal year
ending July 1, 1920, of using ex-
perienced men for training new em-
ployees, of lost time due to person-
nel changes, and of lessened effi-
ciency due to inexperience is likely
to be more than 25 per cent. in ex-
cess of the total annual payroll for
such personnel.

The most serious aspect of the
situation is in the fact that the de-
mand from the outside is for the
highest grade men, for the trained
professional workers and for the
best of the administrative officers—
individuals difficult to replace in any
circumstances, and particularly diffi-
cult to replace under present condi-
tions. Many of the most efficient
‘and most valuable employees are
leaving; the less efficient and less

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

valuable remain. The net result is
a constant deterioration in personnel
which, if continued, will eventually
result in reducing the government

service to a mere training school for |

private business.

THE SALARIES OF EXPERTS IN
THE FEDERAL SERVICE

The committee has segregated
4,332 positions into the various
ranks, showing for each rank the
number of positions, the mean of
the salaries paid in 1919 and 1915,
and the percentage of increases in
the mean from 1915 to 1919. A tem-
porary bonus of $240 per annum for
salaries of $2,500 and under is now
in effect. This bonus is applicable
to practically all positions in the
three lowest ranks, to probably about
75 per cent. of the positions in the
fourth rank, to about 10 per cent.
of those in the third rank and to
none in the second and first ranks.
If bonuses are added on these as-
sumptions to the present average
base salaries, the total percentage
increases in the several ranks since
1915 would be approximately as fol-
lows:

TABLE II

“Rank Title No. | Salary Increase
1 Senior 51 | $5,170) 3.3%
2 Full 184 orev oL0)
3 Associate 408 | 2,724] 8.9
4 Assistant | 1037 | 2,296/ 17.2
5 Junior | 1368 | 1,872) 26.2
6 Aid 1050 | 1,488) 32.2
i Junior Aid

234 1,152) 45.7

The committee states that’ even |

if it could be assumed that 1915 sal-
aries were sufficient for maintaining
an adequate personnel, it is appar-
ent that the increases since that
date have lamentably failed to keep
pace with the reducing value of the
dollar in which they are paid. Sal-
aries paid in the lower ranks in 1915
were approximately equal to salaries
paid for similar positions in private

and unskilled labor,

319

employment. The disparity between
government salaries and those paid
in private business increased, how-
ever, for each step up in the rank
cf positions occupied. Amounts paid
in the full professional, associate
and senior ranks were far below the
amounts paid for similar employ-
ment and responsibilities in private
business, with the result that even
in 1915 it was difficult to secure and
retain an adequate personnel for the
higher positions. Nevertheless, in
such adjustments as have been made
since 1915, these three upper ranks
have been practically ignored. It is
not surprising that under such cir-
cumstances so large a proportion of
men in these grades are leaving the
government service.

If the flood of resignations from
government service is to be stopped
and if the service is to be maintained
on a standard commensurate with
the importance of the work to be
performed, there must be a radical
readjustment in the present salary
scale for the technical, scientific and
professional services—a readjust-
ment which will recognize the com-
mercial value of the service per-
formed and realize the fatal blunder

_|of attempting to do the business of

the government on a compensation
basis which private .business aban-
doned years ago.

After investigation, the advisory
committees of the technical, scien-
tific and professional services sub-
mit a scale as representing, in their

_| judgment, the lowest amounts under
'which it will be practicable to re-

cruit and retain in the government
service a properly qualified person-
nel in any class of its technical, pro-
fessional or scientific work. In sup-
port of this scale comparisons are
made with rates of pay of skilled
and certain
technical positions under the “ Macy
Scale,” and the salaries received by
several hundred government em-

_ ployees who have left the service.

320
TEACHING POSITIONS IN THE
UNITED STATES

THE secretary of the National
Education Association reports that

more than 100,000 teaching positions |

in the public schools of the United
States are either vacant or filled by
teachers below standard, and the at-
tendance at normal schools and
teacher-training schools has_ de-
creased 20 per cent. in the last three
years.

Letters were sent out by the asso-
ciation in September to every county
and district superintendent in the
United States asking for certain
definite information. Signed state-
ments were sent in by more than
1,700 superintendents, from, every
state, representing 238,173 teaching
positions. These report an actual
shortage of 14,681 teachers, or
slightly more than 6 per cent. of the
teaching positions represented, and
23,006 teachers below standard who
have been accepted to fill vacancies,
or slightly less than 10 per cent. It
is estimated that there are 650,000
teaching positions in the public
schools of the United States, and if
these figures hold good for the entire
country there are 39,000 vacancies
and 65,000 teachers below standard.

These same superintendents re-
port that 52,798 teachers dropped
out during the past year, a loss of
over 22 per cent. On this basis the
tetal number for the entire country
would be 143,000. The reports show
that the shortage of teachers and
the number of teachers below stand-
ard are greatest in the rural dis-
tricts where salaries are lowest and
teaching conditions least attractive.

The states in which salaries and
standards are highest have the most
nearly adequate supply of teachers.
California shows a combined short-
age and below standard of 3% per
cent.; Massachusetts shows 4% per
cent., and Illinois 7 per cent. In at
least six of the southern states more
than one third of their schools are

be
THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

_ reported either without teachers or
| being taught by teachers below their
| standards. Nearly all of the super-
-intendents declare that teachers’
salaries have not increased in pro-
portion to the increased cost of liv-
ing, nor as salaries have increased
in other vocations, and that teachers
are continuing to leave the profes-
sion for other work.

Reports received by the National
Education Association from normal
school presidents show that the at-
tendance in these teacher-training
institutions has fallen off alarmingly.
The total attendance in 78 normal
schools and teacher-training schools
located in 35 different states for the
year 1916, was 33,051. In 1919 the
attendance in these same schools had
fallen to 26,134. The total number
of graduates in these schools in 1916
was 10,295, and in 1919, 8,274. The
total number in the graduating
classes of 1920 in these 78 schools
is 7,119. These figures show a de-
crease of over 30 per cent. in four
years in the finished product of these
schools.

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

WE record with regret the death
of Dr. Elmer Ernest Southard, pro-
fessor of neuropathology in Harvard
university; of Dr. Christian R.
Holmes, dean of the college of medi-
cine, University of Cincinnati; of
Rear Admiral John Elliott Pillsbury,
U. S. N., retired, president of the
National Geographical Society.

Dr. BurToN E. LIVINGSTON has
been elected permanent secretary of
the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, to succeed
Dr. L. O. Howard, elected president
of the association. Dr. Livingston
will retain the professorship of plant
physiology at the Johns Hopkins
University, and the office of the asso-
ciation will remain at the Smith-
sonian Institution.

THE SCIENTIFIC
MONTHLY

APRIL, 1920

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY READ
FROM THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD:
THE EMERGENCE OF MAN’

By Professor JOHN C. MERRIAM

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PART TWO

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAN

AVING considered the biological position of man and the
ja possibility of his ancestry leading out of the evolution of
presumably inferior, and certainly older primate groups, we are
in a favorable position for discussion of the earliest evidences
of man himself; but before entering upon consideration of the
specific problem of human history, it is well to bring to mind
certain of the most fundamental conclusions obtained in an in-
spection of the wide field of history of other living creatures.
To one who reads this story, the evidence of the geologic and
paleontologic series amounts to a demonstration that our avail-
able records of life in the broadest view count up to many tens
of millions of years at the least, and possibly reach to hundreds
of millions. We see also that in this period the record shows
life to have been in an almost continuous state of change; that
the life of each period exhibits closer resemblance to that of
the periods immediately preceding and following than to the
more remote divisions of time; and that series of forms with
certain common characters but differing in grade of specializa-
tion generally tend toward greater specialization from earlier
to later time. The manner in which the modifications take place
may not always be understood, and the paleontologist may
admit his ignorance of the causes, but the evidence of continu-

1 Delivered before the National Academy of Sciences in April, 1918,
as the sixth series of lectures on the William Ellery Hale Foundation.
VOL. X.—22.

.
322 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

ing change and advancing specialization in series of presumably
connected or related types seems reasonably clear.

Well within the generally accepted record of the geologist,
and forming a part of the life succession of the paleontologist,
there appears the human element, taking its place in the life
sequence and raising, whether we desire it or not, the question
of man’s inclusion in the general scheme of evolution, or if his
relation to the other biological series, for which we have traced
a long history and through which we seem to see running the
thread of continuity.

From what we have seen in our paleontologic record there is
every reason to believe that there was a long period in which
generalized members of the mammalian group were widely dis-
tributed and man had not yet appeared. Unless we take the
view that man is the product of special creation, built upon
lines similar to those of other organisms, we naturally assume
that his origin is found in the earlier less specialized type, and
by way of an evolutionary process not unlike those that have
determined the development of other mammalian forms by
modification of types already existing.

THE EARLIEST REMAINS REFERRED TO THE HUMAN TYPE
DISCOVERY OF PITHECANTHROPUS

For the present we shall consider only those relics of man
which furnish the earliest known record of the existence of our
race upon the earth, leaving for a later paper an account of the
succeeding stages represented by the cave men and their im-
mediate predecessors.

Probably no paleontologic contribution published has fur-
nished the basis for more extended and more critical discussion
than the paper of Eugene Dubois published in 1894, describing
a remarkable tooth, a skull-cap and a thigh bone, found in de-
posits of considerable geologic antiquity on the island of Java.
These specimens presumed to represent a single type, and prob-
ably one individual, were first referred to by Dubois in 1892 as
Anthropopithecus erectus or the erect man ape, assumed to
represent a transition between man and the apes. After hav-
ing with most commendable patience investigated his material
for three years, Dubois published his now classic memoir. In
this paper the specimens were referred to as Pithecanthropus,
or ape man, this generic name having been used by Haeckel in
1868 for a hypothetical creature assumed to walk erect, and
to have higher mental development than the anthropoids, al-
though not yet attaining to the formulation of speech.

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 323

Fie. 1. Locality at which Pithecanthropus Remains were discovered on the Benga-
wan River in Java. After L. Selenka and M. Blanckenhorn.

Following this work of Dubois, extensive excavations initi-
ated by Frau Selenka were carried on in 1907 and 1908 on the
site of the occurrence of the type specimen. These important:
studies added much to our knowledge of the formation in which
the Dubois specimen was found, and of the fauna associated
with it, but did not contribute additional Pithecanthropus
remains.

OCCURRENCE AND ASSOCIATED FAUNA

The specimens referred to Pithecanthropus all exhibited
approximately the same mode of preservation, which is sim-
ilar to that of the extinct types of mammals found in the same
strata, and which have clearly been buried in process of accu-
mulation of the formation. There was no evidence indicating
intrusion or burial of these remains in the formation since
accumulation, and the relation of the Dubois specimen to the
stage of geologic time represented by the deposits containing
the mammalian fauna is not seriously questioned.

Some doubt has been expressed, however, whether the skull-
cap, the femur, and the teeth belong to the same individual.
The first tooth and the skull-cap were found in 1891 only about
three feet apart. The femur, discovered the following year, was
situated nearly fifty feet from the location of the skull. Inas-
much as the femur is by some considered quite human in aspect,
while the skull-cap is assumed to be pre-human, question has
naturally been raised as to the relation of these elements to
each other. On the other hand, the fact that skull, teeth and

324 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

thigh bone occurred approximately together, with similar mode
of preservation, and with peculiar characters differing from
those of all known anthropoids and humans, is considered by
many as evidence distinctly favoring the view of Dubois that
the specimens all represent one species and one individual. It
will evidently not be possible to settle this question with full
satisfaction until further occurrences of remains of this most
interesting type are discovered.

The Pithecanthropus specimens were found in a formation
composed in large part of volcanic tuff. It was considered by
Dubois as a river accumulation and was assumed by him to

Fic. 2. Section of Strata at the Locality where the Pithecanthropus Bones
were discovered. A, area of growing plants; B, soft sandstone; C, lapilli stratum ;
D, level at which the skeletal remains were found; Z£, conglomerate; F, argillaceous
layer; G, marine breccia; H, wet-season level of the river; J, dry-season level of the

river. After E. Dubois.

have a total thickness of over 1,000 feet. The results of the
Selenka expedition indicated that the so-called Pithecanthropus
layer, containing bones of many extinct animals, owes its origin
to the gradual working over of ash beds formed through erup-
tion of great voleanoes near at hand. In the course of the erup-
tion many animals were destroyed and the remains buried in
ashes. Rain wash worked over the ashes and the entombed
bodies of animals. The bones washed out were later accumu-
lated at points where swamps or comparatively level stretches
in the stream stopped transportation of heavy objects by slow-
ing of the current.

The particular layer in which the Pithecanthropus speci-
mens were discovered, was found by Dubois and by the Selenka
expedition to contain a large number of remains of mammals,

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 325

representing at least thirty species. These include the pre-
elephant, or Stegodon, which is the immediate ancestor of the
modern elephant, also cats, hyenas, rhinoceros, tapir, pig, hip-
popotamus, deer, buffalo and monkeys. Along with the mam-
mals was a considerable variety of reptiles, among which were
crocodiles, gavials, lizards, snakes and turtles.

The mammal fauna of the Pithecanthropus beds resembles
in many respects that of the Java region of the present day,
but practically all of the species are extinct. Certain forms, as
Stegodon, are generally characteristic of the Pliocene, the sec-
ond period preceding the present. The mammal assemblage as
a whole is very close to that of southern Asiatic formations
representing a stage near the close of the Pliocene, as seen in
certain of the later levels of the Siwalik series in India. As
mammal faunas are generally short-lived in the geologic sense,
there seem good reasons for considering that the beds contain-
ing Pithecanthropus and the associated mammal remains were
deposited at a period approximately the same as the late Plio-
cene on the early part of the next stage, the Pleistocene as
recognized in other formations of which the age has been clearly
determined (see Fig. 7).

Suggestions regarding age of the beds have also been made
by Blanckenhorn on the basis of climatic conditions obtaining
during accumulation of the deposits. Abundant plant collec-
tions secured in the formation containing Pithecanthropus in-
dicate to practically all investigators who have examined them
a much more humid climate than that now found in this
region, and perhaps a temperature five or six degrees colder.
Considering the Glacial Epoch to have been a time of relatively
high humidity, Blanckenhorn believed the available evidence in-
dicative of a time stage for the Pithecanthropus beds corre-
sponding approximately to the first or Giinz stage of glacial
time, or near the beginning of the Pleistocene period.

NATURE OF REMAINS

Study of the remains of Pithecanthropus has been carried
to an extreme of detail rarely reached in investigation of other
known specimens. It is only regrettable that this work, so
far as it has been done by workers other than Dubois, has been
based largely upon casts of the originals rather than upon the
specimens themselves.

The tooth first found is of extraordinary size, and quite dif-
ferent from the corresponding third upper molars of human

326 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fie. 3. Pithecanthropus erectus, Skull cap Compared with Skull of a Modern
Chimpanzee. After E. Dubois. A, Pithecanthropus skull cap seen from the left side, -
x 1/5; B, same specimen seen from above; @, chimpanzee skull from the left side,
x 4/9; D, skull seen from above.

beings. It either represents a large individual, or an individ-
ual with relatively large and heavy teeth.

The skull-cap has been examined from almost every possible
angle of physical or mental vision by a great group of inves-
tigators, and is by common consent a most unusual type, bear-
ing in general the characters of a human being, but more beast-
like than any human species recent or extinct. The vault of
the cranium is low, and the arch is flat both on the forehead
and on the back of the skull. The eyebrow ridges are very
prominent, as in the apes, and the skull is narrow behind the
eyes. The brain capacity is lower than that of normal human
types. Measurements of the cranial capacity given by Dubois
have approximately 900 cubic centimeters, while the correspond-
ing measurement of anthropoids rarely reaches 600 C.c., and or
male Caucasian humans approximately 1,500 c.c.

From the interpretation of this specimen, it is evident that
Pithecanthropus represents a type previously unknown in either
the human or the anthropoid group. It differs from the apes
in its larger brain capacity coupled with reduced musculature
relating to the jaws. It differs from man in its lower brain
capacity and more beast-like contour of the skull. If there is
justification for the assumption that the large teeth pertain to

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 327

the same individual as the skull-cap, there seems sufficient war-
rant for accepting an ape-like reconstruction of the face with
the large protruding jaws needed to support large teeth.

Fic. 4. Diagram showing Outlines of the Pithecanthropus Brain compared with
that of the Chimpanzee and Certain Human Types. Upper figure, outline seen from
above; lower figure outline seen from side. After Osborn, “ Men of Old Stone eNfege
Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Many restorations of the skull have been made, among
which one of the most interesting is that by Dubois, showing

Fic. 5 Reconstruction of the Pithecanthropus Skull, x1/8. After E. Dubois.

328 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 6. Femur and Tooth of Pithecanthropus. 1, Femur from above; 2, from
side; 3, from behind; 4, from below; 5, lower end from median side; 6, Right third
upper molar from below; 6a, from behind. Much reduced. After Dubois.

the low-vaulted skull, prominent eye ridges, heavy jaws, and
protruding facial region.

The thigh bone, found at the same level with the skull, re-
sembles the corresponding bone of typical humans in some
respects more closely than the skull resembles the cranium of
human types. It approaches the human femur and differs gen-
erally from that of apes in its length, slenderness and straight-
ness of shaft, as in other minor details. It is in fact more
slender in some respects than the thigh bone of modern races.
Resemblance to the femur of modern man is not, however, in
any sense complete. Dubois has called particular attention to
the more nearly circular cross-sections of the bone, and to dis-
tinct differences in certain important areas of muscle attach-
ment. To a slight extent the peculiarities of the Pithecanthro-
pus femur resembles those of the gibbon, but they do not corre-
spond fully to gibbon characters.

This thigh bone cannot conceivably belong to an animal of

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 329

the ape type. The form of the shaft and the nature of the ar-
ticulations at the distal end are different from these features
in apes. They show that the animal evidently walked with a
degree of erectness comparable to that of typical humans, and
that it must have possessed a length of limb and extent of stride
in locomotion comparable to that of modern forms. This char-
acter of specialization for running or walking is not naturally
combined with specialization of the anterior limbs for climbing,
and we may safely assume shortness of arm like that of
humans, and different from the type of limb in arboreal an-
thropoids.

Dubois and others have considered that the degree of devia-
tion in form of the femur away from that of normal modern
man and from the apes corresponds approximately to the ex-
tent of difference between the skull-cap of Pithecanthropus and
that of both typical apes and typical men.

SYSTEMATIC POSITION

To the gratification of a large group of scientists, not long
after publication of his memoir on Pithecanthropus, Dubois
appeared with his specimens before the Zoological Congress at
Leyden, where there occurred one of the most interesting dis-
cussions on the history of man that has ever taken place. Di-
vergence of opinion as to significance of the remains lay largely
in the question of classification. Five of the noted authorities,
including Virchow, considered the animal to represent an ape;
seven, including Cunningham, Lydekker and Topinard, consid-
ered it a man; and seven others, including Dubois, Manouvrier,
Marsh and Haeckel, considered it a transition form.

With the wide knowledge of structure of man and of apes
possessed by all of the eminent students whose opinions were
expressed, it is clear that the essential difference lay in the
definition of diagnostic characters of humans and apes. It is
also evident that opinion of the group as a whole indicates the
intermediate position of Dubois’s find between typical humans
and typical anthropoids. Centering upon the controversy over
Dubois’s specimens there has developed a discussion as to def-
inition of hominid and anthropoid characters. There seems
now to be practical unanimity of view that the essential dis-
tinctions lie in possession by man of somewhat greater brain
capacity, erect position, length of limb, freedom of arm and
hand from locomotion, and perhaps in possession of speech with
sentence construction. These characters are contrasted with

330 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

EXISTING Man CHIMPANZEE.’ GORILLA. ORANG.
APES AND (Homo sapiens). Africa. Africa. Asia.
MAN. i Asia, Europe. : ; i

Cré-Magnon and
other races.

More primitive spe-
cies, human and
GLACIAL OR prehuman. ! A
PLEISTOCENE i / Macaque
AGE. Neanderthal race. ‘ : “! of Eu-
: : rope.
Piltdown race. :

Heidelberg race. F B

Trinil race } / :
Primitive Gib- (Pithecanthropus). Ancestral anthro- Macaques
PLIOCENE bon of Eu- poids of Asia /
AGE. rope ; H

(Pliohylobates). Unknown Pliccene
ancestors of man,

| : :
MIocrNE ; Primitive anthropoids
AGE. Earliest ‘Gibbons : of Asia and Europe.
of Europe i ;
(Phopithecus). 5

i
\,

Ancestral anthro- Small monkeys
OLIGOCENE, poids of Egypt of Egypt.
(Propliopithecus). a

Unknown ancestral stock
of the Old World pri-
mates, including man.

Fie. 7. Outline of the Evolution of Anthropoid Apes and Man. After Osborn,
“Old Stone Age,’ Charles Scribner’s Sons.

the smaller brain, more prominent face, relatively short grasp-
ing posterior limbs, and long anterior limbs used for climbing,
seen in apes. Judged according to this definition, it is evident
that Dubois’s specimen represents a stage just above the mid-
dle territory between man and the apes. The animal seems par-
ticularly human in its limbs and pre-human, with strong anthro-
poid tendencies, in the skull.

RECONSTRUCTION

A reconstruction of the skeleton based upon skull-cap, teeth
and femur of Pithecanthropus makes necessary the organiza-

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY

tion of an animal with upright
position and long straight limbs.

There can be little doubt that

with this structure of limb the
foot must have been much as in
modern man and the great toe
much enlarged. With such
limbs, the anterior extremities
would be released from the
burden of work in locomotion
and come to serve the head
alone. The large teeth make
heavy jaws and a prominent
face almost a certainty. The
small brain case and prominent
rims of the orbits give the com-
bination of pre-human and
super-anthropoid characters re-
quired by the long-sought miss-
ing link.

Fie. 9.
thropus from the Restoration modeled

Reconstruction of Pithecan-

by J. H. McGregor. After Osborn, ‘“ Old
Stone Age,’ Charles Scribner’s Sons.

d31

Pithecan-

Reconstruction of
thropus according to the Belgian Artist
Mascré, under the direction of Professor

Fie. 8.

A. Rutot. After Osborn, “‘Old Stone
Age,’ Charles Scribner’s Sons.

If, as Dubois assumes, we are correct in relating

these three classes of charac-
ters in one skeleton, there is
little required to give the pic-
ture of a transition form as
visualized by those who have
foreseen the discovering of an
ancestor of man coming out of
the animal world.

Although the remains of
the Java man are most unfor-
tunately fragmentary, it is
worthy of note that the long
discussions which have focused
on these specimens have left us
with a remarkable unanimity
of opinion as to the nature of
the type. It is one of the most
significant facts in the whole
range of paleontological study,
that these earliest known re-
mains referred to the human
group seem without question to

represent the type farthest from modern humans and nearest

302 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

to the anthropoids. The gap between the modern man and the
modern apes is not fully bridged. It is perhaps worth stating
that it will be difficult to define “‘ fully bridging.” The views as
to what would constitute transition or “exactly intermediate
stage” would probably vary with different investigators. It is,
I think, quite certain that for the particular stage of geologic
time in which it lived Pithecanthropus comes as near as we
could well imagine to the expected intermediate form.

THE HEIDELBERG JAW
OCCURRENCE AND ASSOCIATED FAUNA

The second and perhaps the more important find of the two
earliest known occurrences of remains referred to the human
group is that known as the Heidelberg jaw. This specimen
was obtained by Schoetensack, as the reward of twenty years
persistent and continuous effort to learn whether traces of man
might be found associated with the remains of extinct mam-
mals at a locality in the Elsenz Valley not far from Heidelberg.
From a sand pit Schoetensack had obtained many remains of
extinct mammals of a stage sufficiently late in geological time
to come within the assumed period of human evolution. Schoe-

Fic. 10. Locality at which the Heidelberg Jaw was found, at a Depth of 79
feet below the Surface, The white cross in the lower right hand corner of the
picture indicates the occurrence of the jaw. After O. Schoetensock.

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 333

Fic. 11. Lateral View of the Heidelberg jaw, approximately two-thirds natural size.
After Schoetensack.

tensack had repeatedly impressed upon J. Rdésch, who worked
at the pit, the importance of a possible find of human remains,
and with the desirability of immediate and careful handling of
any specimens suggesting man, should they appear. When in
1907 one of the workmen shoveled out a jaw of human type
from a depth of approximately seventy-nine feet, the arrange-
ments of long standing were favorable for rapid and trust-
worthy determination of the conditions of occurrence of this,
one of the most remarkable known relics furnishing informa-
tion bearing upon early human history.

The pit in which the famous jaw was found is cut into
deposits consisting mainly of a formation known as the Mauer
sands. At this locality the beds are about eighty-two feet in
thickness. Between twenty-five and thirty feet of the upper
portion of the deposits represent two formations known as
loess. Below this upper section are the Mauer beds consisting
mainly of sand and gravel. The human jaw was found only a
little less than three feet from the base. The layer in which
it was discovered was mainly gravel which was found to contain
remains of extinct mammals characteristic of the Mauer beds.
The condition of the undisturbed layer from which the jaw was
taken leaves no room for doubt that all of the fossil remains,
including the human jaw, were deposited at the same time with
the sand and gravel making up this lowest portion of the for-
mation.

334 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

The fauna found in the formation comprises not less than
fourteen mammalian species, including the Etruscan rhinoc-
eros, a species of horse, a primitive elephant (Elephas an-
tiquus), a large lion (Felis leo fossilis), and remains of bear,
deer, pig, and bison.

Schoetensack held that the Mauer fauna showed relation-
ship to the early glacial or inter-glacial forest bed of Norfolk,
as also to the Pliocene. The rhinoceros and the horse were con-
sidered especially significant of the earliest Pleistocene or
Pliocene. Schoetensack placed particular stress upon the possi-
bility that the jaw was the earliest authentic skeletal represen-
tative of the human group. Other investigators have consid-
ered the formation in which the Heidelberg jaw was found as
considerably later and representing the second or Mindel-Riss
inter-glacial stage.

DESCRIPTION OF REMAINS

The Heidelberg jaw undoubtedly constitutes one of the
most interesting remains of early man thus far discovered. In
comparison with all modern human types, it is characterized
by its unusual size, lack of protruding chin, great strength and
thickness of the body of the jaw, and unusuai width of the area
for the attachment of the muscles used in mastication. It is also
characterized by the extraordinary form of the inner side of the
anterior region of the jaw in an area marked by the attachment
of certain muscles having an important relation to movement of
the tongue in speech. The teeth are large, but not relatively
large compared with the size of the jaw, and are notably human
in practically all characteristics. While the jaw without the
teeth might not have been called human, the teeth without the
jaw would certainly have been assumed to represent a human
type not differing greatly from known species.

The teeth are characterized by strength of the roots and
large size of the pulp cavities; but considering their relation to
the peculiar primitive type of jaw in which they are situated,
the most striking characteristic of the dentition is probably the
small, distinctly human canine. Comparison of the human den-
tition with that of the apes brings out the fact that humans are
distinguished by limitation of the canines to such dimensions
that the crowns of these teeth show approximately even length
with those of their neighbors. In the apes, as in many other
groups of mammals, the canines are very prominent, projecting
far beyond the level of the neighboring teeth, and having an

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 300

important function in tearing food or in fighting. It has been
assumed that primitive humans and intermediate types between
man and other mammals would naturally be characterized by
somewhat larger canines than those of modern species. In a
jaw showing the massiveness, strength and primitiveness of
the Heidelberg specimen, it would be natural to expect a canine
of somewhat greater size than that of modern human types,
whereas, as indicated, this tooth is here reduced to dimensions
comparable to those of advanced modern types. It seems,
therefore, that reduction of the canine to dimensions comparable
to those of other teeth in the front of the jaw is one of the most
significant characteristics of the early human type.

As shown in comparison of an Eskimo, the Heidelberg jaw,
and a chimpanzee, the combination of characters in the
Heidelberg specimen is more like that of the anthropoids than
is the combination known in other forms referred to the human
group. While the dentition in general is distinctly human, the
size of the teeth, compared with those of many modern types,
with the heavy roots and wide pulp cavities present characters
which point toward an ancestral type resembling the anthro-
poids in some measure.

Fic. 12. Upper and Lower Views ofHeidelberg Jaw, slightly exceeding one
half natural size. After Schoetensack.

306 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 158. Comparison of Heidelberg Jaw, in the middle of the picture, with a
Modern Anthropoid to the right and an Eskimo to the left. After Osborn, ‘“ Old Stone
Age,’ Charles Scribner’s Sons.

In the configuration of the inner side of the jaw, there are
strong evidences indicating that the musculature was different
from that of modern man endowed with peculiar characters of
the tongue related to speech.

Gorilla. = _ Spy. __.Krapina H.u. G.|____ Australier K.72.|__u.. Rec. Europder.

Fic. 14. Comparison of Vertical Sections through the Chin Region of the Lower
Jaw. The sections of the Heidelberg Jaw are drawn in heavy line. The jaws with
which comparison is made are indicated in broken lines.

The upper dentition and skull of the Heidelberg man have
been reconstructed with great care by Dr. J. H. McGregor, and
show a form resembling that of Pithecanthropus in many re-
spects, but somewhat less ape-like. The teeth are smaller than
those of Pithecanthropus. The face was probably less prom-
inent and the brain capacity presumably greater.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HEIDELBERG JAW

The stratigraphic position of the beds from which the Hei-
delberg or Mauer jaw was obtained has not been questioned.
The associated fauna has been known at a considerable num-
ber of other localities, so that the occurrence of this specimen
is defined as that of a form living in middle or early Pleistocene

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY Bo7

time, with certain suggestions of Pliocene stage. The age of
the Pithecanthropus specimen has been the subject of much dis-
cussion, and is considered by some to represent a stage only a
little earlier than that of the Mauer jaw. The association of
the Pithecanthropus skull-cap, teeth, and femur as parts of one
individual or one species has also been questioned. While it
may be that the Java specimens represent the same _ indi-
vidual, it is also within the range of possibility that they repre-
sent two or three distinct types. Though great interest at-

Fic. 15. Restoration of the Heidelberg Man by the Belgian Artist Mascré under
the direction of Professor A, Rutot. After Osborn, *“‘ Old Stone Age,’ Charles Scrib-
ner’s Sons.

taches to the discovery of Pithecanthropus, and to tne specu-
lations concerning the nature of the creature or creatures rep-
resented by this find, it is possible that the unquestionably prim-
itive Mauer jaw, occurring in undoubted association with ar
early Pleistocene fauna and in a somewhat more definite geolog-
ical situation, represents the most important and perhaps the
earliest of the known human remains.

POSSIBLE TRACES OF ARTIFACTS PRODUCED BY EARLIEST KNOWN
HUMANS, THE EOLITHIC CULTURE

Assuming that two of the essential characters separating
the hominid group from the anthropoids are found in the free-

VOL. x.—23.

338

SYSTEM OF CHRONOLOGY FoR ‘THE STONE AGE

(Abarrep ¥RoM Ruror)

QUATERNARY

‘TERTIARY

Fie. 16.

PERIOD

TinkbGLACIAU FourtH GLACIAL
PERIOD

,

= Retreat,
5
<8
SS)
S32
Ze] Advance.
oS)
=
Nn
<
eee Retreat.
SS
Ye
ae
BF Advance.
Upper.
z
o Middle
S (Glacial. )
2
Lower.
z Upper.
= Middle
Lower.
es Upper.
= Middle
id Lower.
S|

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Retreat.

Advance.

Retreat.

Advance.

} Nronimiic

PERIOD

PALEOLITILIC

Periop

KoLrriic

Fauna
Gf

Rebenhausian,
Campignian and Tardenoisian.
Yourassian.

Present
Fauna,

i)
ie
Sy ES
Ss : ;
es Tarandian Industry.
ss
aS
N
'
2

gj

fauna of the Mammoth (£
Phas primigenius)

Eburnean Industry.

Mousterian Industry.

Acheulian Industry.
Chellean Industry.
Mesvino-chellean or Strépyan In-
dustry (Strépy, Belgium).

Mesvinian Ind. ( Mesvin, Belgium).

%
=< ¢ | Reutelo-mesvinian f Mafile near
= S 5, JorMafflean Industry | Ath, Belgium.
ENS .

<5 Reutelian Industry (Reutel,

Belgium).

Ind., Cromer Forest Bed (Norfolk).
Industry of Dewlish (Dorset).
Industry of Saint-Prest (France).

merid-
tonalis

Industry of the Chalk Plateau (England).

= 3

~ Si

ESS

S OS =| Industry of Puy-Courny (France).
5 SS
= =

Se a :

=S< 2] Industry of Thenay ? (France).
<> ASS e

SS S

8

System of Chronology in the Stone Age. After MacCurdy.

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 309

ing of the anterior extremities to serve the head and in the de-
velopment of intelligence to make possible a wide variety of
uses for the anterior extremities, one naturally considers the
making of implements or artifacts as a characteristic which
should be distinctive of humans. Question has therefore arisen
whether the Pithecanthropus and Heidelberg types had reached
a stage at which natural objects were regularly worked into
artificial forms.

The Selenka expedition secured along with other fossil re-
mains found in the Pithecanthropus beds of Java, a consid-
erable number of bone fragments showing peculiar fracture
and worn points suggesting use by primitive man. Blancken-
horn and others who examined these specimens carefully were,
however, of the opinion that they might have been produced by
fracture of bones carried in a stream or broken by beasts, and
that they were not certainly to be attributed to the work of
the hominid represented in these strata.

By far the largest representation of evidence suggesting
the use of implements by primitive man-like forms near the
period of transition from ape to man, is that furnished by the
great quantity of flaked flints obtained from strata ranging
from Pleistocene down through the late and middle Cenozoic
formations of western Europe. These specimens, representing
what have been assumed to be.the first artificial implements,
have been designated as eoliths, or the work of the dawn period
of implement making. Especially through the work of Rutot,

rig. 17. Eoliths from Belgium. Approximately three-fifths natural size.
After MacCurdy.

340 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

a considerable variety of flint forms coming from deposits rang-
ing back through the period of Pithecanthropus and the Heidel-
berg man to older time stages have been interpreted as early
efforts at preparation of artificial tools.

It is to be assumed that the earliest stone implements used
by man were fragments which in their unmodified form were
somewhat better fitted for the use of his hand than. other more
unwieldy or irregular pieces. Presuming that man early
learned the cutting power of a rock, it is probable that frag-
ments with sharp edges naturally produced were used at times
in place of those with rounded contour, and that specimens thus
used and fractured by use may have been found to have an ad-
vantage over weathered rocks naturally broken. This may
have led to artificial preparation of such broken stones. There
should, therefore, be an intermediate stage between unworked
natural objects and the earliest tools purposely produced. From
the materials representing this type, it would be exceedingly
difficult to obtain evidence as to the way in which the objects
were formed.

Milton Swanscombe Fawkham
Strect Hill 200
100 320
¢
4
kK
S ae ae a
ee ZZ GAA
Wa
Fic. 18. Section from the Thames to Oldbury Hill near Ightham Kent, England.
After MacCurdy, adapted from Prestwich. 1, Tertiary; 2, Chalk; 3, Upper Greensand
and Gault;; 4, Lower Greensand. «a, Red clay with flints—eoliths. 0b, Upper valley

gravel—paleoliths. e, Low-level valley-gravels—paleoliths.

No scientific controversy in Europe in the last decades has
been more warmly contested than that over the artificial or
non-artificial character of the eoliths or broken flints from for-
mations of approximately Pliocene age, and in the zone in which
one might expect the beginnings of implement making.

Among classic localities for these fiints is that of the Kent
Plateau, where, near Ightham in the south of England, Mr. Ben-
jamin Harrison through many years has collected a wide range
of flint forms from deposit assumed to be of Pliocene age.
These eoliths occur in a red clay formation which lies across
the edges of several upturned formations of considerable antiq-
uity. Through this plateau there has been cut the valley of the
Thames River. In sculpturing out the modern topography,
various stages in the cutting of the valley along the streams
have left terrace deposits on the banks, in which considerable
numbers of flint implements have been found. In the lower

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 341

levels bordering the valley, the flints represent stages in the
history of implement making corresponding to the middle
Pleistocene of western Europe. In the upper levels represent-
ing the stage before the cutting of the valley, eoliths are ob-
tained and the Pleistocene implements are not represented.
There is, then, a historic sequence in the implement making of
this region beginning with the stage of the eolith of the upper
plateau, and grading through the more advanced stages of im-
plements in the lower terraces.

The eoliths of the Kent Plateau correspond to a period not
later, and probably earlier, than that of Pithecanthropus, and
certainly older than that of the Heidelberg man. It is not im-
probable that flaked flints of this nature were used by both of
these primitive human types. Whether the flints of the Kent
Plateau were implements, and whether their origin was through
artificial human production is difficult to determine. The fact
that they grade insensibly into flaked flints of a type which may
have been produced without the intervention of man, does not
prove that their form was not due to human influence, and that
they were not actually used by man. On the other hand, there is
much evidence to indicate that many of the flints of these eolith
beds may have been formed without human assistance.

CONCLUSIONS REGARDING SIGNIFICANCE OF EARLIEST HOMINID
REMAINS

In concluding this phase of the discussion relating to the
earliest traces of beings of our human group, it may be desir-
able to view in the large the data thus far assembled.

We have seen that remains of man-like forms are not limited
to deposits of the present period nor are they found in all for-
mations of the geologic succession. We find the earliest evi-
dences indicating the presence of man occurring at that par-
ticular time, and not before the time, when evolution of the
group of animals most closely resembling us had reached a
stage near to the human type.

We find the earliest humans represented as a part of the
normal life of the earth in a period so remote that in our cal-
culation of its date a thousand years seems only as a day.
Pithecanthropus and the man of Heidelberg were long dead,
and had become ashes of a bygone age, before the world saw
the beginning of many extended series of events, which changed
the form of continents, shifted the earth climate back and forth
from arctic to temperate in changes of the Glacial Epoch, and

342 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

passed over the earth long processions of living generations
each in turn enjoying its hour of geologic time and fading out
into the night of history. Although of these most ancient
humans the earliest preserved traces are very faint, we find
them adequate to show that at the time in which they lived our
race was represented by beings set off from other primates by
their erect bodies, long-striding limbs, hands that were free to
build, and a brain that began to plan. And yet we find these
forms more beast like and more anthropoid than any type of
man at any later time.

So far as our evidence goes, it meets the requirements of
those who assume the emergence of man from the animal world
in the same manner in which innumerable other organic types
have arisen in the long life record as we know it.

The reading of the full story of the advent of man is still
to come, and the task of deciphering it will go on into coming
centuries. With this must proceed also interpretation of the
subsequent stages of man’s growth or evolution, of which a
brief account will be presented in a later paper.

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 343

THE MEASURE OF EXCELLENCE IN SCIEN-
EEEIe ACTIVITY

By Professor R. D. CARMICHAEL
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

HE fundamental scientific activity is that which is expended
4% in the search for truth, in discovering and establishing
what can be made sure by experiments or by undisputed logical
processes convincing to all who understand their nature. But
truth has value only as it exists in the minds of men and women
who procure from it practical or ideal benefits for themselves
or others. Consequently scientific workers must see to it that
a suitable portion of the body of truth is made widely known
and is preserved for future generations. This calls for the
work of the teacher and for the publication of the results of
research. It also demands a certain measure of educational
propaganda, at least in a country where scholarly traditions are
just being developed, in order to create and maintain the proper
interest in scientific truth and an appreciation of its values.
Let us consider first this essential secondary part of scientific
activity, the part which has to do with the dissemination of re-
sults once attained.

In a country in which research is as new as it is in ours and
in which no controlling spirit of tradition is in existence for the
maintenance of ideals, there is danger of thinking too lightly of
breaking up the research work of an active man by assigning to
him editorial duties in connection with periodicals both for the
record of scientific achievement and for the work of educational
propaganda. Committees of scientific organizations charged
with the duty of procuring a man or a group of men to do such
editorial labor are inclined to place an undue emphasis upon the
work for which they are temporarily responsible and to seek
appointees for it without a sufficiently keen realization of the
needs of science as a whole. Unfortunately it sometimes re-
quires actual experience with editorial work for a research man
to realize how fundamentally it will break up the continuity of
his thinking; and through this failure to see the true situation
beforehand he may enter upon a labor in which he will be com-
pelled to look upon himself as one of the principal offenders in
the development of a spirit of thinking lightly of breaking up
research work, although there is nothing in which he believes
more ardently than in the value of ascertaining new truth.

344 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

The aptitude required for research and that for editorial
jabors are distinct in their character and there is no reason to
believe that the possession of the one implies that of the other.
In fact it is rare to find the two prominently present in the same
individual. There are two types of things to be accomplished
and two types of men from whom are to come the persons to
accomplish them. In advancing a matter of secondary impor-
tance, essential though it is, we should be careful not to hinder
the more vital work of research. Neither of these two things
can be separated from the general cause of science. Moreover,
we must keep in mind also the welfare of the individual who is
asked by his colleagues to undertake any particular definite
piece of work. To be sure, the cause of science is of sufficient
importance to justify a considerable sacrifice on the part of
one person in order that the general cause may prosper to the
best advantage, unless that person is one of the most vital think-
ers among his colleagues. Such a one should be left entirely
undisturbed. In all cases we are in duty bound to find for each
particular labor to be assigned a man who can do it without de-
parting too widely from the things in which he is naturally
interested and to which he is temperamentally adapted.

It is essential to our best welfare not only that a correct
judgment of values shall be maintained among practised scien-
tific workers but also that the younger men as they come along
shall be led to a proper emphasis of values. There is a tendency
in some quarters to magnify the importance of editorial work
and to esteem it as the basis of as high preferment among one’s
colleagues as almost any service that could be rendered. There
is danger that this error shall be particularly insidious in its
influence upon the younger scientists; and it needs therefore to
be brought into the light of day where it can not live. It must
not be true, and we must not allow the feeling to develop, that
it is likely to be of personal advantage to our scientists for them
to give up a significant portion of their creative labors in order
to perform editorial or any other duties of a secondary sort.
Creative work alone produces the more fundamental values. It
would be injurious to the cause of science in our country if
anything should be done to create the feeling that it is a light
matter to lay down research work from any considerations
whatever having to do with less vital matters. Let us make
sure that there is nowhere in our scientific atmosphere a source
of infection breeding such dangers to our young scientists.

In certain subjects, as for instance that of pure mathematics,
there is at present a great lack of scholarly and sufficiently
complete expositions in English of the matters of central impor-

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 345

tance. The number of mediocre or very elementary books is
great, in fact so great that it seems to be desirable to lessen the
future output by means of a definite public opinion disapproving
the appearance of books not having a sound scientific reason for
their existence. But it is a distinct service of a high order,
above that of editorial labors, to produce scholarly expositions
from a sufficiently advanced point of view.

It is therefore important that we shall encourage the pro-
duction of such books. Two essentials will have to be supplied:
it requires well-trained scientists of keen insight to prepare the
manuscripts; then there must be publishers willing to invest
capital in the enterprise in order to put the book before the pub-
lic. The latter need will take care of itself and writers will be
encouraged to supply the former if such books begin to have a
sufficient number not only of readers but also of purchasers.
We need to develop the disposition to distribute more widely in
public libraries the scientific books of higher grade and the in-
clination on the part of scientists to enlarge their private
libraries. The existence of a large number of discriminating
buyers would certainly stimulate the production of the books
desired. To buy as many important books as you can use with
profit and not as few as you can get along with is to do good to
yourself and also to render service to the cause of science.

Nearly all scientists in America have superimposed upon
their other activity that of the teacher. Unfortunately the time
and energy of not a few men of originality and insight are too
largely consumed in elementary instruction which might well
be given by persons of less training and sometimes with advan-
tage to the learner. Thus we might release the men of other
temperament for that different work which can be performed
by only a relatively small number of people. But it is desirable,
from the point of view both of the learner and of the scientist
himself, that lectures on advanced topics shall be given only by
men actively and vitally engaged in research. To the former
comes the value of contact with insight, power, and enthusiasm ;
to the latter, the inspiration of seeking a living exposition
by means of which a new mind shall acquire a previously
unrealized power.

In order that teaching shall proceed to the best advantage
there must be some organization by means of which the various
parts of the work shall fit together; and this calls for adminis-
trative officers. Unfortunately the work of these in American
institutions is magnified beyond its deserts, especially in some
of the newer universities which only lately have laid aside the
garments of the college. In such institutions many hold-overs

346 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

from the old régime are to be found, both as heads of depart-
ments and as other men of the more advanced rank in the uni-
versity. Some of these are such that no word of criticism is to
be spoken against them; and some are at the other extreme
without the grace to remove themselves from an impossible
position. These evils do their greatest harm perhaps in oper-
ating to make it difficult for the youths to form correct judg-
ments of value.

As science develops it is of increasing importance that we
shall prepare histories of it in the form likely to be made useful
in the several ways in which they may be of value. There are
three distinct primary needs which may be supplied by histories
of science, namely: To enrich the general culture and intellec-
tual life of educated people; to enable a scientific worker to
quickly orient himself in a chapter of a science so as to pro-
ceed most readily to a detailed mastery of its literature; to
enable a scientific worker to ascertain with completeness what
has already been attained in a given subject.

To serve any one of the three purposes indicated requires a
very different treatment from that needed in the case of the
others. The literature at present in existence is totally inade-
quate in each of the classes; and it seems now likely to remain
so for some time. For a few well-confined subdivisions of the
several sciences, and for such alone, have we sufficiently com-
prehensive histories for the workers in particular sciences; and
nowhere is there yet made suitable provision of historical mate-
rial in science for the needs of general culture. In this portion
of the history of thought, therefore, is to be found a great oppor-
tunity for service to the cause of science and of human progress.
The work to be done calls for full training and for insight of a
high order.

But the primary and most fundamental requisite for gen-
eral scientific progress is discovery and verification of new
truth. After the worker has been found who may enter upon
this labor the next essential is his acquisition of knowledge in
the domain in which his energies are to be expended. He must
be familiar with a certain measure of the results obtained by
his predecessors. The only approach from our side to the
boundary of knowledge is along a path which leads through
fields of truth already explored; and he who is unable or unwil-
ling to travel such a path will waste in fruitless endeavor what-
ever energy he expends in trying to penetrate into the unknown.

But the path along which he approaches the boundary of
knowledge may vary greatly with the individual thinker, being
affected both by his temperamental aptitudes and by his total

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 347

measure of power. One will see by an almost unerring intuition
the significance and bearing of a given restricted body of doc-
trine as soon as he is in possession of the truth which consti-
tutes it. Another must know in detail the various related doc-
trines before he can come to a realization of the import of the
first one. It is clear that two aptitudes as widely separated as
these demand distinctly different means for the acquirement of
truth and for the realization of further progress.

Perhaps the matter may be clarified by a figure. The man
of less native force will probably find it necessary to approach
the boundary of knowledge along a spiral path which starts
from some place in the interior and winds round and round re-
peatedly, always coming a little closer to the boundary and ap-
proaching it asymptotically. This method requires the maxi-
mum time and energy for reaching the neighborhood of unex-
plored territory. Moreover, the line of progress is along a path
not far removed from a parallel to the boundary. Consequently
the component of momentum in a direction perpendicular to the
boundary is small, at least in those places where the boundary
is more regular. One who proceeds along a spiral path of learn-
ing will therefore have the greatest facility for penetrating the
unknown if he finds a narrow cape from the continent of igno-
rance projecting far into the ocean of acquired truth; and here
he will carry on explorations of value, but will hardly be able
to open a new region of large extent.

It is obvious that discoveries originating in this way tend to
round out and make regular the total body of known existent
truth. But it is unlikely that they shall bring within our grasp
any body of truth of essential novelty. It would seem therefore
that the spiral method of approach to the boundary of knowl-
edge is best suited to those prospective researchers who are of
mediocre ability; and that others, having first acquired a suit-
able general fund of knowledge, should then proceed more di-
rectly toward territory as yet unexplored.

This calls for what may be termed the radial method of
approach to the boundary of knowledge, that in which one pro-
ceeds along a path more or less nearly normal to that boundary.
We suppose that one who is to go in this direction shall have
first acquired a suitable preliminary acquaintance with the
more fundamental matters in his particular science as a whole.
Moreover he must be one of those of greater native force or he
will be lost in proceeding directly far into unfamiliar territory.
But if he has the proper central fund of information and the
requisite native.force of intellect he can proceed along such a
radial path with increasing momentum. Now, practically the

348 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

whole of this momentum is in a line perpendicular to the bound-
ary and consequently will serve as a means of breaking through
and perhaps of penetrating far into previously unexplored
territory.

It is obvious that discoveries arising in this way have the
greatest likelihood of opening up new regions of vast extent;
and they may even issue in the introduction of fundamentally
new ideas. Perhaps our greatest progress is realized from an
assault of this sort upon the unknown, one along a fortunate
direction chosen by dumb intuition or by a prevision of the
character of the advance to be anticipated.

The advantages of radial approach are not altogether denied
to those who are restricted by inherent limitations to the spiral
method of acquiring known truth. After they have come into
possession of a certain general body of doctrine they may select
out one line of development in it and proceed through this in a
radial direction to the boundary of knowledge and thus have the
advantage of a realization of the full momentum of their prog-
vess. But they will lack the zest and enthusiasm which charac-
terizes a first view of beautiful truth, and this will usually dim
their insight and preclude the greatest conquests. Nevertheless,
it must be admitted that some of our very important discoveries
are made in this way, particularly among those which are inti-
mately associated with bodies of doctrine for a long time in a
state of high development.

In estimating the measure of excellence in scientific activity
one can not leave out any fundamental element in the culture
of mankind. Our development is as a whole and not in frag-
ments. To be sure, the growth at any one moment may be in
spots; but there is a constant interaction among the various
parts and a consistent evolution of the whole. One portion of
the body of truth can not develop far while all other portions
are in a resting state. Each needs the stimulation which comes
to it from discoveries beyond its own boundaries and the en-
couragement consequent on seeing the fruit which itself yields
in other domains. Let us therefore consider the values arising
from the interaction of science with other general divisions of
thought.

Among certain scientists there is a tendency to underesti-
mate the value of philosophical thought owing to the influence
of a subtle error in logic arising from reaching a conclusion
without formulating wholly in consciousness the argument by
means of which the conclusion is attained. Among these scien-
tists it is the custom to reckon as a part of science any well-
established results which have met what seem to be the appro-

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY * 349

priate tests of truth, regardless of how these results are first
obtained. Therefore, whenever any range of thought has
reached a stage of development at which it is able to exhibit
definite conquests it becomes, at least in the region of these con-
quests, a part of the general body of science.

Now in philosophy there has always been much that is specu-
lative. But if philosophy should get its feet on solid earth and
attain a conquest definitely achieved these same scientists would
take the achievement out of the realm of philosophy—and per-
haps rightly so—and annex it to the domain of science. Such a
procedure seems rather hard on philosophy; but it might be
passed over in silence if it were not followed by an injustice
which it is made to support.

These same scientists when they have taken out of philos-
ophy every definite conquest and transferred it to the realm of
science, then intimate that philosophy is without essential
value; and to drive this intimation home with compelling power
they demand with gusto to know what is the single definite
achievement belonging to the domain of philosophy, whereas,
according to their accepted principles, any definite conquests
made by philosophy would pass from philosophy into science
in the act of becoming definite. Thus they draw the line of
demarcation between science and philosophy so that all definite
conquests lie in the domain of the former and so that only spec-
ulative or unestablished opinions belong to the latter, and then
they decry philosophy as useless because it contains no body of
well-established truth as part of its permanent possession. This
procedure is unscientific and unjust.

In order that philosophy, even so restricted, may be denied
a place of importance in the development of scientific truth, one
must show not only that it has made no permanent conquests
but also that it has failed to assist materially in preparing the
way for the advancement of science. This latter can hardly be
maintained even by the most narrow devotees of science; for it
is notorious that the atomic theory and the theory of evolution,
central as they are in all modern natural science, were at home
in philosophy for generations before they took a form in which
they might be used in the domain of more exact truth. Their
presence for a long time to the thought of mankind was one of
the essential prerequisites to their use in connection with knowl-
edge obtained by experiment and observation. Thus two of the
most fundamental conceptions in modern science, one having to
do with non-living and the other with living objects, have come
into their own with the assistance of speculative thought.

From many points of view we are forced to a consideration

350 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

of the question as to where philosophy ends and science begins
or to the conclusion that there is no dividing line and that the
two names represent different aspects of the same thing. Now
it seems clear that there is a difference in character between
the extremer speculations of philosophy and those parts of
science which are so far advanced as to furnish means of pre-
cise and accurate prediction. And if there is this essential dif-
ference in the more widely separated parts of the two bodies of
thought it appears that we must grant them to be different even
though at some places they may approach so closely together
as to have a common boundary.

Assuming, then, that there is a valid distinction, let us raise
the question in some such concrete form as the following. The
early statements of the atomic theory of matter (among the
Greeks) are clearly speculative in the highest degree and as
such belong to philosophy ; in our day the atomic theory is char-
acteristically scientific, having the most intimate connection
with a large body of experimental results. In the development
of this theory where does philosophy end and science begin?
The question has a two-fold aspect. Historically, when did the
exclusively speculative character of the doctrine take on a sci-
entific form? and to what extent had the theory advanced his-
torically when one should first begin to call it scientific? Log-
ically, what was the state of affairs when one may properly
begin to speak of the theory as scientific?

To follow out these questions with care would probably
throw considerable light on the fundamental problem as to the
relation between science and philosophy. One ought if possible
to establish certain definite criteria or sets of criteria of such
sort as to distinguish with clarity between that which is scien-
tific and that which is philosophical, except possibly for a nar-
row ambiguous band lying along the common boundary. Thus,
if a theory has reached a stage where it enables us to predict
with accuracy certain definite phenomena, there seems to be no
doubt that it should be classed as scientific. If this quality is
absent should we say that the theory is still in the less ad-
vanced stage of philosophy? Or, should we make our test for
scientific character less stringent and say that the theory,
whether established or not, belongs to science if it is so formu-
lated as to enable us to conceive definite means of subjecting it
to experimental test? These are questions on which as yet
there seems to be no general agreement.

In science itself there are two bodies of doctrine so distinct
in some of their leading characteristics as to be often opposed
one to another, namely, natural science and mathematics. In

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY dol

fact, one often has in mind the former when he speaks in a
general way of science, using no qualifying word. In such wise
have we used the term in the foregoing study of the relation
of science and philosophy. Let us now still more definitely
make the separation and proceed to a consideration of the rela-
tions between natural science and mathematics.

Some workers seem to resent the interference of mathe-
matics with their comfort in the conclusions of descriptive
science and its demands that observation shall be reduced to
measurable elements and the laws of nature be expressed in
mathematical formulas; other thinkers believe that natural
science is real science only in so far as it is mathematical, that
it is only through mathematics that true science can be under-
stood, and that without mathematics no science can develop to
maturity. One delights in observation and the record of facts,
believing that he has understood a class of phenomena when he
has given a general description of their relations, order and
connections; the other considers the mathematical formula as
“the point through which all the light gained by science must
pass in order to be of use in practise.”

It is clear that observation alone is insufficient for the under-
standing of a physical fact. Liebig has formulated three con-
ditions which he considers necessary :

We must first study and know the phenomenon itself, from all sides;
we must then determine in what relation it stands to other natural phe-
nomena; and lastly, when we have ascertained all these relations, we have
to solve the problem of measuring these relations and the laws of mutual
dependence—that is, of expressing them in numbers.

On this view we should have, apart from measurement and
hence apart from mathematics, no science except in the prelim-
inary stage preceding the considerable development of any
chapter. Some have gone further and have maintained that
there is no science whatever except that which stands definitely
and clearly on measurement, that the essence of science in the
whole and in every part is measurement and solely this.

But this extreme view is not upheld by the position of mod-
ern science. There is a significant chapter of chemistry, for
instance, in which precise results of a definite character are
obtained under the guidance of a theory in which something
essentially different from measurement holds the central place,
namely, the linking and spatial arrangement of atoms in the
molecule. There is a difference of properties accompanying
identity of molecular formule where we are forced to admit
even the same atomic linking and can ascribe the existing dif-
ference only to unlike positions of atoms in the molecule. This

302 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

is the central notion in the chapter. It has been formulated so
definitely and the facts of experiment have been associated with
it so closely that there can be no doubt of its correspondence
with some esential reality as the main feature involved. It is
obviously not in the same class of ideas with measurement.

This leaves unanswered still the question as to whether a
self-contained body of well-developed scientific truth can be
isolated which has been established and may be expounded with-
out essential use of the method of measurement. It will readily
be admitted that some of the preliminary work in the creation
of a science consists in the description of phenomena and their
analysis as to qualitative aspects. But it seems that we can
not bring any chapter of science to a resting state of relative
completeness until we have laid the basis for it deep on a foun-
dation of accurate measurement. In the example cited from
stereochemistry, for instance, we have in the advanced stages
a portion of theory depending primarily on considerations of
relative positions in space; but antecedent to the development
of this portion of the theory and necessary to its creation and
even to an understanding of it is a large body of doctrine rest-
ing on detailed measurement.

It appears, therefore, that no science can come to a rela-
tively high state of development until it has been made to rest
on a mathematical foundation. Those who insist most strongly
on the kinetic or mechanical. view of nature appear to believe
that physics and chemistry, the basic sciences of natural phe-
nomena, ‘‘are destined to become ultimately merely chapters
in dynamics as the doctrine of mechanical motion.” But prob-
ably Maxwell is nearer the heart of the matter when he insists
that a physical theory should be at the same time both mathe-
matical and physical.

It seems that no body of thought has at the same time been
of more importance in human progress and been criticized more
freely than the science of mathematics. Much of this criticism
appears to be good-natured and to amount to but little more
than a quasi-humorous way of expressing the critic’s own un-
ashamed ignorance. At first sight one might treat this as
harmless; but from the point of view of the general interest it
can hardly be passed over in such a way. How this ignorance
is to be overcome I can not say. Perhaps one of the first requi-
sites is to find some means of overcoming the shamelessness
with which individuals otherwise well trained contemplate their
own ignorance of mathematics.

The mathematician himself is not disturbed so far as the
welfare of his own science is concerned; but it is sometimes a

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 30d

matter of pain to see the general loss which arises from such
ignorance and also from the severer strictures of the more pro-
nounced adversaries of mathematics. In no other case, how-
ever, have the criticisms been so severe as those meted out to
the infinitesimal calculus in the infancy of its development; and
never have the fondest hopes of the founders of a science been
so far surpassed by its actual achievements as here where the
subject has become central in practically every field of pure and
applied mathematics.

It will be instructive to examine briefly the criticisms thus
met so early by the infinitesimal calculus. Some persons at-
tacked the certainty of its principles, attempting to show that
its conclusions were at variance with those obtained by meth-
ods previously known and accepted as sound. Some who labored
primarily with matters of morality and religion attacked the
new departure of thought on general grounds; they repulsed
themselves by unwittingly displaying their ignorance of the
thing which they criticized. One man, who entrenched him-
self in masses of calculation, pronounced the procedure of the
new calculus unsatisfactory because of the indeterminacy of
the form in which certain results appeared; but he afterwards
acknowledged his error and admitted that he had been urged
forward by malevolent persons—a thing (let us believe) which
does not often happen among workers in science. Christiaan
Huygens, whose opinion probably carried more weight than
that of any other scientific man in his day, believed that the
employment of differentials was unnecessary and declared that
Leibnitz’s second differential was meaningless. But these and
many other criticisms never hindered the development of the
new calculus, but served rather to aid in clearing off certain
excrescences which had nothing to do with its essential charac-
teristics and in helping it to that central place of importance
which it holds to-day.

The criticism last mentioned is one which is made so often
that it is profitable to dwell longer upon it. So often the mathe-
matician hears: ‘‘ What is the use of what you are doing?” He
knows a thousand answers to this question; and one of the most
effective is that which history has given to the criticism of the
illustrious Huygens. The recently developed subject of integral
equations has sometimes been confronted with the inquiry:
Why develop this theory? Will not differential equations serve
the purpose? But the mathematician goes calmly ahead with
the development of those things which interest him, just as he
did formerly; and in the new case he anticipates with confi-

VOL. x.—24.

354 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

dence the same triumphant justification in the event which has
uniformly crowned his labors in the past.

The natural sciences have also been subjected to the same
criticism. A narrow view of practical usefulness seems always
to dim the vision of those who are unlearned in the progress of
scientific discovery and the means which have released into
activity the powers of man. They judge from the standards of
a daily life in which the prime energy is constantly given to
procuring food and shelter or to laying up a store for the |
future; and it is hard to see the values in a work which does not
contribute directly and immediately to such ends. They are
not to be judged harshly for this error. It must be admitted
that the experience of most of their ancestors leads in the direc-
tion of this false judgment on their part. A small number
only of the men of each generation see clearly the remoter con-
cerns of mankind; and even they have come to this vision partly
from the spur of astonishment at the wonderful values evolving
from time to time from abstract considerations.

One of the most remarkable and immediate of these unpre-
dicted values, and at the same time one of the more modern, is
afforded by the germ theory of disease. In the middle of the
nineteenth century bacteria were known only to a few experts
and in a few forms as curiosities sometimes appearing in the
field of vision under the microscope; and no one dreamed of
their being of importance to man. In fact those who studied
them were thought to be wasting useful energy and were sub-
jected to ridicule. But in the midst of wild conjectures and
worse logic a nucleus of facts was isolated and some under-
standing of them began to be realized. In 1860 putrefaction in
wounds was ascribed to them, and a few years later their re-
lation to certain diseases began to be known. Then a knowl-
edge of their life-history and action developed rapidly. To-day
we understand not only how they are of great concern to us in
disease, but also how their action in other ways is of profound
importance to our welfare. They are so essential to agriculture,
for instance, that our race could not long preserve itself in the
present numbers and state upon the earth if the soil were not
constantly renewed through the activity of certain of these
minute organisms.

Throughout its whole range, from the most abstract con-
siderations in mathematics to the concrete descriptive develop-
ments of bacteriology, science at some stage must face the in-
sistent question of its usefulness; and this question it is always
answering in ways astonishing even to its ardent supporters.

In the development of physics the infinitesimal calculus has

~

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 300

persistently played a leading role; its interaction with experi-
mental results has been and is fundamental and necessary to
the progress we have witnessed and yet see to-day. From this
creation of the mathematicians and the use made of it by the
physicists the world has received a good practically immeas-
urable in its extent. Sometimes we are tempted to assess the
advantages due to each of these elements; but one can hardly
expect success from such a venture. Logically the mathematics
is prior; for it could exist of itself, while the physics probably
could not. But psychologically and practically they are so
bound up that no separation can be made. Were the mathe-
matics swept away, much of physical theory would likewise
have to go; but on the other hand much of the mathematics
would never have existed had it not been called into being by
the demands of physical science.

This affords us a beautiful and instructive figure of the in-
teraction of one body of truth with another. Neither of these
two would exist in their modern state without the spur which it
has received from the other. Neither of them should glow with
a spirit of boasting. A humble acknowledgment of funda-
mental indebtedness is more fitting; and it is pleasant to see
each characterized by a fervent zeal to return good for good in
full measure.

Before turning aside from the relations between natural
science and mathematics let us consider briefly a conception or
expectation which has arisen in some quarters and having to do
with a more fundamental and far-reaching use of mathematics
than any yet made. It is connected with the fact that every
branch of physics gives rise to an application of mathematics
and the consequent feeling that there must be a deep underlying
reason for this and a subsequent close relation of phenomena
which probably makes them capable of an explanation from a
single point of view consistently maintained.

If there is a “hypothetical substructure of the universe, uni-
form under all the diverse phenomena,” it would appear that
there must be some means of ascertaining what it is and of giv-
ing to it a mathematical expression and body. At any rate the
expectation of such a thing has arisen; let us hope that the
event will show that the anticipation is well grounded in the
nature of things.

It appears that the earliest contributions to just such a de-
velopment are already in existence; that the now current theo-
retical accounts of radiation, diffusion, capillary action and
molecular behavior in general have just such characteristics as
one would expect to find in the early stages of a mathematical
theory of the substructure of the universe.

306 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

At the opposite pole of knowledge is another stream of
thought whose existence or influence is mainly left out of ac-
count by scientists just because it is so far removed from that
with which they are accustomed to work. But it has profound
influence upon life and even affects science in some measure
directly though remotely. This is the unsystematic thought
which finds expression in literature and art and sometimes in
unorganized philosophic speculation. For the most part the
domains of systematic and unsystematic thought have little
effect the one upon the other; and yet it must be apparent to
one who analyzes the fundamental characteristics of our age
that these two great arteries of our culture must have some-
where a vital connection. Only rarely does an important truth
find its first expression in unsystematic thought and later take
up a place in science; and when it does so it is much changed in
the process. The poetry of science has not been written and
its cultural elements have not found their way into the general
thought of mankind.

And yet all science must receive its initial spring from ideas
no more definitely organized than the vague intuitions which
strive only half successfully for expression in the form of lit-
erature or art. Between the two there is, however, this funda-
mental difference. Even in its early stages a branch of science
has to do only with a restricted range of phenomena. It is nec-
cessary to study small sets of closely related matters if we are
to get that detailed information on which alone science can rest.
We can not obtain definite and precise scientific information
about the whole environment at once. We must take it by piece-
meal; and so far we have succeeded only where we have isolated
the phenomena into distinct and sharply-defined groups. It is
quite otherwise in literature, for instance. Here the whole
stream of life is contemplated at once, in its fullness and com-
plexity. The results obtained are less’ definite and are more
subject to change from age to age than those of science. More-
over there is less uniformity in the way in which they affect the
individuals who consider them. But they have a breadth of
reach over the forces of life and the motives of conduct which
can be realized only by a single grasp of the whole complex
process. Each of these two realms of thought, in its central
characteristics, has lessons of value for the other.

Between these two extremes is a middle ground lying unde-
veloped. One can hardly feel that it is covered by the generali-
zations of philosophy. To synthesize the results from the sep-
arated domains is hardly enough. One desires a means of
grasping a more complex portion of reality, vibrant with the

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 307

pulse of life, and of reducing it to definite order. It appears
that no known methods are sufficient for dealing with this prob-
lem. Shall we conclude that it is impossible of solution or
merely that we have need of a further development before we
can expect success with it? Thought as embodied in literature
and art took a wonderful form in ancient Greece. There science
had merely a beginning and did not acquire sufficient strength
to live vigorously through the middle ages. Many centuries
were still necessary for a development of its method. Will an-
other period of like extent lead us to other methods equally
novel and suitable for the development of this middle territory
between literature and our present science?

The logical evolution of science from the vague to the definite
is instructive from many points of view. Through untold
periods of time for many ages the human mind moved very
slowly toward that isolation of phenomena in thought which is
essential to the creation of exact science. In action such isola-
tion can not be effected; we must take the whole complex en-
vironment at once and do the best we can. This characteristic
of the practical life has doubtless been one of the chief factors
in delaying the abstractions now so uniformly present in scien-
tific investigation.

In the construction of each particular science we pass
through a sequence of stages similar to those which have char-
acterized our general progress in the development of science as
a whole. First of all, there is a period in which a given class of
phenomena affect us vaguely and we are only half-conscious of
their presence as a connected entity in the complex of the en-
vironment. They continue to affect us and we have a growing
sense of related experiences proceeding from a common source.
This arrests attention and excites interest. From being merely
passive recipients of impressions we now come to be active in
our relation to the phenomena; we observe them directly, and
we seek means to affect them so as to ascertain their course or
character with more accuracy. We pass to the stage of vague
and gross qualitative description of the phenomena. In the
course of our study this gives way to a qualitative analysis of
the phenomena and a study of their qualitative relations of co-
existence. Such is the state to which the biological sciences of
the present day have attained. Sociology finds its place even
further back in the scale.

Qualitative considerations never become definite enough to
meet the ideals of science. It is necessary to go further and
find out the quantitative aspects of phenomena and to deter-
mine the exact relations of their coexistence and succession ; in

308 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

a word, to render the account mathematical. Once Newton and
his followers had succeeded in deducing from a few laws, easily
stated and comprehended, the essential facts of astronomical
motion as obtained by direct observation, it was impossible that
any science should rest comfortably in a state in which qualita-
tive considerations are dominant. The astronomical view was
certain to spread into molar and molecular physics and even to
find a place in the biological sciences.

The various divisions of physics proper were the first por-
tions of other sciences to approach the ideal conceived on ac-
count of the success in astronomy; and chemistry has followed
at a distance. As late as 1873 it could be said:

No theory has as yet been formed in chemistry which, starting from

a definite principle, attempts to deduce results of experience as necessary
consequences.
Measured by the standards attained by Maxwell and his fol-
lowers in the theory of electricity, chemistry is still seen to be
far short of that standard of excellence which we are able to
conceive definitely, notwithstanding the remarkable develop-
ments which a generation has witnessed. Perhaps it will not
find its true place until we are in possession of more effective
means for getting into the atom—not merely the molecule—and
studying the properties and connections and positions of its
parts.

When a science has reached a certain stage of development,
varying greatly with the character of its material, it begins to
throw off into the body of society great practical or even esthetic
values which could not be realized without it. Astronomy has
enabled us to have some conception of the vastness of space and
the hugeness of the mass of matter, perhaps infinite in its total-
ity, distributed through this space. Geology has released the
imagination to contemplate the enormous periods of time and
through its influence on biology has rendered marked service
in making possible our conception of the long progress of life
on the planet, culminating in man. Mathematics, by exhibiting
a body of truth which can live through millenniums without
needed corrections and at the same time can grow in magnitude
and range and interest, has given the human spirit new ground
for believing in itself and for rejoicing in its proved power of
consistent thought.

In addition to values of this more ideal sort there are others
of a practical nature. Two of the most remarkable are those
afforded by chemistry and the theory of electricity. The latter
has enabled us to transmit readily and over great distances im-
mense stores of energy, either from a central plant or from

EXCELLENCE IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY 309

some permanent source in nature, and to utilize it for a great
variety of purposes. The former has furnished the necessary
means for founding certain industries and has contributed es-
sential elements to the maintenance of many others.

But the excellence of science is not altogether in itself or in
its fruits. It has interactions with all the fundamentals of life
and thought. It moves upon itself, part upon part, and so
brings out many values. Of especial import is the effect within
itself of the influence exerted by mathematics and natural
science, the one upon the other. But it reaches out also beyond
its own domain into all the activities of man, both practical and
theoretical and speculative. It so moves in his philosophy that
thinkers not a few now maintain that the present duty and
function of philosophy is to think science, to organize its re-
sults and to scrutinize their validity. It so affects daily life in
many ways that it can not fail to exert a profound influence
upon the unsystematic thought of literature and art as they
strive to give expression to the fundamental spirit of life in
our age.

From a certain point of view these four main divisions of
Thought—mathematics, natural science, philosophy, that un-
named one ruling without definite system in the domain of art
and literature—are the stones and brick and mortar from which
is builded the culture of the time, into which are wrought the
values received from the past, and through which our develop-
ment shall proceed to the acquisition of new power for further
conquest. We break the environment into parts in thought and
from these we fashion new objects such as never before existed
in the universe—objects both concrete and ideal—and these we
put together in ways well-pleasing to ourselves to serve the
ends we propose or erect the constructs we conceive.

But this is too mechanical to be the whole truth. The more
profound values lie deeper and have their fruition only in the
fullness of the character of man. If science did not touch a
more profound matter than mere motion or reach to constructs
which can not be adequately pictured by material symbols, it
would fall far short of the glory of Living Thought. But it does
react in a profound way with all our activities. In fact, the ele-
ments of all Thought are parts of one body, living and organ-
ized, inspired by the breath of the Universe itself and pul-
sating with the life of truth in its deeper manifestations.

360 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE
SCIENCES

By Professor G. R. WELLS

OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

EMARKS on the relation of philosophy and the sciences
R are, perhaps, best made by one who is quite often sup-
posed to belong to neither of these groups, namely, a psycholo-
gist. For as the philosopher usually views a psychologist as
one just outside of the sacred pale, so do the scientists often
refuse to recognize him as one of themselves. While I would
not be understood as calmly accepting the status of a missing
link, I do feel that there is some reason for a certain amount
of confidence that the psychologist is able to view the two fields
of philosophy on the one hand, and science in general, on the
other, with a little more understanding than either is able to
exercise toward the other. The reason for this is simply that,
whether rightly or wrongly, the average psychologist is forced
or persuaded to include in his graduate curriculum rather more
of philosophy than any other scientist in training.

Etymologically the term philosophy indicates an interest in
all knowledge. (So does the term science, for that matter.)
To begin with, no doubt, the philosopher was simply the
scholar, the learned man. Aristotle was interested in practically
everything. And men very much later than Aristotle have
taken or have attempted to take, the whole of human experi-
ence for their field. One thinks of Herbert Spencer, perhaps
of Hegel, and some lesser men in this connection. But except
in the cases of the contributions of a very few gigantic men
such spreading out of interest has resulted in a thinning of the
product so as to make it all but valueless. I have no intention
of applying this judgment to the product of philosophy in gen-
eral. But I do think that the escape from such a situation is
often somewhat narrow, and that there is escape at all is due to
the fact that philosophy has for many days practically aban-
doned all attempt to be interested in knowledge in general. No
one would dream of going to philosophy to-day for answers to
questions of any kind in science, or indeed, to obtain detailed
information of any kind, except, perhaps, in the fields of historic
folk ethic, or in the history of thought. It is possibly a little

PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES 361

hard to realize that the day is not so very long past in which
the seeker for knowledge in any field of learning would go, as
a matter of course, to the philosopher. In other words the
philosopher has comparatively lately ceased to be a treasury of
all learning.

It is of passing interest that many of the earliest phi-
losophers were chiefly interested in physics. I refer, of course,
to the Greek atomists. Some interest in astronomy was evi-
dent at about the same time, and also in physiology of an ex-
ceedingly rude type. These interests were treated in their
relation to each other, but chiefly in their relation or supposed
relation to theology. Specialization was not thought of. But
the history of thought shows us that from time to time men
whose interest was centered, rather than scattered, split off
from the main group, no longer called themselves philosophers
and abandoned the philosophical method. The influence of the
church was exerted to its utmost to retard this process, being
interested as it was not at all in the subject, but only in their
real or assumed relation to religion, or rather, to theology.
And for this and other reasons, but chiefly for this, it is really
late in the history of civilization before physics, chemistry,
astronomy, geology and biology were able to constitute them-
selves as independent lines of human activity, to pursue in-
vestigations along lines suggested by their several special
interests, and to build up their own bodies of knowledge by
using all the ways and means that their initiative and indi-
viduality suggested, or at least all that church and government
regulation allowed them to use. But such separation always
resulted in lasting benefit to all concerned, except possibly cer-
tain priest-philosophers, whose individual opinions may have
been outraged.

The last of the children of philosophy to leave the parental
home is psychology. In fact she is at present just in the act
of setting up an establishment of her own, and still remains
very much under the influence of her parent. She might be
said to be a spoiled child, and to have been too long content to
have her affairs managed by her parent. But the signs of the
times are indubitably to the effect that psychology has set up
her own house, and intends to administer it herself.

Now that psychology is leaving or has left the philosophical
rooftree I think it may be admitted that to philosophy the house
is left somewhat desolate. Perhaps that is the reason why
there has been some persistent objection on the part of the
parent to the daughter’s leaving. But, however that may be,

362 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the situation is such that the question becomes pertinent,
“What is the proper field of philosophy?” While that question
is pertinent my attempting to answer it would be impertinent,
and I do not intend to so attempt. I have not the necessary
training, whatever that may be, nor is it my place, nor is it
my interest to answer it. But answered it must be, by some
one, before very long. A smaller question is included in the
larger, that of the relation of philosophy to the sciences which
it has engendered. It is to that question that my remarks here
are directed, but even it I do not expect to answer in full.

To begin with, iet me emphasize the fact that the various
special sciences which have left the philosophical fold, have not
thereby ceased philosophizing. There has been much very
significant philosophizing done within the various scientific
fields and most of it has been done by men who would be apt
to object if they were to be termed philosophers. They would
insist that they had not philosophized. But like Monsieur
Jourdain and his prose these men have been talking philosophy
without knowing it. For instance, in biology the mechanistic
vitalistic controversy is in its very nature intensely philosophic,
but the worth-while contributions to the discussion are, in an
overwhelming majority of cases, made by men not ordinarily
listed as philosophers. There are exceptions, some valuable
contributions have been made by soi-disant philosophers, but
these are true exceptions. I can fancy that many men occupy-
ing teaching positions in philosophy have wished that they
could take a forceful, not to say creditable, part in this dis-
cussion. But, alas, it is necessary if one would enter such a
controversy that one possess a good deal of technical knowledge
of the facts involved, rather more than is in the possession of
many philosophers. In physics or physical chemistry the ques-
tion as to the nature of the atom or that concerning the nature
of ether may be properly referred to as philosophical. But few
self-styled philosophers have any remarks whatsoever to make
on these subjects. In general, it must be recognized that the
division between philosophy and science is not a line between
those who speculate, who are interested in abstract questions,
and those who are not. The difference is of another order.

As far as the facts in the present situation in the world of
thought go, the salient difference is in the breadth of interest.
The scientist is one whose interests are strictly limited, the
philosopher hates to recognize any limits to his field. The
scientist is ambitious to go very deep in a narrow shaft, the
philosopher spreads his efforts widely. Each attitude has its
perfectly obvious dangers.

PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES 363

These two attitudes are so very different that each of them
is almost, if not quite, unintelligible to the other. Few scien-
tists are apt to quite understand just what the philosopher is
trying to get at, few philosophers really appreciate what the
scientist is trying to do. This mutual misunderstanding of the
purpose and value of each other’s work is only on the surface,
and is only a significant symptom of some much deeper dif-
ferentiation. For below that matter of the breadth of interest
there is a deeper and more vital difference between philosophy
and science which I wish to suggest in this paper.

I think there is small doubt but that there are really two
very different functions of intelligence, two very different kinds
of men engaged in intellectual work.

Men who are interested in knowing are either more inter-
ested in discovery, in fact, finding, than they are in systematiz-
ing their discoveries, ov they are more interested in systematiz-
ing the facts that have been brought to their attention in
whatever way than they are in fact, finding. It is a matter
accessible to observation that few men are equally interested in
both attitudes. If an ordinary man attempts to do both these
kinds of work he will seldom be equally successful in both fields.
He may excel in one, and be woefully weak in the other. I
hazard the opinion that if a man excel in one of these attitudes,
in the vast majority of cases he will be very far from excelling
in the other. Only mediocre men, or, on the other hand, only
very great men are able to work equally well in both. Of
course it should be said in passing that this division of the
activities of intellectual men is by no means an original ob-
servation on my part. Herbart, among others, has made the
same statement, using other terms than those in which I have
chosen to describe the two attitudes.

The discovering or fact-finding attitude is precisely what
the name indicates, a passion for ascertaining shapes, sizes and
incidence of phenomena. It delights to find variations, to un-
cover new and hitherto unrecognized data. Its method is
particular, minute. Its reward is a large or small heap of
things discovered. Men with this attitude are the pioneers,
not, be it noted, the map-makers. They first make the trails,
sometimes in haphazard, if not in accidental fashion. They
are men whose preeminent virtue it is to see well, and in some
fashion or other to record what they see.

The systematizing attitude is interested less in minute and
detailed facts than in their arrangements, their relations, their
patterns. To find, not a new fact, but a new law, is their

364 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

delight. It is related of Clerk Maxwell, I think, that in boy-
hood he would say with regard to some natural phenomenon
brought to his notice, ‘‘ What I want is the particular go of it.”
Clerk Maxwell was probably of more significance as an organ-
izer of facts than as a fact finder.

The economical thing is surely to recognize the difference
between the two functions, and not to demand fact-finding from
the systematizers, nor theorizing of great acuteness from the
average discoverer. And inasmuch as both of these functions
are of necessity essential to all sciences, some arrangement
should be made, or recognized if already made, giving equal
opportunities to the two approaches to truth. Furthermore,
equal credit or reward should be apportioned to painstaking
work in either field.

It takes a good deal of courage, perhaps amounting to fool-
hardiness, to mention names in this connection. I am not
possessed of sufficient knowledge of science in general to dream
of making even approximately complete lists of men in these
two fields, but there are certain cases so outstanding that the
mention of their names will illustrate, if it does not prove, my
point.

A particularly interesting and complete example of the two
attitudes is found in the labors of Tycho Brahe and John
Kepler. These two great men worked practically as a team.
The one, Brahe, was above all an experimenter, an observer.
The other, Kepler, not only was not notable as an observer, but
in fact was possessed of vision so far below normal acuteness
that he was almost useless for astronomical work from the ex-
perimental end. But his contributions to astronomical knowl-
edge were the most significant made by any man up to the time
of Newton, with the possible exception of Galileo, and have
been exceeded by few men of any time. To this work of
Kepler’s, however, Brahe made absolutely necessary contribu-
tions. Without Brahe Kepler could not have worked. With-
out Kepler Brahe’s work would have verged on the valueless.
Brahe’s theories were almost grotesque, and Kepler could not
have observed with great acuteness or accuracy if he had tried.
The two made a perfect team, each being the other’s comple-
ment to a degree seldom equalled in the history of science.

Newton’s work was entirely theoretic. He did practically
no fact-finding. He was a systematizer par excellence. His
mighty contributions to knowledge were all in the realm of
theory. He required absolutely that other men furnish him
with facts. Men whose names we hardly know, and no doubt

PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES 365

men of whom we have never heard, furnished the material from
which he fashioned his laws. And without the results of the
labor of these obscure or nameless workers Newton himself
would have remained obscure. When as a marvellous boy he
worked out the mathematical calculations which were to estab-
lish the theory of gravitation, his calculations concerning the
curvature of the moon’s orbit seemed to work out incorrectly.
There was evidently some serious error of misapprehension.
He knew it was not in his mathematics. All his work was
based upon the accepted belief of the time that a degree on the
earth’s surface measured sixty miles. It is to me a curious
thing, an amazing fact, that under these circumstances he made
no attempt as far as I know to substantiate this measurement.
Instead he laid his figures aside for sixteen years. Then a
lesser man than Newton experimentally determined that this
estimate of the length of the degree was incorrect by nearly
ten miles. Whereupon Newton returned to the long-neglected
and almost forgotten calculations, and found that in the light
of this new experimental fact they were completely adequate.
And so he gave the world the theory of gravity and inverse
squares. As a fact-finder Newton was not eminent, as an
arranger and explainer of facts he was unapproachable.

Clerk Maxwell, Willard Gibbs, Arrhenius! Do these names
suggest to you facts or theories? The latter only. I think
none of these men did any discovering. But they practised
wizardry in the realm of law.

There are equally notable examples of men who have dis-
covered much, but have theorized little, or at least only in un-
satisfactory terms. Such men are a little harder than the
others to name, because history has valued them less than the
others, and many of them, no doubt, have been forgotten.

I have already mentioned Brahe, a shining example. In the
realm of biology we find Mendel. Perhaps his work is not
entirely characteristic, but at least it is true that he hardly
recognized the overwhelming value of his observations. Row-
land, the physicist, was essentially a fact-finder, Edison and
Marconi come in the same group. Add to these a hundred
thousand obscure laborers in the laboratory and in nature,
essential men doing absolutely essential work if science is to
progress.

A few names are great in both lines, Darwin, Helmholtz,
Cuvier, Bovari.

These instances, all too few and briefiy put, serve perhaps
to illustrate the point I wish to make. Not all men are in-

366 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

terested in nor fit for experimental work, discovery, fact-find-
ing. Not all men are capable of theorizing in permanent
terms. Very few men can do both. The theorizers are the
philosophers. But why do they not, or can they not, also ob-
serve? The reason is perfectly obvious. Philosophy is not a
subject. It is a method. The philosopher is not funda-
mentally different from the scientist because his interests are
broader, but because his methods are different. The two
methods require very different mental attitudes and aptitudes.
I think it can be put in other words by saying that there is
no such thing as philosophy per se. Philosophy must be phi-
losophy “of’’ something, of physics, of chemistry, of biology,
of religion, of behavior, and so on. And before the philosopher
can work there must be something to work upon, material to
be provided by the fact-finder, who must go ahead and pile up
these facts to be arranged later by other hands than his.

For this reason it is that the contributions of the earlier
philosophers is of little value in the light of present-day science.
They had so little to work with in the way of definitely ascer-
tained knowledge that the finest intellects and the best will in
the world could have accomplished nothing. How could they
observe and state the laws underlying the movements of phe-
nomena when they did not know the phenomena? But the
more or less complete failure to recognize this elementary fact
has wasted much time and energy.

The place of philosophy as a college department it is pre-
sumptious for me to discuss. But is it prophesying for me to
suggest that each department of science will, in time, do its
own instructing in the philosophy of its own subject? Courses
may be included in the offerings of each university scientific
department on the philosophy of biology, of physics, of chem-
istry, of psychology. For the attitude of psychology toward
philosophy is not different from that of any other of the sci-
ences, except perhaps that the amount of definitely determined
facts makes a comparatively small heap, and that there are
some peculiarly involved philosophical problems to be handled.*

Beyond philosophizing in the various fields there may be a
possibility of some superman relating these various philosophies

1 My friend, Dr. Dunlap, of Johns Hopkins, has suggested to me that
something of the same sort may come in time to be true of history. We
may come to hold that history in general is too large, or-too vague a sub-
ject for one group of men to handle. And so we may some day have in
each department courses in history, history of physics, of chemistry, of
biology, of government, of economics, of art and literature. That would

leave untreated only the history of war. And perhaps some day that may
be left to the department of archeology to handle.

PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES 367

to each other. For all facts of experience may, after all, be one
fact, in some sense which it is impossible, even absurd to dream
of now. But the man who can see and state these universal
relations must do so on the basis of his knowledge of the de-
tailed technic of all sciences. It will require a super Newton, a
super Helmholtz, a greater Aristotle. But for him who can
do it that will be the great task.

These remarks are not to the effect that philosophy has no
relation to or place in science; quite the contrary. The value
of philosophy to science depends upon the degree to which phi-
losophy is in science, rather than above it. Science uses, or
should use, philosophy as a tool, a method, for specific and
limited purposes. Philosophy is the handmaid and not the mis-
tress of the sciences. Failure to recognize the ancillary func-
tion of philosophy, attempts to enthrone it, have caused some
harm to science, but much more harm to philosophy itself. To
this error we may truthfully attribute the modern and regret-
table belittling of philosophy.

368 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

WHY DOES OUR PUBLIC FAIL TO SUPPORT
RESEARCH?

By Professor T. D. A. COCKERELL

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

times suspected of having Irish blood in his veins, who
formerly was a member of the State Senate. Many years ago,
the president of the State University appealed to the legislature
for a small fund in aid of research. Our senator, in the pres-
ence of the president and the students, humorously explained
on a later occasion why the appeal failed. The president had
made his speech to the committee on appropriations, and was
listened to with due courtesy. But when he went out, one of the
legislators spoke up: “Say, what ts research?” Another re-
plied, “‘D d if J know,” and a third proposed ‘“ Let’s lay it
upon the table.” There it has rested ever since.

We all had our laugh, in which the president himself good-
naturedly joined; but the query of the old farmer-legislator,
“Say, what 7s research?” has remained as unanswered by the
general public as it was in that committee-meeting. The pub-
lic believes in education, and will support it up to a certain
point. It has a good deal of regard for the sports, and is sure
that football is one of the major functions of a university. But
itis d d if it really understands research, and unfortunately
is likely enough to be damned eventually by that lack of under-
standing. Research and teaching are the twin functions of the
university, but we are told that teaching is the prime necessity
of the day, and research can wait. Actually, it does not wait.
We do what we can, as best we can, and for the rest depend for
our knowledge on the activities of other states and nations. In-
tellectual parasitism is so easy, in the sciences or the arts. The
world does move, so why not ride upon its back?

Yet the other extreme, of complete intellectual independence,
would be much worse. We must of necessity be part of the
great body of science, but it should be a living part, not some
shell-like external secretion. No state, no city, can afford to be
left out of this movement; the eventual penalty is inability to
even profit by the work of others.

Ww have in our town a useful and patriotic citizen, some-

THE PUBLIC AND RESEARCH 369

1t should be a matter of personal and social pride. It is of
incalculable advantage to any state to belong to the Union, but
in the present condition of public opinion there are some disad-
vantages. If Colorado were a nation, she would as a matter of
course have strong institutions for scientific research, and
would publish the results of investigations made by her citizens.
Being only a state, she is cheerfully willing to see these activi-
ties center in other parts of the country, and has little idea of
squarely shouldering her own burden. One can easily imagine,
and can even find in various countries, excessive local pride
leading to absurd results. Our extreme modesty (is that the
word?) is not wholly bad. Yet the problem of the states is
something like the problem which confronts many of our edu-
cated young women. They might fly, could they only believe
themselves to possess the wings. Long ages in the apterous
condition have produced an inhibition scarcely to be overcome.
Yet it will be overcome, in both cases, in the fullness of time.

It is unreasonable to expect the demand for intellectual
achievement to develop abundantly among the masses. Reforms
start with individuals rather than with multitudes. If we are
really to progress, the universities and the men in them must
show the way. They must press their cause with so much zeal
and sincerity as to convince their students, and their students’
students. The torch of Agassiz is growing dim, but it has
burned brightly through more than one generation. One looks
into the faces of nearly two thousand young men and women at
assembly, and thinks, if they all cared enough, what might they
not do? If they cared for their country and their fellows enough
to work and think, year after year, how to make America what
America once meant to be!

They don’t care like that, and we don’t. The stream will not
rise higher than its source. If we could do no better, this argu-
ment would be wasted ink. But as William James used to say,
we practically all of us have unrealized reserves of force. We
found that out in the war, and should not forget it in peace.
The power is there, both material and spiritual, and only the
stimulus is lacking.

I have little respect for the methods of the revivalist, and
should regard with grave suspicion sudden conversions to the
religion of science. One has to grow into it, and up toit. Yet it
is absolutely certain that such growth will only occur in adequate
quantity under favorable conditions. It is nonsense to say
that the scientific man must be a genius, and as such will defy

VOL. X.—25.

370 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the very gods to win a footing. He is usually a man (or woman)
of rather ordinary ability, somewhat above the average, who
will work when suitably fed, housed and clothed. He wishes to
be understood and appreciated, and get due credit for what he
does. He does not demand riches, but he is jealous of his rights,
and has a sense of justice. All of which is to say that he is a
normal American citizen, and desires to be taken as such. He
appreciates the indescribable romance of science, the triumphs
of discovery, the dawn of new ideas; but all this is part of life,
and may come to the merchant, the artist or the farmer, if in
somewhat different form. Scientific research is not a thing
isolated ; it is part of the necessary work of the world, and when
once that is understood, it will take its place along with our
other normal activities.

We of the university do not appreciate this. We hear it said,
and repeat the saying, that one who has the true research spirit
will make discoveries, if he has to take the night hours and holi-
days to do it. It is true enough, but suppose we reverse the pic-
ture fora moment. Suppose we imagine a university given over
to research, but with students as at present. Professors are paid
to do research, and called to account for it, but they teach when
they can, or feel inclined. Oh well, if a man has the true teach-
ing spirit he will gather a following, and so the youth will be
instructed! The history of the world proves that; Jesus Christ,
the greatest of all teachers, got no pay but the cross. Admit all
this, and it remains evident to the least intelligent that the edu-
cation of a democracy can not be left to the occasional influences
of spirits too insistent to be crushed. Indebted as we are to the
inspired, most of our knowledge and training must come through
much more prosaic channels.

No one doubts this, in regard to education. Once there used
to be a doubt, but it has long since passed away. We have an
educational program, which actually suffers from excess of
system. We have gone to one extreme with regard to education,
to the other with regard to research. We have no research
program. The administration receives no reports on research,
and asks no questions regarding it.t No one on the campus can
tell accurately what the research activities of the university are.
Is it therefore remarkable that the public does not know, and
legislators possibly think of research as a scheme to give lazy
professors more time to loaf? It would be horrible to have

1Plans for reform in these matters are under consideration in the
University of Colorado.

THE PUBLIC AND RESEARCH oll

research administered by a stiff and unintelligent machine, but
is that any reason why it should be left to shift for itself
unaided? The fault, of course, is not peculiar to any one institu-
tion or locality. In some degree it even represents an exagger-
ated virtue, that of recognition of the independence of the in-
vestigator. It is not easy to reach optimum conditions or
practices, in teaching or research, but without a certain effi-
ciency in both our democracy can not be adequately maintained.

With a definite program, sufficient means for publication,
and dignified arrangements for publicity, I believe there would
be no great difficulty in obtaining the support of a majority of
the citizens. When it becomes apparent that science can create
wealth, banish disease, and illumine the mind, it will be re-
garded as the indispensable friend of mankind. Scientific writ-
ings will themselves become a prime factor in the education of
citizens, not simply on the campus, but all over the country and
at all times. But it is not sufficient to preach the virtues of sci-
ence in general. People must be shown in detail, in a thousand
ways suited to their particular needs and interests. Hence the
propaganda, if we may so designate it, must be in the hands of
the scientific men themselves. They alone know the facts, and
can speak with conviction.

The problem is not one of finding support for a certain num-
ber of research workers. If there were no opportunities for
research, the majority of potential investigators would turn to
something else, and probably attain greater material prosperity.
The problem is, to create and maintain a service, without which
civilization will stagnate, and eventually decay. Those who
nave faith in science do not believe such an outcome possible,
but look forward to continually accelerated progress, and the re-
moval of many of the greatest evils which distress mankind.

372 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

SCIENCE AND THE STATE

By Dr. WILLIAM SALANT
NEW YORK CITY

HE revolution in sentiment which is being wrought by the
“Ee war is perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the public
recognition of the value of scientific investigation. The idea is
fast gaining ground that science is indispensable for the pre-
servation of modern society and may be considered one of the
most profitable lessons taught by the war.

According to a declaration of the British Labor Party the
advancement of science is placed in the forefront of its political
program. The necessity of scientific development is empha-
sized by the incorporation into its political platform, of recom-
mendations for the deliberate organization of research. This
attitude of a group of radical labor leaders toward scientific
activity might well be regarded as highly significant of the trend
of thought at the present day. For never before has any politi-
cal party embodied in its declaration of principles the advance-
ment of science as national policy.

Evidence that the progress of science is no longer to be left
to chance is also furnished by the announcement of the British
Ministry of reconstruction after the war.

Its plans which were published about two years ago indicate
that definite form has been given to the recognition that science
is the corner stone not only of modern warfare but also of the
future society which is to follow the establishment of peace.
Judging from the number and the organization of the various
boards and committees the object is to stimulate scientific re-
search along different lines on an unprecedented scale. The
scheme of this highly important body includes among other
items in its program the appointment of two research boards on
scientific and industrial investigations, five standing commit-
tees, seven research committees, four inquiry committees and.
three provisional organization committees. Official recogni-
tion of scientific investigation was not confined, however, to the
British Isles. The colonies have also realized the necessity of
scientific investigation as was shown by the establishment of a
similar organization in Canada at the head of which is the well-
known physiologist. Professor A. B. McCallum. It is pertinent

SCIENCE AND THE STATE 373

to inquire therefore what our federal government is doing in
the way of promoting scientific investigation especially of the
type which will be needed after the war. As it is necessary to
look into the future and make provision for the solution of
various problems which will arise when peace is established a
review of the scientific activities of the government and the con-
ditions of scientific work may, therefore, be helpful in pre-
paring for the greater task which is to come, for the analysis of
conditions may suggest changes that will lead to necessary im-
provements in an important branch of the service which has
within recent years assumed large proportions. It is not gen-
erally realized that the federal government has for years em-
ployed a number of agencies for carrying on scientific work of
every description. This activity of the federal government is
very significant, as it indicates recognition by the American
public of the need of scientific work for the solution of prac-
tical problems. It shows the realization by the average citizen
that science is a necessity and is entitled to support by the gov-
ernment. This has for years been strongly reflected in the lib-
eral appropriations made for this purpose by Congress.
According to Van Hise the appropriation in most federal
organizations varied in 1911 from $100,000 to $1,000,000. The
total amount per annum available for investigation and supplies
was more than ten times as much as any single university or
institution in the country spent for this purpose. This did not
include the appropriation for the Department of Agriculture,
which in 1911 spent twenty million dollars, a large part of which
went for scientific and extension work. This appropriation for
the Department of Agriculture has since been greatly aug-
mented. For a number of years this department has been re-
ceiving enormous sums from the treasury for scientific work.
Every science was represented. Every branch of chemistry,
human and veterinary medicine, botany, zoology, agriculture
and economics were included in its official statement. The esti-
mated cost of the various scientific undertakings for 1917 was
over four million dollars, nearly all of which was to be devoted
to the various sciences as related to agriculture in all its rami-
fications. Examination of the program of work published by
Department of Agriculture shows that the solution of a very
large number of problems have been attempted and still more
are contemplated. It may be pointed out that the annual ap-
propriations for research in the various bureaus for 1917
varied between $60,000 and $1,645,640. Moreover the appro-
priations do not include large amounts spent for routine testing

374 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

which has to be carried out in connection with the regulatory
work of the department. Very often problems suggest them-
selves when routine tests are made and demand solution. Ap-
propriations of very considerable size are also made annually
for statistical work and for the study of various economic prob-
lems. The sum of four million dollars mentioned above does not
represent, therefore, the entire amount spent in investigation
and research in that department. To this sum must also be
added the upkeep of buildings and libraries, and the money in-
vested in the equipment of laboratories. Large appropriations
for scientific work in other departments have been made by
Congress during the last few years immediately preceding our
entry into the war. The Bureau of Standards, the Bureau of
Mines, the Bureau of Fisheries, the Naval Observatory, the
Geological Survey and other government bureaus have been
granted large sums of money for scientific work. It is difficult
to quote in figures the exact amounts devoted to research in each
case as they very seldom appear in the official records. But the
Geological Survey received in 1916 $40,000 for physical and
chemical research. Since it is well known to scientific men that
research forms part of the activity of these organizations it is
reasonable to infer that the total amount of money spent an-
nually for scientific investigation in all the departments of the
government must be considerable, though, by no means, so
large as that devoted to similar purposes by the Department of
Agriculture. The achievement of scientific results is, therefore,
a matter of much concern to the public. Their practical impor-
tance can not be overestimated since the various undertakings
were intended to meet the daily needs of our life. To what
extent agriculture, sanitation, preventive medicine and other
public activities will be benefited, only those familiar with the
problems in the numerous laboratories can fully realize. The
possibilities inherent in the opportunities offered for making
contributions of great value to the stock of useful knowledge are
practically unlimited. It is realized, however, by those con-
versant with the actual state of affairs that advantage is not
taken of the opportunities to the extent that it should, as
science neither pure nor applied derived the benefit which might
be expected.

It has indeed been pointed out several years ago by Van Hise
that the advancement of science in its broader aspects is con-
tributed to by only a few of the scientific bureaus at Washing-
ton. The Geological Survey, he remarked, was for a number of
years the center of the world for the ‘“‘advancement of the

SCIENCE AND THE STATE 375

science of geology but it is not contributing in any large degree
to the advancement of science at present.” Such a statement
coming as it does from an eminent geologist who had for years
been associated with Geological Survey is very significant, as it
shows a state of affairs which should not exist. Unfortunately
his statement still applies to some bureaus at present. The wide
recognition by the public that scientific investigation is a neces-
sity and that the application of the results of research are es-
sential to the very existence of a great nation make it apparent
that the conditions surrounding scientific investigation and re-
search in the federal government should not be a matter of
indifference to the public and should form an object of especial
interest to all scientific workers in the country. This claim
upon their attention applies with even greater force to men of
science at this hour, for after our entry into the war the num-
ber of scientific projects undertaken by the different govern-
ment agencies markedly increased. Besides, there is every
indication that scientific activity, carried on under the auspices
of the federal government, is destined to assume much larger
proportions during the period of reconstruction than before the
war. The number of scientific workers in the employ of the
government promises, therefore, to become permanently large
and the problems they may be called upon to solve are likely to
be more serious and more numerous in the future than they
have been in the past. The treatment of scientific workers,
particularly those who have demonstrated their ability to carry
on and to direct investigation deserves special attention, for
upon them largely depend the objects to be achieved. Proper
treatment at the hands of bureau chiefs and heads of depart-
ments is essential to success in research. The necessity of im-
proving the conditions of scientific work should be recognized,
therefore, and the much-needed reforms should be introduced
without delay. Initiative should be permitted and encouraged.
There is nothing in our form of government to prevent it. The
numerous, petty and annoying regulations should be abolished,
as they defeat the very object for which laboratories are estab-
lished. The establishment of an agency to carry into effect a
certain project carries with it by implication authority to em-
ploy the methods necessary for the achievement of results... It
would, indeed, be considered unreasonable to expect results
without the necessary physical equipment employed in the ex-
perimental sciences. The need of instruments and apparatus
is readily admitted and is usually provided. This applies with
even greater force to the intangible conditions in the absence of

376 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

which scientific work is either wholly impossible or is at best
extremely difficult. The need of a free hand to achieve results
when any serious project is undertaken is fully recognized and
it is, of course, to be assumed that scientific work in the govern-
ment is and should be made a serious matter. The condition of
the heads of laboratories is especially worthy of attention, for
upon them rests the responsibility for carrying out the various
scientific projects and it is they who are accountable for the
results. Practically all of them are near or past middle age and
the possibilities of their being called to fill similar positions else-
where is very remote. If the tenure of office is so uncertain, as
shown by a recent case in the Bureau of Chemistry, that their
services may be terminated at any moment and on the slightest
pretext, directors of laboratories and their associates are wholly
at the mercy of their superior officers. Such conditions are
absolutely incompatible with the proper performance of duty
and the achievement of scientific results and besides compro-
mise the dignity and self-respect of scientific men. Except
under very unusual circumstances, as when the head of a lab-
oratory, or a man in charge of a project is not wholly depend-
ent upon his position for a livelihood, the discharge of his official
and professional obligations with any degree of satisfaction to
himself and in obedience to the interests of his real employer—
the public—becomes almost an impossibility. It is not neces-
sary to dwell upon the influence which such conditions will
exert upon the morale of the individual concerned and, there-
fore, upon his scientific work. The result is necessarily and
inevitably disastrous. A policy whereby scientific workers of
every grade and description would be shown consideration is
urgently needed in every bureau and demands immediate atten-
tion. Recognition of merit by promoting the industrious and
efficient as well as the recognition that a scientific worker, in
whatever capacity employed, has rights that a superior officer
is bound to respect, under pain of disgrace and dismissal, would
keep intact the organization of useful and productive labora-
tories. This could be accomplished without added expense
and would be beneficial to the public service directly by increas-
ing the volume of scientific work and improving its quality, and
indirectly by affording thorough scientific experience to young
men and women. Increase of appropriations are hardly neces-
sary to carry into action such a policy, but what is more im-
portant is the inauguration of a policy looking forward to the
transformation of every unit in every bureau into a harmonious
effective organization. But to carry out such a policy men of

SCIENCE AND THE STATE | 377

marked ability and devotion to the cause of science and to the
highest interests of the public are needed. The important fact
can not be overlooked that one of the lessons of the early days
of the present war was that no nation can afford to neglect its
scientific workers or to allow its research agencies to be disor-
ganized and wasted. The most patriotic service that can be
rendered is to be ready with our laboratories fully equipped and
working at their highest possible efficiency. The reconstruc-
tion of our national industries to meet the needs of the world’s
food supplies and the world’s industries, as well as to meet the
competition of other nations will demand that American men
of science be ready as they have never been before to match
their research skill against that of the whole world, which neces-
sitates that our government should lead in every branch of
scientific work. Its organization of science should be a model
to the country and to the whole world, as otherwise we may be
outstripped by other nations in industry and in commerce.
While private philanthropy has done much for science in this
country it should not be forgotten that the government with its
unlimited resources can do vastly more than can ever be ac-
complished by the wealthiest and most generous individuals.
Scientific research is a very expensive undertaking. The cost
of some of the constituent laboratories of the Rockefeller In-
stitute and of the Carnegie Institution is between forty and
fifty thousand dollars a year. The multiplication of such lab-
oratories will undoubtedly become a necessity in the near future.
Is it not too much to leave the development of science to chance
and to the generous impulses of men of wealth? Besides it is
hardly conceivable that private philanthropy will be equal to
the occasion in the future for the scientific undertakings prom-
ise to be so vast that the government alone will be equal to the
task. The movement in this direction is, however, not new for
this country. Public opinion will undoubtedly approve of more
thorough organization of science by the government and of
more liberal support for it in the future than in the past. There
is every reason to expect that we can accomplish even more in
this direction than the other nations, since our resources are
practically unlimited.

378 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

INERTIA’
By SIR OLIVER J. LODGE

7E are each of us flying through space at nineteen miles a
\ \ second, probably much more. Nothing is propelling us;
we continue to move by our own inertia, simply because there
is nothing to stop us. Motion is a fundamental property of
matter. No piece of matter is at rest in the ether, the chances
are infinite against any piece having the particular velocity
zero; every bit is moving steadily at some given speed, unless
acted on by unbalanced force. Then it is accelerated—changed
either in speed or direction, or both.

As a matter of fact we, like other bodies on the earth, are
acted on by two slight unbalanced forees—one which makes us
revolve round the earth once a day, like a satellite, the other
which makes us revolve round the sun once a year, like a planet
or asteroid. Our annual revolution is not because we are at-
tached to the earth; we are not attached, but revolve as inde-
pendent bodies, and would revolve in just the same time and
way if the earth were suddenly obliterated: only then we should
find the diurnal revolution transmuted into a twenty-four hour
rotation round our own centers of gravity, and the excentricity
of our annual orbit very slightly changed. In any case there is
no propelling force, only a residual radial force producing
curvature of path.

A railway train, or a ship moving steadily, is likewise sub-
ject to no resultant force. Propulsion and resistance balance.
The whole power of an engine, after the start, is spent in over-
coming friction. The motion continues solely by inertia. Any
steadily moving body is an example of the first law of motion.
You need not try to think of a body under no force at all; you
cannot think of such a body on the earth, but you can think of
one under no resultant force, i.e. under balanced forces. Such
a body moves by reason of its inertia alone. It is in equilibrium:
it is not at rest.

But we have no sense of straightforward locomotion, and
not the slightest clue to either the magnitude or direction of
our motion through space. We can ascertain approximately

1 Amplified from a lecture on “ Ether and Matter,” given before the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, on February 28, 1919.

INERTIA 319

how the sun is moving with reference to our system or cosmos
of stars, but we do not know at what rate that system is itself
moving. For all we know it may be moving very fast: hun-
dreds of miles per second.

We have a sense of acceleration however; we experience it
in a lift as it begins to descend; and if the sensation is repeated
often enough, as on a rough sea, the result is unpleasant. We
have also a sense of rotation; we can tell when our vehicle—say
a Tube train—turns a corner in the dark. Most animals appear
to have a sense of rotation, apparently located in the ear. But
we have no sense of direct translation; and we have so far
failed to devise any instrumental means for detecting our mo-
tion through the ether of space.

The failure is not for lack of trying. Many experiments
have been tried, but there is always some compensating effect;
so we get no answer to the question—at what rate and in what
direction are we moving? The best known experiment is that
of Michelson and Morley, the result of which seems to assert
that the ether clings to the earth, or that the earth is not mov-
ing through any kind of substance. But Fitzeau’s classical ex-
periment showed that a transparent body carried with it none
of the internal ether of space; and experiments made by myself
at Liverpool in the nineties of last century show that a rapidly
moving opaque body carries no external ether with it, that
there is no perceptible viscous drag or cling between matter
and ether, and accordingly demonstrates that stagnation or
absence of relative ether drift past the earth is not a reasonable
explanation of Michelson’s negative result.

The two experiments together, in fact, ought to be taken
as establishing the reality of the most interesting of all the
compensating effects yet discovered, viz. the FitzGerald-Lorentz
contraction of all matter in motion, which the electrical theory
of cohesion renders so extremely probable. It only amounts
to a 38-inch shrinkage in the whole diameter of the earth in the
direction of motion; but it is enough. This slight contraction
or change of shape in moving bodies I regard as the definite
and interesting compensating effect in this case. Incidentally,
moreover, it establishes the electrical, 7.e. the chemical, nature
of cohesion. For given that cohesion is a residual chemical
affinity—due to the outstanding attraction of molecules com-
posed of neutral groups of equal opposite electric charges,
brought so near together that the attraction between molecules
is no longer averaged to zero—then, on orthodox Maxwellian

580 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

electric theory, a diminution of this force due to lateral motion
is inevitable. And the resulting lateral expansion or longitudi-
nal contraction, or both, is of the right order of magnitude.
So this acts as a previously quite unsuspected compensating
effect, which exactly neutralizes the drift effect otherwise to
be anticipated. Thus, by superposition of two positive conse-
quences of drift, the Michelson experiment, like every other yet
made, declines to indicate that there is any drift at all.

Hence, after many such negative results, it seems to become
hopeless to enquire experimentally as to our motion through
ether. Unless indeed gravitation were exempt from the other-
wise universal compensation. In that case the electrical theory
of matter applied to the motion of planets might yield a residual
result. But my recent enquiry into this problem has suggested
that gravitation too is in the conspiracy, and in that case there
is some ground for the contention of the extreme Relativists,
not only that we do not know our motion—with which everyone
agrees—but that we never shall know it: and, in fact, that
motion of matter through ether is a phrase without meaning.

I hope we shall not too readily shut the door on further
attempts in this direction; and as a conservative physicist I
may be allowed to lament the extraordinary complexity intro-
duced into physics and into natural philosophy by the principle
of relativity, as so remarkably and powerfully developed by
the mathematical genius of Einstein, with complication even
of our fundamental ideas of space and time. The complications
do not commend themselves to all of us, and I for one should
be glad to return to the pristine simplicity of Newtonian dyna-
mics, modified of course by the electrical theory of matter;
admitting the FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction, and admitting
also the variation of effective inertia with speed. These things
do not destroy, but supplement, Newtonian dynamics. They
generalize it in a legitimate and intelligible manner. Such com-
plications as these are clearly in accordance with truth and are
to be welcomed; but the complicated theory of gravitation
created this century by Einstein and developed by his suc-
cessors, and the consequent overhauling of space and time rela-
tions, do not at present commend themselves to me, nor I think
to others of what I suppose must be called the older school.

Meanwhile the full-blown theory has the courage of its con-
viction and has predicted a definite result, viz. the deflexion of
a ray of light by the sun’s limb, equal to 1.75 seconds of are.
The prediction is going to be tested during the solar eclipse of

INERTIA 381:

May 29, 1919, between Brazil and the Gulf of Guinea. Let
the issue be clearly understood. If a star-ray grazing the sun
is deflected 3/4, second it will mean only that light has weight,
that the wave-front not only simulates the properties of matter
by carrying momentum—as we know it does from the investi-
gations of Nichols and Hull, Poynting and Barlow, and others—
but that it is even subject to gravity. For this would be the
angle between the asymptotes of a cometary orbit when the
comet is moving with the speed of light and passing close to the
sun. But the principle of relativity—through the refractive
or converging influence of a strong divergent gravitational
field—demands a greater deflexion than this, more than twice
as great. So there are three alternate deflexions before us, to
be settled by observation :

IE DSeCas Oni SeGss) “and zero:

Let us hope that the result of this or of some other eciipse-op-
portunity may be definite enough to discriminate clearly and
quantitatively between these three alternative values; any one
of which should be equally welcome to any lover of truth.

If the first answer is given decisively, it will be a conspicu-
ous triumph for the theory of relativity, and will for a time be
hailed as a death-blow to the ether. I claim beforehand that
such a contention is illegitimate, that the reality of the ether
of space depends on other things, and that the establishment of
the principle of relativity leaves it as real as before; though
truly it becomes even less accessible, less amenable to experi-
ment, than we might have hoped. Nevertheless the ether is
needed for any clear conception of potential energy, for any
explanation of elasticity, for any physical idea of the forces
which unite and hold together the discrete particles of matter
whether by gravitation or cohesion or electric or magnetic at-
traction, as well as for any reasonable understanding of what
is meant by the velocity of light. Let us try to realize the posi-
tion beforehand; for we shail be handicapped in the progress
of our knowledge of the relation between matter and ether until
these fundamental things are settled, and until everyone agrees
that the ether has a real existence. I want people generally to
admit that the ether is itself stationary as regards locomotion,
and that it is the seat of all potential energy; and further, at
least as a surmise, that it is the medium out of which matter is
probably made, and in which matter is perpetually moving by
reason of its fundamental property called inertia—a property
the full explanation of which must, I expect, ultimately be rele-

BOO THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

gated to and considered as a property derived from the ether
itself.

I call this lecture ‘Ether and Matter,” but I might equally
well have called it ‘‘ Inertia,’ for that is the main theme with
which I have to deal—at least in this first part.

Is there anything else, besides matter, which possesses or
seems to possess inertia! Faraday discovered that an electric
current had a property which bore some analogy to inertia, a
property clearly depending on its magnetic field. Every cur-
rent, even a convection current, is necessarily surrounded by
lines of magnetic force, and when the magnetic field is intense
the current behaves as if it had considerable inertia. Faraday
at first called the effect “the extra current.” Maxwell called
it “‘self-induction.”” The latter is the better name.

To show it I start a current in a circuit containing a stout
ring of laterally subdivided iron round which the current-con-
veying wire is wound, and I put in circuit an instrument which
only responds when the current has risen to nearly its full
strength. A current usually rises, what is called, instantane-
ously, but here there is a very noticeable delay between pressing
down the key and the response of the instrument. The lag
shown is only a second or two, but with care I can adjust it till
it is a quarter of a minute. Such delay or lag in establishing
a current would be fatal to electric telegraphy. In practice the
delay is reduced to a minimum, by using its early values, and
the actual response is exceedingly quick. Still, the law of rise
of current is quite definite, there is no exception, it is only a
question of degree; and the law is the same as that appropriate
to the pulling of a barge on a canal. A barge gets up speed
slowly, at a rate depending on its mass or inertia, and it ulti-
mately attains a steady speed when the resistance balances
the pull.

That is exactly the case of a steady current obeying Ohm’s
law, the E.M.F. is balanced by the resistance, the propelling
force is zero, and the current flows by what we may call its
own inertia—its own momentum.

To stop the current you must either increase the resistance
or suspend the propelling force. If you interpose an obstacle
suddenly, the motion stops with violence—a collision in the case
of a train or barge, a flash in the case of electric current. This
is what Faraday called ‘‘the extra current at break,” and if
you are holding the wires in your hand when the current is
suddenly broken in a circuit of large self-induction you may get
a nasty shock.

INERTIA 383

If you could abolish electric resistance a current would go
on for ever without propelling force.

An amazing experiment has been made by Kamerlingh
Onnes at Leiden, who first cooled a metal ring down to within
four degrees of absolute zero by means of liquid helium, and
then started a current through it by a momentary magnetic
impulse. Instead of stopping in a minute fraction of a second,
as usual, the current went on and on, not for seconds but for
days. In four days it had fallen to half strength, and there
were traces of it a week later. A most suggestive experiment
as to the nature of metallic conduction, as well as a demonstra-
tion of the fly-wheel-like momentum of an electric current!

This electromagnetic analogue to mechanical momentum or
inertia is explicable (or supposed to be explicable) in terms of
the magnetic field surrounding the current, 7.e., really (as I
think) in terms of a property of the ether of space. It exactly
simulates inertia; but is it an imitation or is it the same thing?
Can it be said that an electric charge possesses inertia in its
own right, and retains it always, as matter does, whether it be
moving or whether it be stationary?

The question was brilliantly answered by your Professor
of Natural Philosophy, Sir J. J. Thomson, so long ago as 1881.
He calculated the inertia or quasi “‘mass”’ of an electric charge

2 ue?
3a -

The » need not be attended to now, though it is really the
most important of all—being a great etherial constant of utterly
unknown value*—but for our present purpose the » merely sig-
nifies that the e must be measured in electromagnetic not elec-
trostatic measure, when the formula is interpreted numerically
with —— Ue

At the date 1881 this expression for true electric inertia,
though an interesting result, seemed too absurdly small to have
any practical significance. Take a sphere like a football, 20
centimeters or 8 inches in diameter; charge it till it is ready to
give more than an inch spark, say up to 60,000 volts; then cal-
culate the inertia or equivalent mass corresponding to the
charge. If I have done the arithmetic right it comes out one-
third of a millionth of a millionth of a milligramme (3 « 10°).
Absurdly small! Yes, but not zero. And whenever a quantity

e, on a sphere of radius a, and showed that it was m —=

2I have guessed that it is a density of 10° grammes per c.c. + 47.
See “The Ether of Space,” Appendix 2; also the Phil. Mag. for April,
1907.

384 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

is not nothing, there is no telling what importance may not
have to be attached to it sooner or later. Nothing real can be
so small as to be really negligible in the long run as knowledge
progresses. Something at present unforeseen may bring it
into prominence. So it has turned out in this case. The infini-
tesimal result of nearly forty years ago to-day dominates the
horizon. It was in some sort the dawn of a new era in physics.

Consider it further. Clearly the inertia depends not on the
charge only, but on its concentration. The radius of the sphere
occurs in the denominator of the expression. The same charge
on a sphere 2 centimeters in diameter would have ten times the
inertia; on a sphere as small as an atom the inertia would be a
hundred million times bigger still. But then even that is small;
moreover an atom could scarcely be expected to hold such a
charge. Nevertheless, allowing only a reasonable potential, it
might seem that atomic inertia could be sensibly increased by
an electric charge. But no, even on a sphere as small as an
atom the concentration turns out insufficient; the effect is still
excessively minute. Yet as electric inertia at given potential
depends on linear dimensions, while material inertia depends
on those dimensions cubed, there must be a size when the two
are equal, 7.e. when one might account for the other.

Write the charge in terms of electrostatic potential V

e— Kav
then
_ 2KaV?

oC

m

where ¢ is'1/\/ (1K), the velocity of light.
Put this expression for m equal to + a*p, the ordinary mass.
Then the potential at which the two will be equal is

oe
Vi= acy ( z )

which, for density of water and for sphere 10 centimeters

radius, is two volts; quite a reasonable electrolytic value, such

as is to be expected among atoms.

The moral of this elementary but not very satisfactory argu-
ment is that not for bodies of atomic size, but for something
100,000 times smaller in linear dimensions, is it possible to ex-
plain inertia electromagnetically. But, forty or even twenty
years ago, one would have said—there are no bodies of this
size; nothing can be smaller than an atom! The strange thing
is that, as nearly everyone knows now, bodies of this size have

INERTIA 385

been discovered. They were isolated by J. J. Thomson in 1899,
having been gradually led up to by Crookes’s and many other
experiments on cathode rays; and they are shown to be an ap-
parently invisible unit or atom of electricity whose inertia is
wholly electric.

The proof of this last statement I can only briefly indicate.
It is established by the effect of speed on electric inertia. If
an electric charge is moving with something approaching the
velocity of light, its inertia increases without limit; and the
formula given about 1889 by Heaviside, Thomson, and others,
for electric inertia as a function of speed, is, in its very sim-
plest form,

Que? v2 ;
m= — eine cet higher powers
a ZC*

The velocity of light squared occurs in the denominator, so, be-
fore we can observe the increase, enormous speeds are neces-
sary. A cannon-ball, or even the earth in its orbit, is hopelessly .
slow; and we know no artificial means of getting up such a
speed as this last, viz. about 19 miles a second. But fortunately
radium does spontaneously what we cannot do, it expels elec-
trons with something less, but not very much less, than the
speed of light; and Kauffmann’s measure of the mass of these
projectiles, thus flying at prodigious velocities, confirms the
theory, and removes any doubt as to the reality of purely and
wholly electric inertia, for electrons.

Furthermore it was found that the very same electrons can
be split off or detached from any or every kind of atom, that
there is only one kind of negative electron; and though at first
there appeared to be many kinds of positively charged particles,
the evidence is tending to the discovery of a single kind of posi-
tive electron likewise; so it is natural to suppose that electrons
are an essential ingredient in matter. And since they possess
inertia, even those which are clearly disembodied electric
charges, it becomes possible to surmise that in some sense, or
in a certain grouping, they constitute the atom, that they confer
upon it the inertia with which we are familiar and that in fact
electric inertia is the only inertia that exists.

Electric inertia began as the simulacrum of material inertia,
it has shown itself the very same thing, and it seems likely to
end by displacing every other kind of inertia altogether.

This is the electrical theory of matter.

Assuming this theory for the present as a working hypo-
thesis, we may say that material inertia is explained electro-

VOL x.—26.

386 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

magnetically, 7.e. is explained in terms of the magnetic field
which necessarily surrounds and accompanies every charge in
motion; since a charge in motion constitutes a current. For
on this view a material body is but an aggregate of such
charges grouped according to some definite pattern, positive
and negative charges interlaced or somehow intertwined, and
so far apart in proportion to their size that they do not interfere
with each other or cancel each other, nor apparently overlap or
encroach on each other’s field, to any measurable extent. Is
this possible? It is. For comparing the size of an electron
with the size of an atom we perceive that they are relatively
of the same order as the size of a planet and the size of a solar
system. So it becomes possible to think of an atom as a sort
of solar system, with a positive nucleus or sun surrounded by
negative electrons revolving in regular orbits round it.

On this view, or indeed in any form of the electrical theory
of matter, the atom of matter consists mainly of empty space;
* in other words, it is excessively porous; just as the solar system
is mainly empty space and may be spoken of as excessively por-
ous; the actual material lumps being almost infinitesimal in
proportion to the total bulk. A rapid projectile or a ray of
light passing through the solar system would be unlikely to hit
anything, the chances would be strongly against a collision.
So also, if a point be thrown through an atom, the chance of its
hitting anything is about 1 in 10,000. It might pass through
10,000 atoms before striking. This experiment has been tried,
by C. T. R. Wilson and others, and that is roughly speaking the
result. Sooner or later a radium projectile meets with an ob-
stacle and is stopped, but it traverses a good number of atoms
on the average; it traverses quite a perceptible distance even
in a dense solid, before it strikes a nucleus.

Matter accordingly seems to me—to us I may say, for in
this most physicists are I think agreed—a gossamer or milky-
way structure, an impalpable accident in the substantial ether.
Here a speck and there a speck, but, for the great bulk of it,
empty space!

‘““TImpalpable” is not the right word, for matter is essentially
palpable. It is because it appeals so directly to our senses that
we attend to it so vividly. It forces itself on our attention,
while the ether eludes us. And why? Clearly because our
bodies are composed—our sense organs are composed—of this
very matter. On the material side we are part of, and thor-
oughly at home in, the material universe. Whereas the ether

INERTIA 387

is elusive; we know nothing of it directly; and though our eyes
are instruments for receiving etherial tremors excited by agi-
tated electrons, we only know that fact—or half know it—by
rather recondite inference. Light really tells us nothing about
its own nature, but only about the superficial aspect of that
gross and palpable matter which has interfered with and scat-
tered it before it enters our eye.

Nevertheless the atoms of this solid-seeming flesh and mat-
ter as we know it, when analyzed into constituents, are turning
out to be composed each of a definite grouping of ultra-minute
particles, the positive and negative electrons, which themselves
hardly occupy any space (save as soldiers occupy a country),
and which appear to be of two kinds only—the ultimate in-
divisible units of positive and negative electricity.

388 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION’
IN THE LIGHT OF HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT

By EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN

PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
V. THE CELLULAR BASIS OF ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY
B. MECHANISM OF HEREDITY

2. Share of Cytoplasm in Heredity

HE evidences outlined in the preceding section demonstrate
that the chromosomes contain the factors or genes of
Mendelian inheritance, and it has been assumed by many in-
vestigators that the cytoplasm of the germ cells serves only as
environment or food for the chromosomes and has nothing to
do with heredity. Nevertheless there are certain characters
of the embryo and adult that are derived directly from the cyto-
plasm of the egg and since these characters come from the
mother and not from the father this may be called “ maternal
inheritance.”

(a) Differentiation of Cytoplasm of Germ Cells——The cyto-
plasm of both male and female sex cells is differentiated. A
spermatozoon is perhaps as highly differentiated as any tissue
cell; but these differentiations which have been built up during
the late stages of spermatogenesis and which serve to bring the
spermatozoon into union with the egg, disappear after that
union either by the tail of the spermatozoon being left outside
of the egg or by its disintegration or de-differentiation after it
has entered. At the same time the egg ceases to form yolk
while that which has been stored in the egg is gradually used
up in the nourishment of the embryo. Consequently since
these particular differentiations of the germ cells disappear
after the union of egg and sperm it has generally been sup-
posed that all cytoplasmic differentiations of these cells are
wiped out at this time, and that the first differentiations of the
new individual begin after fertilization in a wholly undiffer-
entiated cytoplasm. However there is positive evidence that
this is not the case and that many differentiations of the cyto-
plasm of the unfertilized egg persist and play an important part
in embryonic differentiation (Fig. 22).

1 William Ellery Hale Lectures before the National Academy of Sci-
ences, Washington, April 16 and 18, 1917.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 389

Spermatoyencsis Oogenesis

Division

Growth

Maturation

|

Fic. 22. DIAGRAM OF SPERMATOGENESIS AND OOGENESIS, showing Division,
Growth and Maturation Perjods and Final Stages of Spermatozoa and Ova. Two
chromsomes, one from the father the other from the mother, are shown in each cell
before maturation, only one after the reduction division. Three kinds of highly
differentiated spermatozoa are shown and two kinds of ova. The differentiations
of the spermatozoa are lost after they enter the egg, the polarity and symmetry of
the egg persist and determine the orientations of development.

(b) Egg Differentiations which persist in Embryo and
Adult. (1) Polarity.—The polarity of the egg invariably de-
termines the polarity of the embryo and adult. In all animals
the chief axis of the egg becomes the chief axis of the gastrula,
and this becomes the chief axis of the adult in sponges and
ceelenterates (protaxonia), or, as in all other metazoa (heter-
axonia), this axis is bent on itself by the greater growth of the
gastrula on its posterior side so that the chief axis of the adult
is a modification of the gastrular axis. In either case the

390 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

polarity of the unfertilized egg determines the localization: of
developmental processes and ultimately the polarity of the
developed animal.

(2) Symmetry.—tIn most animals the egg is spherical in
shape and appears to be radially symmetrical, nevertheless ob-
servation and experiment show that such eggs are sometimes
bilateral, as is probably the case in Amphiowus, ascidians, fishes
and frogs. In the case of the frog’s egg it was long believed
that the plane of bilateral symmetry was determined wholly
and exclusively by the path of the spermatozoon within the egg;
more recently it has been shown by Brachet (1911) that pri-
mary bilateral symmetry is present before fertilization, though
after fertilization the plane of symmetry may be shifted into
the path of the spermatozoon. It is probable that all bi-
lateral animals come from eggs which show a similar primary
bilaterality and that this differentiation precedes fertilization.
In cephalopods and some insects all the axes and poles of the
developed animal are already recognizable in the egg before
fertilization. Symmetry, therefore, as well as polarity, is de-
rived from the egg and not from the sperm.

(3) Inverse Symmetry (Asymmetry).—In many animals
the right and left sides of the body are not completely alike, and
this is especially true of internal organs. This asymmetry is
especially well developed in gasteropods in which certain organs
of one side of the body are entirely lacking; some species or
individuals have these asymmetrical organs on one side, others
on the other side, and correspondingly the snail shell coils in a
clock-wise direction in one case, an anti-clock-wise direction in
the other. It was discovered by Crampton (1894) and Kofoid
(1894) that in sinistral species the direction of certain cleav-
ages of the egg (viz., the third to the sixth) was the reverse of
the corresponding cleavages in dextral species and Conklin
(1903) showed that the first and second cleavages also were in
opposite directions in dextral and sinistral snails, and that
these reversals of cleavage could be followed cell by cell to the
reversal of symmetry in the larva. Consequently the inverse
symmetry of these snails may be traced back through the
later and earlier cleavage stages to the unsegmented egg itself
which is inversely symmetrical in sinistral as compared with
dextral forms.

(4) Types of Egg Organization.—The polar differentia-
tion of an egg is manifested particularly in the localization of
different kinds of materials in different parts of the egg. These
materials may be inert pigment or yolk, but their localization

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 391

by the activity of the cytoplasm indicates a definite pattern of
organization in the cytoplasm. This pattern of egg cytoplasm
differs greatly in certain phyla, there being a ccelenterate type,
an echinoderm type, a turbellarian-annelid-mollusk type, and a
chordate type. The type of egg organization foreshadows the
type of adult organization; in ascidians for instance distinct
cytoplasmic substances are found in the egg in the same rela-
tive positions and proportions as the ectoderm, endoderm, meso-
derm, notochord and nervous system of the embryo (Fig. 5,
p. 495).

That the fundamental pattern of egg cytoplasm is not influ-
enced by the spermatozoon is proved by the following facts:

(a) It exists before fertilization, or it appears so soon after
that it could not have been caused by the sperm. (0b) In
heterogeneous fertilization the pattern of the egg is not changed
by the foreign sperm. (c) Natural or artificial parthenogen-
esis demonstrates that this pattern exists in the absence of fer-
tilization.

These as well as other facts such as the correspondence
between the size of the egg and the size of the embryo (Mor-
gan) ; the transmission of chromatophores and peculiarities of
leaf coloration by the female and not by the male germ-cell in
plants (Baur, Shull) ; the transmission in the egg cytoplasm of
fat stains, chemical substances, immunizing bodies and possibly
parasites, prove that,
at the time of fertilization the hereditary potencies of the two germ cells
are not equal, all the early development, including the polarity, symmetry,
type of cleavage, and the relative positions and proportions of future
organs being foreshadowed in the cytoplasm of the egg cell, while only
the differentiations of later development are influenced by the sperm.
In short, the egg cytoplasm fixes the general type of development and the
sperm and egg nuclei control only later differentiations (Conklin, 1908,
199155),

Ontogeny begins with the differentiation of the egg in the
ovary and not at the moment of fertilization; at the latter time
some of the most general and fundamental differentiations have
already occurred. Indeed the cytoplasm of the egg is the more
or less differentiated body of the embryo.

(c) Is Inheritance through the Egg Cytoplasm Non-Men-
delian ?—Whenever a character is transmitted as such through
the egg cytoplasm and not as factors in the chromosomes of egg
and sperm it is not inherited in Mendelian fashion. Thus if
chromatophores are transmitted from generation to generation
in the cytoplasm of the egg and are at no time influenced by the
sperm, their mode of inheritance is non-Mendelian. If the

392 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

polarity, symmetry and pattern of the egg do not arise during
oogenesis, but are carried over unchanged from generation to
generation they are also non-Mendelian characters. With re-
gard to the polarity of the egg, it is not certain whether it is
transmitted in this manner or not; but its symmetry and pat-
tern of organization are probably developed anew in each gen-
eration. However, Kunkel (1903) and Lang (1904) found that
inverse Symmetry is not inherited in Mendelian fashion and
that it is doubtful whether it is inherited at all.

Most of the cytoplasmic differentiations of the egg and
sperm arise during the genesis of those cells, just as in the case
of tissue cells. Nerve cells and muscle cells differentiate under
the influence of maternal and paternal chromosomes, and un-
doubtedly the same is true of most of the differentiations of
egg and sperm; but while some of these egg differentiations
persist in the new individual those of the sperm do not. Conse-
quently, in each generation the egg contributes more than the
sperm to ontogeny. There is cytoplasmic inheritance through
the female only, but some of these cytoplasmic characters may
be of biparental origin. If these characters are determined by
genes in the chromosomes of cells from which the egg develops
this is Mendelian inheritance or ‘“ preinheritance” though
somewhat complicated by the fact that every ontogeny has its
beginnings in the preceding generation, that is in the oogenesis,
preceding fertilization; if they are not determined in this way
but are carried from generation to generation in the cytoplasm
the inheritance is non-Mendelian. The fact that certain dif-
ferential factors must be located outside the chromosomes will
be considered further in the section on the ‘‘ Mechanism of De-
velopment.”

3. Specificity of the Germ Cells

One of the greatest advances in biological knowledge dur-
ing the past century is found in the increasing recognition that
vital units are specific and that the larger units of organi-
zation are themselves composed of many minor units having
their own individuality and specificity. All cells, or “ vesicles ”
as they were called by Wolff (1759), were at first supposed to
be alike, and protoplasm was regarded as a uniform substance
in all organisms; it was, in the language of Dujardin (1841),
“Substance glutineuse, parfaitement homogeéne, élastique, con-
tractile, diaphane. On n’y distingue absolument ancune trace
d’organization, ni fibres, ni membranes, ni apparence de cellu-
lositié.””. When this view was no longer tenable this simplicity
and homogeneity were ascribed to germinal layers, embryonic
cells and germ cells. Even within recent years cleavage cells

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 393

were said by Driesch (1893) to be all alike, “like balls in a
pile,” and differentiations were said to appear only late in de-
velopment as the result of environmental conditions. So great
was the influence of the doctrine of Epigenesis! Finally when
this was disproved, the various constituents of cells such as
cytoplasm, nuclei, chromatin, chromosomes, etc., were supposed
to be alike in all cells.

Now, on the other hand, we consider that there are as many
different kinds of protoplasm as there are different kinds of
cells,—that one chromosome differs from another and that even
chromosomes and genes are individually distinct and peculiar.
Perhaps the most general and important discovery as to the
mechanism of heredity is that germ cells are as specific as de-
veloped organisms, that “the egg of a frog differs from the egg
of a hen as much as a frog differs from a hen’’—indeed that
just as every sexually reproduced animal or plant differs more
or less from every other one so every germ cell differs more or
less from every other germ cell.

Considering the vast numbers of germ cells which exist,
their minute size and the difficulty of directly determining dif-
ferences between them this statement may well challenge crit-
icism and call for proof. And yet there is no gainsaying the
fact that hereditary differences are due to germinal differences,
and although no man can actually see the differences between
the germ cells of different races or sometimes even of different
species or genera, the results of development clearly demon-
strate that such distinctions exist. In this case as in so many
others physiological indicators are more delicate than morpho-
logical ones.

We have physiological proof that different chromosomes of
the same cell differ in hereditary value and that different germ
cells from the same individual frequently differ in hereditary
constitution. In the separation of bivalent chromosomes at the
reduction division each chromosome may go into either of the
two daughter cells and the number of different combinations of
chromosomes which may occur in the gametes is (2)”, in which
n is the number of bivalent chromosomes. Thus if there are
24 bivalent chromosomes, as in man, the possible permutations
of these in the germ cells is 2% or 16,777,216 and the possible
number of different combinations of maternal and paternal
chromosomes in the fertilized egg is this number squared or
approximately three hundred thousand billions, though the
actual number of genotypes is only 34 or about thirty thousand
billions, assuming that every chromosome differs hereditarily
from every other one. Consequently it is not surprising that

394 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

successive children of the same parents are rarely if ever alike,
since their chromosomal constitution is rarely if ever the same.

But the case for the specificity of germ cells is even stronger
than this for there is reason to believe that particular chromo-
somes are not always composed of the same chromomeres (see
p. 289) and the possible permutations of the many chromomeres
of each chromosome furnishes an almost infinite number of
combinations of units which are still visible with the micro-
scope. Finally when we consider the possible combinations of
still smaller units such as genes it is probable that every sep-
arate oosperm and every individual which develops from it is
absolutely unique.

This conception of the specificity of gametes and zygotes
sets the whole problem of the mechanism of heredity in a clear
light. Unique individuals come from unique germ cells. He-
reditary resemblances and differences in adult organisms are
correlated with resemblances and differences in the germ cells
from which they came.

C. MECHANISM OF DEVELOPMENT

Development is progressive and coordinated differentiation
by which the egg becomes the embryo and ultimately the adult
organism. It is concerned with the manner in which the egg
cell gives rise to different kinds of embryonic and tissue cells
and with the way in which the latter form various cell products
such as muscle and nerve fibrils, cartilage and bone. Develop-
ment is also concerned with the coordination and integration
of these differentiations so that an orderly arrangement of
parts results. The mechanism of development, like the mechan-
ism of heredity, is a cellular problem and it can be discovered
only by the study of the cellular differentiations and integra-
tions of development. But development, or the transformation
of germinal units into developed characters, is a much more
complex process than heredity, or the transmission of germinal
units from one generation to the next, and at present relatively
little is known as to the precise mechanism of such develop-
mental transformations.

1. Stability of Chromosomes in Development

One of the most striking facts in ontogeny is that amid all
the remarkable changes and differentiations which are taking
place in cells their chromosomes remain almost entirely un-
changed.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 395

(a) In Egg and Sperm.—This is true of all kinds of cells
but it is nowhere more striking than in the egg and sperm.
These cells are notably unlike each other; the spermatozoon is
one of the smallest of all cells, the egg is one of the largest, and
correspondingly the entire nucleus of the spermatozoon is often
smaller than a single chromosome of the egg; virtually all of
the cytoplasm of the sperm is converted into a complicated
locomotor apparatus whereas the cytoplasm of the egg is abun-
dant, relatively undifferentiated and contains much yolk. It is
certainly no exaggeration to say that the sperm and egg differ
as much as muscle and nerve cells or as connective tissue and
gland cells. And yet in spite of this great difference between
the two germ cells their chromosomes are so much alike after
they have united that it is usually impossible to distinguish
them. The extreme differentiation of the spermatozoon has not
in any way changed its chromosomes for they issue from it
exactly as they went into it, the same in number, shape and
even in genetic constitution in spite of the fact that they have
been compressed into one of the smallest of all nuclei in one of
the most highly differentiated of all cells.

(b) In Tissue Cells—The chromosomes of tissue cells are,
in many cases, precisely like those of the oosperm. The differ-
entiations which the cell body has undergone do not usually
modify the chromosomes. This is especially true of embryonic
cells where mitoses are more abundant and more easily studied
than in fully developed tissue cells. In Orthoptera, according
to McClung, not only the number of all the chromosomes but
even the shape of each particular chromosome is constant for
all cells of a given individual, though they may differ slightly
in different individuals of the same species. Hoy found that
the numbers and shapes of chromosomes in embryonic muscle,
nerve, gut and connective tissue cells of certain insects were
the same as in the fertilized egg.

On the other hand, Miss Holt found that the number of
chromosomes in the alimentary tract of larval mosquitoes
might vary from 6 to 72 but always in multiples of 3, the
haploid number in this species. She concludes therefore that
these variations in number are due either to a double split-
ting of each chromosome in certain mitoses or more probably
to the failure of the cell to divide after the chromosomes have
divided. The latter is a phenomenon which not infrequently
occurs in cells subjected to experimental conditions. Hance
found in the pig that the somatic chromosomes of many cells are
more numerous than the diploid number but he has proved that

396 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

this is due to fragmentation of chromosomes, the fragments
when added together merely equalling in length the original
chromosome. Such fragmentation of chromosomes in somatic
cells was first observed by Boveri in the case of Ascaris megalo-
cephola var. univalens (Fig. 23). Here the diploid number of

Fic. 23. DIFFERENTIATION OF CHROMOSOMES OF SoMATIC CELLS IN Ascuris
megalocephala, var. univalens. A and B, Second cleavage mitosis showing the chromo-
somes entire in the lower cells (germ track) ; in the upper (somatic) cells their ends
are thrown off and the remainder breaks up into many small chromosomes. (C, 4-cells,
the upper two (somatic cells) containing small nuclei derived from the small chromo-
somes. D, Third nuclear division, showing the somatic differentiation of the chromo
somes in all the cells except the lower right one, which alone is in the germ track
and will give rise to sex cells. (After Boveri.)

chromosomes is 2 but in somatic cells more than 30 small chro-
mosomes (or chromomeres) are present, the total volume of
which is even less than that of the 2 original chromosomes
since the ends of these chromosomes are cast off and dissolved
in the cytoplasm (Fig. 23, C, D). Boveri has proved by exper-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 397

iments that whether chromosomes fragment or not depends
upon whether they lie in a particular field of differentiated
cytoplasm and consequently that this is due to the influence of
cytoplasm on the chromosomes, and not the reverse.

In conclusion, the chromosomes of tissue cells, as well as
those of germ cells, are usually unmodified by the differentia-
tions of the cell body. In other cases these chromosomes may
be fragmented or possibly otherwise modified by the differentia-
tions of the cell body. But there is no evidence that the dif-
ferentiations of these chromosomes are primary and that they
cause the differentiations of the cell body as Weismann assumed.

2. Differentiation of Cytoplasm in Development

The cytoplasm is the chief, perhaps in some cases the only,
seat of differentiation in the developing organism. Practically
all the differentiations of cells, tissues, organs and persons are
differentiations which arise (1) by transformations of cyto-
plasm (autoplasmatic differentiation) or (2) as _ secretion
products of cytoplasm (apoplasmatic differentiation).

a. The Structure of Cytoplasm in General.—All students
of the cell now agree that protoplasm is composed of a more
fluid and a more solid portion, though there is much difference
of opinion as to the form of each of these and their relations to
each other, as is shown by the various theories of the “ struc-
ture of protoplasm.” The more fluid part is often called enchy-
lemma or cytolymph, the more solid part spongioplasm or kino-
plasm ; the latter forms some sort of a framework, in the form
of fibers, or a net-like or a foam-like structure while the former
fills the interstices which are left. Recent experiments on cells
and protoplasm indicate that these two portions may vary in
consistency at different phases of cell activity, such variations
being perhaps in the nature of reversible sols and gels.

But whatever the relation may be between these portions of
protoplasm, experiments in which cells are subjected to strong
centrifugal force indicate that the framework of the cell is a
viscid, elastic, contractile gel which is more rigid at certain
phases of the cell cycle than at others, depending probably upon
its water content, and that within this gel are included water,
oil, yolk, pigments, granules and other products of differen-
tiation.

In addition to this general framework of spongioplasm
there is present in many cells, especially at the time of division,
a special structure, the mitotic figure or amphiaster, consisting
probably of an elastic, contractile gel which takes the form of

398 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

a spindle with star-shaped radiations at its two poles. This
amphiaster is undoubtedly an apparatus for the division of the
nucleus and cell body, but we do not know exactly how it func-
tions, though it probably brings about intra-cellular move-
ments, together with segregations and localizations of different
cell substances.

b. Formation of Different Substances in Cytoplasm.—In
the course of development different substances are formed in
different parts of cells or in different cells. The exact manner
in which these substances are formed is a matter of great in-
terest in connection with the mechanism of differentiation and
development. Unfortunately our knowledge upon this point is
very incomplete. The general evidence seems to favor the view
that the nucleus cooperates in the formation of the various dif-
ferentiation products which appear in the cytoplasm; in gen-
eral these substances are not formed when the nucleus is absent
though once differentiation of cytoplasmic substances has begun
it may go on for a time in the absence of the nucleus. The
manner in which the nucleus cooperates in differentiation has
been variously interpreted by different authors. Weismann
assumed that in mitosis there was a differential distribution of
the nuclear inheritance factors to the different cells and that in
this way the differentiations of development were to be ex-
plained. The evidence is all against this view as Boveri and
others have shown. In the first place the splitting of chromo-
somes is never differential and the mitotic apparatus is unsuited
to a differential separation of daughter chromosomes. Only in
the separation of whole chromosomes which had previously
united in pairs, as in the maturation divisions, is such a differ-
ential separation possible. In the second place the experiments
of Driesch and O. Hertwig on compressed frog’s eggs and of
Conklin on Ascidian eggs proves that nuclear divisions are not
differential, but that cytoplasmic divisions often are. Finally
the differentiation of the somatic chromosomes of Ascaris (Fig.
23) is due to the fact that they lie in a field of peculiar cyto-
plasm as Boveri has shown; consequently such chromosomal
differentiations are the result of cytoplasmic differentiations
and not their cause.

(1) “Intracellular Pangenesis.’”’—Under this name deVries
(1889) proposed a hypothesis of the way in which the nucleus
controls differentiation which nearly meets present require-
ments and fits present knowledge. He suggested that particles
which he called ‘“‘pangenes” and which he regarded as enzy-
matic in character escape from the nucleus into the cell body

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 399

where they form the entire living protoplasm. Most of th?
nuclear pangenes are inactive but they may be activated by age
or outer circumstances. Every nucleus contains a full set of
pangenes and there is no differential division of them in mitosis.
The pangenes which escape from the nucleus must be trans-
ported to different parts of the cell and segregated at the right
places and this transportation and localization is brought about
by the streaming of the protoplasm.

In its main features this hypothesis is acceptable to-day.
However deVries’s conception that ‘every inherited character
has its particular kind of pangene,” has suffered the same fate
as the more recent view that “determinants,” “ determiners ”
or “inheritance factors” are the germinal representatives of
developed characters. These are not the germs of developed
characters any more than oxygen and hydrogen are the germs
of water; on the other hand they are only specific causes which,
acting in conjunction with other causes, produce specific results.

Furthermore it is not now believed that genes or pangenes
maintain their identity in the cytoplasm and that the entire
cytoplasm is composed of them. It is not even known that
genes escape as such from the nucleus into the cytoplasm but it
is known that there is an escape of nuclear substances into the
cytoplasm and that as a result of syntheses of these with por-
tions of the cytoplasm new substances are formed which were
not present before.

(2) Escape of Nuclear Substances into Cell-body

(a) At Mitosis.——Every cytologist is familiar with the fact
that various nuclear substances escape into the cell-body. One
of the most striking instances of this occurs during mitosis
when the nuclear membrane is dissolved and its contents are set
free into the cell. In some cases the entire volume of nuclear
materials which are thus set free has been estimated to be five-
hundred times as great as the volume of the chromosomes which
give rise to the daughter nuclei. Among the nuclear materials
which thus escape are nuclear sap, linin, nucleoli and oxy-
chromatin. The last is probably derived from the chromo-
somes and it takes part in the formation of the “sphere sub-
stance”’ which surrounds the centrosomes. This sphere sub-
stance is differentially distributed to different cleavage cells as
for example in the case of Crepidula (Conklin, 1902), and it
probably cooperates in the differentiations of these cells.

The immediate results of the escape of nuclear materials
into the cytoplasm are both varied and striking. At once there

400 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

is greatly increased oxidation with the formation of carbonic
acid, and the cell which was before relatively stable and re-
sistant becomes unstable and peculiarly liable to injury.

Another result is the rapid formation of astral rays and
spheres around the centrosomes; indeed very much of the cell
cytoplasm may be transformed into these structures following
the escape of nuclear material during mitosis.

Another notable result of this escape of nuclear material is
found in the movements which are set up in the cell and which
lead to the separation of daughter chromosomes, the orienta-
tion of spindles, the localization of different cytoplasmic ma-
terials and finally the division of the cell-body. All of these
movements, which may be collectively known as karyokinesis
and cytokinesis, start with the escape of nuclear material into
the cytoplasm.

(b) Chromidia.—R. Hertwig and his associates maintain
that chromatin may escape through the nuclear membrane into
the cell-body during resting stages. Such escaped chromatin
forms chromatic granules which they call “chromidia” and
which they believe take part in the differentiation of various
intracellular structures, such as skeletal, muscle- and nerve-
fibrils, secretion granules, pigment and the Nissl-bodies of
nerve cells. However it is not certain that chromidia are de-
rived from escaped chromatin.

(c) Mitochondria.—Other observers, particularly Meves
and Duesberg, have described granules, rods or threads in the
cytoplasm which are known by the general name of “mito-
chondria” and which appear to take part in the differentia-
tions of specific structures. Meves and Duesberg regard these
as purely cytoplasmic bodies which have the power of growth
and division. Hertwig and his school hold that they are derived
from chromidia, and therefore in the beginning from chroma-
tin; more probably they are new formations caused by the
action of chromatin on cytoplasm.

(3) Cytoplasmic Differentiation

One of the simplest cases of differentiation is found in the
formation of secretion products within cells, such as yolk, oil,
and zymogen granules. ‘These usually appear as minute gran-
ules or droplets which then grow in size until they more or less
completely fill the cell. Whether they are products of destruc-
tive or of constructive metabolism is not altogether clear;
probably in some cases they are the former, in others the latter.

Yolk and zymogen begin to form in the vicinity of the

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 401

nucleus and in many cases out of a granular mass which is
either chromidia, mitochondria or the granular substance sur-
rounding the centrosomes and known as “sphere-substance.”
In some cases, perhaps in all, the granular body known as a
““volk nucleus” is sphere-substance derived from the interac-
tion of nucleus and cytoplasm; according to the Hertwig school
zymogen granules are always derived from chromidia and pig-
ment usually comes from the same source.

Intra-cellular fibrils, such as skeletal, muscle- and nerve-
fibrille, are also derived from chromidia, according to Gold-
schmidt, and hence are formed in large part by substances
derived from the nucleus. On the other hand, Meves and Dues-
berg maintain that such intra-cellular differentiations are de-
rived from mitochondria which are purely cytoplasmic in
origin. The more probable view is that mitochondria are
formed by the interaction of nucleus and cytoplasm, and that
all other cellular differentiations are formed in the same way;
and if all these cytoplasmic differentiations are produced by the
action of chromatin on cytoplasm, the chromatin is only one
factor in their origin.

As a result of all these observations it is impossible to avoid
the conclusion that the nucleus is intimately concerned in dif-
ferentiation, and the mechanism of the ‘‘ nuclear control”’ of the
cell is at least suggested by the escape of chromatin into the
cytoplasm and the formation there of various differentiation
products such as mitochondria, sphere substance, fibers, gran-
ules, ete.

(c) Segregation and Isolation of Different Substances.—
Embryonic differentiation involves not only the formation of
different substances in cells, but also their segregation in par-
ticular parts of cells and ultimately, in most cases, their isola-
tion in different cells. Such segregation and isolation are seen
especially well in the cleavage of the egg. By the flowing move-
ments of cytoplasm during mitosis the various substances in the
cells are oriented and sorted and by the formation of division
walls between daughter cells these substances become perma-
nently isolated. Such segregation and isolation of different
cytoplasmic substances is certainly one of the most important
functions of cleavage.

(1) Differential and Non-Differential Cell Divisions.—Cell
dixisions are plainly of two kinds, differential in which the
daughter cells are unlike in size or contents, and non-differ-
ential in which they are alike. Both of these occur in the
cleavage of the egg but only the former contributes directly to

VOL x.—27.

402 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

embryonic differentiation. Given a cell which is not homo-
genous, or in which every radius is not like every other one, it
follows that cell divisions will be differential or non-differential
depending upon the position and direction of the cleavage
planes. Under normal conditions these planes are constant in
position and they follow one another in a definite sequence just
as do all processes of development. Consequently the pattern
and character of the cleavage and its relation to differentiation
is nearly constant for each species. Any explanation of the
causes of differential cell-division must account for the localiza-
tions of different materials in cells and for the orientation of
the planes of cell division.

(2) The Orientations of Development.—All of the orienta-
tions of development find their earliest visible expression in
the polar differentiation of the egg. This polarity determines
not only the polarity of cleavage cells, embryos and adults but
it is also causally related to the direction of movement of the
germ nuclei and of cytoplasmic substances, and consequently to
the type of symmetry and the pattern of localization, as well as
to other orientations of development. The problem of tha
causes of these orientations is perhaps the greatest problem of
embryogeny.

Experiments with eggs subjected to centrifugal force indi-
cate that pigment, oil, yolk and other inclusions are passively
localized in certain parts of the cell and that the substance in
which polarity persists is the elastic, contractile spongioplasm,
which differs in structure or consistency at different poles and
at different stages of the cycle of division. Protoplasmic flow-
ing may be best explained as the result of the contractility of
the spongioplasm, and the definite localization of inclusions,
mitotic spindles and division planes, as caused by the polar
differentiations of the spongioplasm. This polar differentia-
tion of the spongioplasm persists and to it are to be referred in
the last analysis many if not all of the orientations of de-
velopment.

(8) The Chromosome Theory of Heredity Applied to Em-
bryonic Differentiation.—According to the chromosome theory
of heredity the inheritance factors are located in the chromo-
somes, and the cytological evidence shows that chromosomes
always divide equally and presumably every cell of an individual]
contains the same kinds of chromosomes and the same kinds
of inheritance factors. How then is it possible to explain
embryonic differentiation? How can identical factors give rise
to different products in different cells?

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 403

This is evidently due to the fact that while the division of
chromosomes is non-differential, that of the cell body is often
differential and the same chromosomes and genes acting upon
different kinds of cytoplasm will produce different results (Fig.
10, p. 54). But differential cell-division is the result of definite
movements in the cytoplasm, of definite orientations of spindles
and cleavage planes, and ultimately of a definite polarity and
symmetry of the cytoplasm. There is abundant evidence that
these cytoplasmic orientations are not the immediate results
of chromosomal activity and even if some of them may be the
remote results of such activity it is logically impossible to place
all the differential factors of development in non-differentiat-
ing genes.

On the other hand if embryonic differentiations are pro-
duced by the interaction of chromatin and cytoplasm, and if
the chromatin does not undergo differentiation, it follows that
some of the differential factors of heredity and development
must be located in the cytoplasm. Such factors would prob-
ably not be genes and would not be transmitted in Mendelian
fashion, but they would need to be present in the cytoplasm
from the very beginnings of ontogeny. They need not be
numerous—in fact they are probably few in number—but they
are absolutely indispensable to development. If a few orientat-
ing differentiations such as polarity and symmetry are present
in the cytoplasm at the beginnings of ontogeny all other differ-
entiations of development can be explained as due to the inter-
action of non-differentiating genes on different parts of this
cytoplasm, but there is no mechanism by which embryonic dif-
ferentiations could come from the action of non-differentiating
genes on a homogeneous cytoplasm. The genes or Mendelian
factors are undoubtedly located in the chromosomes and they
are sometimes regarded as the only differential factors of devel-
opment, but if this were true these genes would of necessity
have to undergo differential division and distribution to the
cleavage cells; since this is not true it must be that some of the
differential factors of development lie outside of the nucleus
and if they are inherited, as most of these early orientations
are, they must lie in the cytoplasm.

‘aSplaq enuaAY YA SUPALIq pavaoz ‘urvadjsdn “qQNos SuLpoo, MelA “NOXNY,) WAGSATOOY cqaee

‘0JOYd “SIVDAD YT 'N ; ; ; es. met

be po wastes mesa

A NATURE DRAMA 405

A NATURE DRAMA

By Professor H. L. FAIRCHILD

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER

ert laceuiy: A wemecrn casera een a ree ciGraclete etGiaie! Sees New York State.

per Ranie® ore 5g caveratcitveressds ose Ss The Pleistocene: some little while ago.

Principal Characters:
AGVASE Tee ER OMeCOt ei hoe ec cece ahs t atk kd es ee 3c Quebec Glacier.
SNe IED ces ey ea cane ree Soe MEAN Gh ardor ctecel-eutt Sin ahSse-ad@ ecko Oe Dawson.
(ASS CCON Celua Ceres asencyerioters. © ancl orcs acaba bee codlie/ ue he 2 Iroquois.
PeNe SH aw Col |GET Ey ee he eee pane AG ae Ontario.
IMWOMSISteHALVeT Skat tctor 10a chisorieee os aie nrakee ene Niagara and Genesee.
Attendant - Rivets. si..9 g-0iss ss. | Dawson Outlet; Iromohawk; Covey;

St. Lawrence.
OcennicaWaterserrn caste soso Lule: Hudson-Champlain; Gilbert Gulf.
An invisiblesssubterranean “Force ....os<050+.080606. Diastrophism.1!
Attendant tmosphericu Agents) aceimoninc en asst ce erene Epigene.
Solammehin en Onypemeeeteparcy chic csrsGete cg ecovapeicae horses shana ob cleree Sun Heat.
PROLOGUE

Joseph Rodman Drake wrote “The Culprit Fay” with the
purpose of producing a dramatic story without human char-
acters. But his characters imitate humans, and the motif and
movement of the story are simulation of human action. The
present dramatic narration has no human relation whatever.
Furthermore, it is not in the least imaginary, but is a recital
of actual events, the conflict of the forces of Nature and the
interaction of material agents which shape the surface of the
globe. The interplay of Nature’s forces and processes are as
truly dramatic as anything in human action and emotion; and
as the milleniums pass the human play seems petty and trivial
by contrast with the changes in the earth and the cosmos.
And, after all is said, Man is only a phenomenon of nature.

The reader asks for the purpose in the drama—the motive
which impels the characters. If the reader can tell the pur-
pose of the universe and its activities, of the motive in tide and
storm and earthquake, and in the making and shaping of the
continents, then he will know the purpose which animated the
characters of this drama.

The story here given is merely a translation of the many
conspicuous records left by the dramatis persone. The in-

1 Description of this character will be found in a ponderous volume
called Webster’s Dictionary.

‘a8plaq enueAW YAvq SULAMG Woay YOU SUPYOOT MoTA “NOANY) WALSMHOOY ViIVLy MOOW

A NATURE DRAMA 407

AG

AB Ee

< ASD Greriarnae bce Se =

WS 2G y

WS. i,

Ww z, Uf
SSAC cy
Woe Ae TASR AN: nO © 4, Y
BONS eae 2 JAI
IW SS Se SS Se:

al SSS SS Se Y )

RH

iin, — — = Lye
nota Creek Rochester i) $Y
onde gen TZ

PQ@iyracuse

LATER PLEISTOCENE WATERS
IN NEW YORK STATE
DAWSON STAGE

HMI Glacial Lake Dawson
GW Glacial Lake lroquois

initial phase

Sea-level waters
Hudson—Champlain Estuary

Fic. 1. DAWSON STAGE OF THE GLACIAL WATERS.

scriptions left by the glacier, the rivers, the lakes and seas, are
open to observation and are not difficult of interpretation.

The portion of the great drama which is here given covers
only the latest episodes in a long series of dramatic and roman-
tic events which have been enacted on the stage of New York
State. Some of the actors are yet alive and playing their parts.
The earlier scenes have been partially described in the dramatic
(geologic) literature.

The story may be epitomized as follows: The forces and
processes of the atmosphere, here called Epigene, had created
a vast ice sheet, central in Quebec, which had overridden the
entire area and had long occupied the stage to the exclusion of
the other characters. This dominant performer was now
grudgingly yielding room to the other actors, under the com-
pulsion of Sun Heat. Other characters appear on the stage,
“strut their little day” (geologically speaking), while some of
them have passed away into oblivion. The unseen “ villain”
of the play, Diastrophism, hereafter called Diastro, is con-
stantly disturbing the equilibrium of the stage and interfering

408 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Cr anda fee Rocheste

Veen ta
£

CzH. ke
Dunkirk Co 7ep4s Gee

LATER PLEISTOCENE WATERS S
IN NEW YORK. STATE i

EARLY IROQUOIS STAGE

G; Glacial Lake lroquois

early phase

= Hudsan-Champlai n Estuary

Fic. 2. EARLY JROQUOIS STAGE.

with the visible actors, by raising and tilting the entire stage.
This change of level, accompanied by the withdrawal of Quebec
Glacier, causes rivalry and changes in the standing waters, the
Lakes, and in the appearance and disappearance of the running
waters, the attendant Rivers. Finally Quebec Glacier makes
its exit and the aqueous and atmospheric performers take the
present-time position and relation.

ACT ONE
Scene 1
The stage setting is shown in the diagram, Fig. 1.
Color scheme: Glacier, white; Rivers, green; Lakes, blue.
Quebec Glacier holds the center of the stage.
Enter, Dawson Lake, with Iroquois, and the attendant
Montezuma Lake.
Movement

The Glacier, the cold, impassive member of the dramatic
group, has been losing power and control, but yet holds the

A NATURE DRAMA 409

contiguous waters at high levels. Dawson Lake, the successor
of a long sequence of glacier lakes, is confined to the western
part of the stage, in the Ontario basin, having altitude 230 feet
above the sea. Into this lake pour two rivers, Niagara and
Geneste. The former is very young and is now making its
debut. The latter is of great age with long life on the stage.
Niagara carries, as today, the outflow of the Great Lakes. The
Niagara Falls and the upper Rochester cataract are in early
life.

The Dawson Outlet River, flowing through Fairport, Pal-
myra, Newark and Lyons, carries the copious waters eastward,
grading a path for human use. This river loses itself in
Montezuma Lake, lying in the low ground of Seneca and Cayuga
valleys, which lake is itself drained into the young Iroquois
Lake, lying in the Syracuse-Rome district. Iroquois Lake has
altitude 110 feet above the sea, and outflows at Rome by the
Iromohawk (abbreviation for Iroquois-Mohawk) River to final
repose in oceanic waters in the Schenectady-Albany district.

Ky SIO
~ Gees oe ey 4
Re DM \ eb Pung \\27
\S (ae eee NF
SN EY

&
ens
noun it

ESC
wi ‘
[

x:
ee
4

ee
Hi

Vjlittttpp,

4

“S7,
Ge
- XS

LATER PLEISTOCENE WATERS
IN NEW YORK STATE

CLOSING |1ROQUOIS STAGE

GY Glacia] Lake lroquois

closing phase

— Hudson-Champlain Estuary

Fic. 38. CLOSING IROQUOIS STAGE.

410 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Scale of Miles

on ft DD OD DR OW

LATER PLEISTOCENE WATERS
IN NEW YORK STATE

MARINE STAGE

Hudson-Champlain Strait
Champlain Sea
Gilbert Gulf.

Be

These great rivers are now grading the lowest path from the
Atlantic seaboard to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi
Valley.

All the great area which stages this scene was much lower
in altitude than it is to-day. The Iromohawk delta, the sand-
plain between Schenectady and Albany, was then building at
sealevel, or 350 feet lower than to-day. Rome was 350 feet
and Rochester 250 feet lower than now. Diastro, the strong
villain of the play, begins his slow but irresistible business of
lifting the stage, producing the changes in level.

The Oceanic Waters of the Hudson Estuary occupy the
slowly rising Hudson Valley.

Closing the scene, Lakes Dawson and Montezuma and their
attendant Rivers, exeunt.

Fic. 4. GILBERT GULF, SHA-LEVEL WATERS.

Scene 2
This scene is depicted in the diagram, Fig. 2.
Owing to the pressure of Sun Heat the Glacier yields a few
miles and the young Iroquois Lake supplants two lakes and
attendant rivers of the preceding scene. Iroquois now extends

A NATURE DRAMA 411

the whole length of the Ontario Basin, from Rome, N. Y. to
Hamilton, Canada.

With Iroquois succeeding Dawson the base-level of the
Rivers Niagara and Genesee, and all the minor streams, falls
from 230 feet above ocean to 110 feet, and the rivers extend
their courses northward to the lower waters (see Figs. 7, 8).

Up to this time Diastro has not seriously affected the
progress of the drama, the movement of the play being chiefly
due to the weakening and withdrawal of Glacier.

Iroquois Lake clings to Glacier, and expands as the latter
wanes.

Act Two
Scene 1

The stage setting is shown in Fig. 3.

Exit Iromohawk River.

Sun Heat and Epigene have pressed Quebec Glacier nearly
off the stage. At only one point does the latter now interfere

ISOBASES
OF
POST-GLACIAL UPLIFT

Figures show altitudes in feet.

Solid lines are positive, or
approximate.

Broken lines are hypothetic.

Hkh. Fairchisd.t9ie

‘A ON ‘WALSaHHOOY ‘UAAIY GAAISANAD ‘TIV waiddy

*
SuMeer

A NATURE DRAMA 413

PLEISTOCENE UPLIFT
OF

NEW YORI SiljAniE

Lines of equal uplift,(lsobases)
in feet.

Fic. 6. TILTING-UPLIFT OF NEW YORK.

with the other performers. On the Canadian boundary of New

York the Glacier is holding the outflow of Iroquois Lake to a

new channel, the Covey pass. The Covey River, on account

of lower altitude, is the successor to Iromohawk, carrying Iro-

quois water to sealevel in the Hudson-Champlain estuary.
Iroquois Lake is at its maximum.

Scene 2

The stage setting is the same as in scene 1.

Quebec Glacier is waning. Iroquois Lake is about to retire.
Diastro is the leading performer (Figs. 5, 6).

By the tilting uplift, and the land rise at Rome of 180 feet,
Diastro has raised the level of Iroquois Lake from 110 to
290 feet.

As the land at Rochester has risen only 105 feet the Iro-
quois water produces a flooding there of 75 feet. The rivers
Niagara and Genesee, and their companions, are checked in
flow by the rising lake, and their mouths are forced back, up
the land slopes (in Figs. 7, 8 from position 2 to position 3).

Exit Iroquois. For New York State the Glacial Period has
ended.

ACT THREE

Scene 1
The stage setting is shown in Fig. 4.

Oem,

Bt itl” Wall
N. R. Graves, Photo.

LOWER FALL, GENE RIVER, ROCHESTER, N. Y.

A NATURE DRAMA 415

BASE-LEVELS OF GENESEE RIVER
Vertical Changes, in feet.

LAKE IROQUOIS —-——-}—-GILBERT GUGh=--!=— == LAKE ONTARIO----4

x H H
480.mPresent height
of Dawson beach

435 am Present height
°

roquois beach

ROCHESTER DATA CHARLOTTE DATA

2908 losing Iroquois

trocusia
==
a = a
——1and rise TO ZS Tand rise

beneath sea | , under Ontario

HL. Fairchild, 1919

Fig. 7. VERTICAL CHANGES IN THE GENESEE RIVER BASE-LEVELS.

Enter, ocean-level water in the Ontario basin, Gilbert Gulf.

The frozen, damming member of the company has removed
from the stage (the area of New York) and stands back in the
wings.

Relieved of all interference the water in the Ontario basin
falls to sealevel, and Gilbert Gulf succeeds Iroquois Lake. The
base-level of all the rivers falls from 290 feet to zero, and the
rivers extend themselves far northward to the sealevel water.
(In Figs. 7, 8 the mouth of the Genesee shifts from position 3
to position 4.)

Scene 2

Stage setting the same as in scene 1.
The performers are few—the sealevel waters, Hudson-

ROCHESTER
280 Uplifted Orwson

S85 Uplitese trey eeis BASE-LEVELS OF GENESEE RIVER

Vertical ond horizontal changes
CHARLOTTE Figures refer f» sea level

ALEXANDRIA BAY
Loke Ontario, 246

Distence, Charlotte f» Alexandr fa,Bay, (/2 miles

EXPLANATION
A. Land surfece st beginning of /rogue/s time
B. Land surface of close of /roguois time
C Land surface et initiation of Loke Onterio
D Present land surface
Dotted line 1s profile of present Gonosee Fiver

3
is
&
NS
5
nS
—=
9
%
.
=
<
a
v
v
Ls
3
x

Jndicates the drowned river channel

Horizontal Scale, Miles

AL Facrchildigie

Fic. 8. VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL CHANGES IN THE GENESSERE RIVER BASE-LEVELS.

‘"NOANY,) UALISAHIOW GL

“10 ey pavMo ‘wReIZsdn “YINOosS SULyOO, Mor A

‘aot OFT ‘OLIVIUG IVT] JO [OAV] JV AOATI OTL

‘0FOUd

A NATURE DRAMA 417

Champlain estuary and Gilbert Gulf; the rivers Niagara and
Genesee and their attendants; Sun Heat and Epigene with
attendants.

The movement is chiefly the action of Diastro, in lifting the
northern part of the stage more rapidly. But until the district
of the Thousand Islands is raised out of the sealevel waters
there is no change of scene.

Scene 3

The setting of the stage is any map of the present geography
of New York State.

Exit, Gilbert Gulf.

Enter, St. Lawrence River and Lakes Champlain and
Ontario.

Diastro erects a barrier in the St. Lawrence Valley, at the
Thousand Islands, which imprisons the waters of Gilbert Gulf
and transforms them into Ontario Lake. The uplifting of the
barrier continues until Ontario water is 246 feet above the sea.

The embouchures of the rivers are pushed backward, up the
land slopes, as had been the case during the rise of Iroquois.
(In Figs. 7, 8 the mouth of the Genesee is shifted from position
4 to position 6.)

As Charlotte, the location of the present embouchure of
Genesee River, rises only 85 feet while Ontario level rises 246
feet, the flooding by Ontario water has drowned the river
channel that was cut in time of Gilbert Gulf (Fig. 4) under
161 feet of water. (The drowned position is indicated by posi-
tion 5 of the diagrams, Figs. 7, 8).

The quantitative vertical elements showing the total work
of Diastro are given in Figs. 5, 6, 7 and 8.

EPILOGUE

Here ends the translation. But the actual drama does not
end with this brief relation. The drama is yet in progress,
superior to any human cooperation or opposition; and it will
continue for millions of years after humanity has run its course
and disappears from the earth. The movement of the play
takes no note of time. In the far future the stage of New
York area may carry changes as dramatic, or perhaps greater,
than those recorded in the immediate past.'

1 The detailed story of the events here epitomized is published in Pro-
ceedings of the Rochester Academy of Science, Volume 6, 1919, pages 1-55,
and the general history is given in Bulletin No. 209-210 of the New York
State Museum.

VOL. xX —28.

PROFESSOR ALBERT HINSTHIN,

University of Berlin.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

419

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF MAY
29,1919, AND THE EINSTEIN
EFFECT

THE supposed verification, by Brit-
ish astronomers during the solar
eclipse of May 29, 1919, of the Ein-
stein prediction that rays of light,
while passing near the sun, would
be bent out of their straight course
by the sun’s gravitational pull, like
any flying projectile, has made, says
Dr. L. O. Bauer,! an eclipse of the
sun of more than passing interest,
not alone to the astronomer, but also
to the geophysicist, the mathemati-
cian, the physicist, and, in fact, to
the philosopher, in general.

If a star-ray, on its way to the
earth, just grazed the sun’s limb,
then the star, as seen by a terrestrial
observer, or caught on a_ photo-

graphic plate, would either not be
displaced at all, or it would be dis-
placed by a certain minute amount,
a. If the principles of the Newton-
ian mechanics hold for particles mov-
ing with the velocity of light (186,009
miles a second), then on the basis of
Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of
light, the apparent displacement, a,
away from the sun would amount to
0”.87; this was the shift predicted
by Einstein in his first theory of rel-
ativity. According to his later or
generalized theory of relativity,
which brings under the same pur-
view electromagnetic and gravita-
tional phenomena, the star would be
displaced apparently by the amount
2@ or -1’.74. If the ray of light
passed through the sun’s gravita-
tional field at the distance from the

66,
EY,
Bhs

a i 52
AMERICA 8”
(BAIA te

y,
a

THE PATH OF THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE or May 28-29, 1919.

1See résumé of public lectures
given by him before various socie-

ties and universities, published in
the issue of Science for March 26.

420

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE SOLAR CORONA DURING THE ECLIPSE OF May 29, 1919, as photographed by

Dr CaaGe

La Paz, Bolivia.

center of the sun twice its radius, |

as was about the case for the nearest
star concerned in the British obser-
vations, the apparent displacement
would simply be one half of the
amounts just stated. In brief, the
deflection would vary inversely as
the distance.

Abbot, of the Smithsonian Institution, at an elevation of 14,000 feet, near

Now, according to the results from
the best of the photographic plates
obtained by the two British expedi-
tions, one to Sobral, Brazil, and the
other to the Ile of Principe, west
coast of Africa, the displacements of
the stars accorded best with the pre-

dictions based on Einstein’s later

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

theory. The British astronomers
were exceedingly fortunate in having
the opportunity of making the tests
during an eclipse when there was a
rich field of bright stars, the Hyades,
sufficiently close to the sun, so that
the quantities to be measured were
well within the observational errors.

Professor W. W. Campbell’s expe-
dition made a test during the solar

eclipse of June 8, 1918, at Golden-
unfortun-

dale,
ately,

Washington, but,
his observations had to be

made on ninth magnitude stars, dis- |

tant from the sun, two times or more

the farthest star used by the British. |

His party was therefore obliged to
work with much more minute quan-
tities. The result from all of the

observations was a mean displace- |

ment of 0”.05 in the right direction;
but agreeing better with the pre-
dicted value (0”.08) on the basis of
the Newtonian principles, than with
that (0”.15) computed according to
Einstein’s later theory.

The combined result of the British
and American tests would accord-

ingly be that light has weight, be-

sides exerting a measurable pres-
sure; just how much weight depends
upon whether the Newtonian or the
Einstein principles are ultimately
found correct. Astronomers are
stimulated to make further tests in
view of the important astronomical
consequences of the Einstein theory;
preparations by British astronomers
are already under way for observa-
tions during the solar eclipse of Sep-
tember, 1922, which will occur in
Australia, though the stellar condi-
tions will not be as favorable as they
were last year.

The importance of the subject has
naturally caused some to advance
possible other causes for the ob-
served light deflections. Thus such
an eminent solar physicist as Dr. H.
F. Newall, of the Cambridge Obser-
vatory, while he is disposed to admit
a possible effect according to New-
tonian mechanics, prefers consider- |

421

ing that the balance of the observed
deflection of light is attributable to
refraction in the solar atmosphere
as mapped out, for example, to a cer-
tain extent by the solar corona.

Deflection of Light Resulting trom Observations During Solar Eclipse at
Sobral, Brazil, May 29,1919, Compared with Predicted values

Radius eS ] Probable Z| of obs
Peala Pathe ery Fes
Tota.

at

irvation

© 72 Ta0R7

g
haz
| |s :
| a) >
is
© 4p Re
” '
|] is
| B94 ie
a iy
2 ‘me
6 ‘S
Rae 5
| ee
| 1
3 A
bad + —

DISTANCE

30

SE
°

y 3
we

i>

ES

lea
°
ES

—
i
wa
ae

\o
\>

—-

\

cee

\3
\o
~ \
\
\
\

20 | 4 {

cles | \ |
— I
48 0 os” a : or

Os 06" OF 08
LIGHT DEFLECTION

THER CHART, CONSTRUCTED BY THE DE-
PARTMENT OF TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM, OF
THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION, gives a graph-
ical representation of the law of variation

with distance followed by the observed
deflections for each star. Excepting the
most distant star (56 Tauri), each star

shows a deflection agreeing better with the
EHinstein value than with the Newton-Max-
well one. The probable error of observya-
tion is shown by
around each star.

the size of the circle

It would also appear, according to
Dr. Bauer’s investigations, that the
observed deflections are not strictly
radial, i.e., not wholly in the direc-
tion of the sun’s radius, indicating
that there are some effects super-
posed upon the simple Newton, or
Einstein, effects. He finds that the

422

non-radial effects occur in a system-|
atic manner and not accidentally as
they would if they were purely ob-
servational errors. He also finds
that for the same distance a star in
the polar regions of the sun showed
a somewhat larger displacement than
one in the equatorial regions. The
question is raised, among others, how
completely it was possible in the
British observations to eliminate
differential refraction effects as the
rays passed through the earth’s at-
mosphere.

Dr. Bauer’s expedition was one of
several expeditions sent out by the
Department of Terrestrial Magnet-
ism of the Carnegie Institution of
Washington to make geophysical ob-
servations, the data from which are
proving of interest in the discussion
of the possible disturbing effects on
the observed deflections of light. He
himself observed the memorable
eclipse .at Cape Palmas, Liberia,
where totality lasted longer, 6 min-
utes and 383 seconds, than at any
other accessible station. He charac-
terizes this eclipse as the most mag-
nificent one of the four he has thus |
far observed; not only was the
corona beautifully and finely devel-
oped but also a striking crimson
prominence appeared on the sun’s
southeast limb which shot up 100,000
miles and had a base of 300,000
miles.

Dr. Bauer concludes with refer-
ence to the observed light deflections
that “the best attitude to take is
that of open-mindedness and to let
no opportunity pass by for further
experimental tests,” and that “one
of the most satisfactory results has
been the stimulus imparted to fur-
ther research in many fields which
is bound to bear fruit.”

PROFESSOR EINSTEIN ON THE
THEORY OF RELATIVITY

IN an article contributed to the,
London Times, Professor Albert Ein- |
stein has undertaken to present his.

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

theory of relativity in a form com-
prehensible to readers not trained to
think in mathematical formulas. He
calls attention to the fact that the
ancient Greeks knew that the mo-
tion of a body must be described in
reference to another body. In physics
the bodies to which motions are spa-
tially referred are termed systems
of coordinates. The laws of me-
chanics of Galileo and Newton can
be formulated only by using a sys-
tem of coordinates.

The special relativity theory is the
application of the following proposi-
tion to any natural process: “ Every
law of nature which holds good with
respect to a coordinate system K
must also hold good for any other
system K’ provided that K and K’
are in uniform movement of transla-
tion.” According to the Maxwell-
Lorentz theory of electro-dynamics,
however, light in a vacuum has a
definite and constant velocity, inde-
pendent of the velocity of its source.

These two principles have received
experimental confirmation, but do
not seem to be logically compatible.
The special relativity theory achieved
their logical reconciliation by mak-
ing a change in kinematics, that is
to say, in the doctrine of the physical
laws of space and time. It became
evident that a statement of the coin-
cidence of two events could have a
meaning only in connection with a

_system of coordinates, that the mass

of bodies and the rate of movement
of clocks must depend on their state
of motion with regard to the coor-
dinates.

But the older physics, including
the laws of motion of Galileo and
Newton, clashed with the relativistic
kinematics. Physics had to be modi-

‘fied. The most notable change was

a new law of motion for very rap-
idly moving mass-points, and this
soon came to be verified in the case
of electrically-laden particles. The
most important result of the special
relativity system concerned the inert

Sir OLIvER LopGE,

Formerly professor of physics in the University of Liverpool and principal of the
University of Birmingham.

424

mass of a material system. It be-|
came evident that the inertia of such
a system must depend on its energy- |
content, so that we were driven to|
the conception that inert mass was
nothing else than latent energy.
The doctrine of the conservation of
mass lost its independence and be-
came merged in the doctrine of con-
servation of energy.

The special relativity theory which
was simply a systematic extension |
of the electro-dynamics of Maxwell
and Lorentz, had consequences which
reached beyond itself. Although it
may be necessary for our descrip-|
tions of nature to employ systems |
of coordinates that we have selected |
arbitrarily, the choice should not be)
limited in any way so far as their |
state of motion is concerned. This |
general theory of relativity was
found to be in conflict with a well-
known experiment, according to
which it appeared that the weight
and the inertia of a body depended
on the same constants.

A generalized theory of relativity
must include the laws of gravitation,
and actual pursuit of the conception
has justified the hope. But the way |
was harder than was expected, be-
cause it contradicted Euclidian ge-
ometry. In other words, the laws
according to which material bodies
are arranged in space do not exactly
agree with the laws of space pre-
seribed by the Euclidian geometry
of solids. This is what is meant by
the phrase “a warp in space.” The)
fundamental concepts “straight,”
“lane,” etc., accordingly lose their
exact meaning in physics.

In the generalized theory of rela-|
tivity, the doctrine of space and
time, kinematics, is no longer one of |
the absolute foundations of general |
physics. The geometrical states of
bodies and the rates of clocks de-
pend in the first place on their gravi- |
tational fields, which again are pro-_
duced by the material systems con-|
cerned. |

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Thus the new theory of gravita-
tion diverges widely from that of
Newton with respect to its basal
principle. But in practical applica-
tion the two agree so closely that it
has been difficult to find cases in

which the actual differences could be

subjected to observation. As yet
only the following have been sug-
gested: (1) The distortion of the
oval orbits of planets round the sun
(confirmed in the case of the planet
mercury). (2) The deviation of
light-rays in a gravitational field
(confirmed by the English Solar
Eclipse expedition). (38) The shift-
ing of spectral lines towards the red
end of the spectrum in the case of
light coming to us from stars of ap-
preciable mass (not yet confirmed).

Professor Einstein says in conclu-
sion: “The great attraction of the
theory is its logical consistency. If
any deduction from it should prove
untenable, it must be given up. A
modification of it seems impossible
without destruction of the whole.
No one must think that Newton’s
great creation can be overthrown in
any real sense by this or by any
other theory. His clear and wide
ideas will for ever retain their sig-

‘nificance as the foundation on which

our modern conceptions of physics
have been built.”

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

WE record with regret the death
of Francis C. Phillips, for forty
years professor of chemistry at the
University of Pittsburgh; of Alfred

'J. Moses, professor of mineralogy
/in Columbia University; of Edwin

A. Strong, emeritus professor of
physics at the Michigan State Nor-
mal College; of Sir James Alexander
Grant, the Canadian surgeon and
paleontologist; and of two of the
most distinguished German men of
science, Wilhelm Pfeffer, the botan-
ist of the University of Leipzig, and
of Otto Biitschli, the zoologist of the
University of Heidelberg.

Tse OClLEN TPE TSC
MONTHLY

MAY, 1920

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY READ
FROM THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD:
THE EMERGENCE OF MAN’

By Professor JOHN C. MERRIAM
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

PLEISTOCENE STAGES IN HUMAN HISTORY SUBSEQUENT TO THE
TIME OF HEIDELBERG MAN. III.

HE earliest remains of man, known in the Pithecanthropus
iy of Java and the Heidelberg type, are generally considered
to represent stages of time not ranging far from the beginning
of the Pleistocene period, or the geological division immediately
preceding the present. It has been suggested that Pithecan-
thropus is of Pliocene age. The Heidelberg jaw was consid-
ered by Schoetensack to be possibly Pliocene, but is presumably
not older than early or middle Pleistocene. With the exception
of these two cases, the numerous occurrences of human remains
found in deposits antedating the beginning of the present geo-
logical period are all generally considered to be of middle to late
Pleistocene age.

Excepting a few widely scattered occurrences, ranging
from Australia through Asia and Africa, the collections repre-
senting Pleistocene man have been secured from formations of
western Europe, and discussion of the next stages in human
history is as yet mainly concerned with early man in Europe.
This record fortunately occurs in a division of the geological
story to which extraordinarily close attention has been given by
reason of the interesting fluctuations of climate marking this
portion of time. Before proceeding with a discussion of the
occurrences of human remains and the nature of the evolution-
ary sequence, it is desirable to sketch in a preliminary way an
outline of the climatic and geographic history of this period, in

1 Delivered before the National Academy of Sciences in April, 1918,
as the sixth series of lectures on the William Ellery Hale Foundation.

VOL. X.—29.

426 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Cultural
Stages

Climatic
Stages

Geolopical
Periods

Age of
Modern
Recen t Posiglacial Metals
& [(Azilian
4.Glacial S | Magdalenian | Cro-Magnon
= |Solutrean
. 9 { Aurignacian
Inter glacial = Moaievien Neanderthal
; 9S | Acheulean
3Glacial QX \Chellean

Pleistocene Interglacial

Tn terglacial
1 Glacial

Fic. 1. TABLE ILLUSTRATING RELATION OF STAGES IN HUMAN EVOLUTION TO DIVISIONS
OF GEOLOGICAL TIME.

fleidelberg

Folithic Fithecanthropus

which we find man passing through some of the most significant
stages in the whole course of his evolution.

FLUCTUATIONS IN ENVIRONMENT OF PLEISTOCENE MAN IN
EUROPE

The story of glacial history in Europe corresponds closely
with that of America, and is too well known to require more
than the general statement that during at least four stages
in this epoch, climatic conditions were of such a nature that
accumulation of snow and ice in enormous quantities was per-
mitted at altitudes far below the present snow line. The extent
to which the climate differed from that of the present time
varied for the several glacial stages, but in the most extreme
advance ice seems practically to have covered the northern half
of Europe, extending over the British Isles and across the con-
tinent through Belgium, Germany and Russia. Ice also reached
down from the Alps and other ranges to levels much below those
at present touched by glaciers. Between the ice epochs, the

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 427

climatic pendulum, swinging in the return beat, brought con-
ditions in some cases more closely approaching those of the
warm temperate regions than we find represented in the present
climate of western Europe. It is important to note that it was
in this time of frequent and radical changes in climatic condi-
tions, and therefore of variation in the whole environment, in-
cluding animal and plant life, that the present high level of
human evolution was attained.

In the period of climatic changes of Pleistocene time the
form of the land and distribution of water of the European
region also varied much. Particularly in and near the second
and third interglacial stages the British Isles and Iceland seem
to have been connected with the mainland in the region of
France and Belgium; the North Sea was dry, and land extended
across from Scandinavia to England. During this period, the
boundaries of the sea were in general moved farther out along
the borders of the continent than at the present time. There
seems also to have been land connection between Spain and
northern Africa and between Africa and Italy.

During this period, we find not alone the climatic and geo-
graphic conditions subject to modification, but the whole scheme
of animal and plant life shifted greatly from stage to stage. As
would be expected, during the cold periods waves of migration
swept across the continent of Europe from the north, and the
Arctic animals extended their range to the lower lands; while
during the stages of warm climate southern life reached north
to England and middle Europe. Not only was the life shifting
through migration of climatic zones, but great groups of species
in many divisions of the animal and plant world disappeared,
giving place to forms not known in previous time. These in
turn became extinct and were largely replaced by new types
before the beginning of the present geologic day.

DEPOSITS CONTAINING REMAINS OF LATER PLEISTOCENE MAN IN
EUROPE

The geologic record of Pleistocene time out of which we read
our human history is obtained from a great variety of evi-
dences, including the accumulation of deposits in seas, lakes,
rivers, and upon the land. It is read also from physiographic
records shown in the sculpturing of land forms by wind, water,
and ice; and in the history of a continuously changing living
world, both plant and animal. The sequence of deposits in
which entombed organisms have been discovered is compli-
cated and difficult to read. It is moreover not the same record

428 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

2
a, oe

HIGS. 2205:

CAVE DWELLINGS IN THE VEZERE VALLEY, FRANCE. Fig. 2, Cave
adapted for modern home. Fig. 3, Laugerie Haute, a modern dwelling on the site of

cave deposits representing the stage of Cro-Magnon man. Fig. 4, Cave at Le Moustier,

with deposits of Neanderthal stage. Fig. 5, Floor of Le Moustier covered with
flaked flints.

in all localities. Correlations or comparisons between widely
separated regions are made with difficulty. It is, nevertheless,
true that with the combined use of all known agencies, includ-

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 429

ing the thermometer of climate in glacial history and the record
of evolution shown in plants and animals, it has been possible
through what amounts to international cooperation to work out
a history with some degree of satisfaction.

The human remains of greatest significance in Europe have
been found in deposits of two kinds, one consisting of stream
accumulations of clay, sand, and gravel; the other the piling up
of earth, gravel, sand, and stalagmite deposits in caves.

The relative age of stream deposits, and of their entombed
remains, may be determined by the sequence of layers resting
one upon another in a single area; or may be indicated by a
succession of terrace deposits representing remnants of ac-
cumulated strata left stranded in the cutting of a valley. In
general, we may not expect the best records of man to be found
in formations made by streams. Although traces of skeletons
are met occasionally, the destructive action of a stream is
generally pronounced. Remains of implements, especially those
of stone, being more resistant than skeletons, are better known
in stream deposits.

The most important source of human relics of Pleistocene
time is found in the numerous caves of limestone formations
in western Europe. Caverns have always been places of
abode for many groups of higher animals, furnishing as they
do shelter from the weather and protection against enemies.
Caves have been unusually significant in study of the life of
early periods because they have served as concentration points
for the remains not merely of their owners, but of the whole
range of other animals supplying food from the surrounding
country. Cave deposits are also of exceptional significance for
the reason that in limestone regions, lime-burdened water drip-
ping from the roof upon bones or other relics has often encased
them with a calcareous or stalagmitic covering.

Man like other creatures seems early to have learned the ad-
vantage of cavern life. In the cave he also accumulated heaps
of bones representing the animals upon which he preyed, and
his bones like those of other animals were entombed in earth,
clay, gravel, and stalagmite deposits in the floor of the room that
was once his home. In our search for evidence concerning the
history of man in the long period through which he worked his
way up to domination of the natural world, no information has
been found to exceed in interest the records held for ages in
safe keeping in the caves. A story of the beginning history of
our race comes to us from these sources filled with the thrill of
adventure, and showing always the upward striving of becom-
ing man.

430 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

mie aft \
WS CA

MW SS S
Wie, ys

FIGS. 6 AND 7. FLAKED FLINTS OF THE RIVER Drirr Stacp, Adapted from Reinach.

RIVER DRIFT MAN

In the divisions of the geologic record succeeding those from
which we have obtained Pithecanthropus and the Heidelberg
man there are several stages at which relics apparently repre-
senting human handwork have been found without accompany-
ing skeletal evidence of man himself. Such remains are the
flaked flints of Chellean and Acheulean types discovered espe-
cially in stream deposits of the Somme Valley in northern
France and in the south of England. These objects are found
in deposits evidently younger than those from which the earlier
eoliths are obtained and show clear evidence of purposeful shap-
ing. They are flaked in such manner as to leave no doubt con-
cerning the influence of an intelligent creature like man in their
forming. They were evidently produced by beings of the
human type inhabiting Europe subsequent to the time of Heidel-
berg man and before the stage of the typical Neanderthal race.

NEANDERTHAL MAN

Following the stage of Heidelberg man the earliest human
relics of which we have evidence in skeletal characters are those
representing the Neanderthal race. This type is now well
known by skulls and other skeletal parts from numerous cave
deposits of western Europe. With these remains there have
been found also abundant traces of implements and of the con-
temporaneous animal life of this period. The materials avail-
able have made possible a very satisfactory interpretation of
the physical characteristics, industry, mentality, and environ-
ment of the race.

The Neanderthal type has been best known by a now famous
skeleton obtained in 1856 in a cave near Diisseldorf. Other
specimens of similar type are the Gibraltar, Spy, Chapelle-aux-
Saints, and Le Moustier remains, together giving full oppor-
tunity for interpretation of the characters of this remarkable
race. All of these skeletons represent beings distinctly human,
and with moderately large brains, but possessing exceedingly

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 431

Fic. 8. SKULL OF NEANDERTHAL TYPE FROM CHAPELLE-AUX-SAINTS, FRANCE,, X 4.
Adapted from Boule.
Fic. 9. SKULL OF CRO-MAGNON MAN FROM LS EYZIES, FRANCE, x 3.

low and generally depressed skulls with extraordinarily large
ridges over the eyes.

Associated with the remains of Neanderthal man in the cave
deposits at various localities there have been found great quan-
tities of flaked flints which were evidently the characteristic
implements utilized by this race. In the famous cavern at Le
Moustier enormous numbers of flints are known, of which some
are discarded implements and others are probably the byprod-
ucts of implement manufacture. They all indicate a stage of
development in which the flaking is sufficiently advanced to
give a clean, sharp cutting edge undoubtedly used for a wide
variety of purposes.

In the same deposits with the remains of Neanderthal man,
and with the relics of his culture, there are found abundant
skeletal parts of the animals of the surrounding region which
provided food and probably clothing. Other animal remains
found in the caves may have been accumulated by carnivorous
mammals occupying these shelters in intervals between periods
of human habitation. From the evidence available we know

Fics. 10 aNd 11. FLAKED FLINTS FROM FLOOR OF THE CAVERN OF LE MOUSTIER, x 3.

432 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

ee “
Nee

Figs. 12, 13 AND 14. COMPARISON OF SKULL OF NEANDERTHAL MAN WITH A CHIM-
PANZEE, TO THE LEFT, AND A MODERN MAN, TO THE RIGHT.

that Neanderthal man was associated with the reindeer, woolly
rhinoceros, woolly mamoth, horse, stag, giant deer, bison, cave
bear, cave lion, and cave hyena. A large percentage of these
animals are now extinct and are characteristic of the later
Pleistocene of Europe.

In many respects the Neanderthal type presents the most
striking illustration of connection between the later stages of
human evolution and the history of mammalian groups which
in their development trend toward man in the distinctly pre-
recent portion of the record of life. The history of the Nean-
derthals lies well within a geological period distinctly separated
from the present, the environment of this man was physically
and biologically a world differing from the present, and the
man himself differed markedly from any existing race. In very
many ways the Neanderthals express that remoteness of time,
difference of surroundings, distinct difference of physical char-

Fic. 15. RESTORATION OF NEANDERTHAL Man. Drawn by Frieda Lueddemann, under
the direction of the author.

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 433

acteristics, inferior level of industry, and limitation of mental
development, which one might expect to find somewhere be-
tween Pithecanthropus and modern races if the existing human
group represents progressive development out of a more ancient
and less human stock.

CRO-MAGNON MAN

At numerous localities in western Europe we find abundant
evidence that a type of human being differing widely from the
typical Neanderthals occupied this region between the time of
Neanderthal man and the present epoch. These remains are
found in cave deposits, and like those of the Neanderthals are
associated with abundant implements and with the remains of
a wide variety of animals which as their contemporaries fur-
nished food and clothing.

The history of this later type is known in several stages, of
which one of the most important is that represented by the
famous Station of La Madeleine, only a short distance from Le
Moustier on the Vezere River in the French province of Dor-
dogne. The skeletal remains of this race generally represent
individuals of large size, with skulls corresponding in outline to
highly developed types of the present period. The brain case,
like that of modern man, has a large content, and the form of
the brain corresponds to that of the vigorous mental types of
the present day.

Judging from physical characters alone one could not avoid
the conclusion that this Cro-Magnon type represents a form of
man skilled in thinking and in the expression of thought through
action. It is, therefore, not surprising to find associated with
this race a wide range of beautifully formed implements shaped

Hh

|

\\

i

Wi

yy) TET

Figs. 16, 17 AnD 18. TYPICAL MAGDALENIAN FLAKED FLINTS FROM THE STATION OF
LA MADELEINE, FRANCE, x 3.

434 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

from stone and from the bones of animals hunted. The stone:
implements show an advance in the art of chipping or flaking
developed in various forms, some delicately flaked, others giv-
ing long clean-cut lines and sharp edges. Implements of bone
and antler are abundant and rival in their form and ornamen-
tation the beautiful carvings of modern Eskimo. We find also
on implements and on fragments of bone and antler extraordi-
nary expressions of an artistic instinct represented in drawings
of the contemporary animals and even of people. These illus-
trations show us the reindeer, the mamoth, and the bison, as
living creatures fully known to Cro-Magnon man and pictured
by him in characteristic attitudes of action. Even more re-
markable if possible are the wonderful series of drawings and
paintings left by this race on the walls of many caves which
were evidently not habitations but served some mysterious pur-
pose not yet fully understood.

The remains of animals associated with the Cro-Magnons
include reindeer in abundance, horses, the woolly elephant,
woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, lion, and many other creatures
representing a fauna in large part extinct, and of which the

Fic. 19. REPRESENTATION OF THE WOOLLY ELEPHANT, DRAWN ON THE WALL OF THE
CAVE OF COMBARELLES, LES EyZIpS, FRANCE. Adapted from Capitan and Breuil.

Fic. 20. PAINTING OF THE WOOLLY RHINOCEROS ON THE WALL OF THE CAVE OF FONT-
DE-GAUME, LEes Eyzres, France, Adapted from Capitan and Breuil.

Fic. 21. RESTORATION OF CRO-MAGNON Man. Drawn by Frieda Lueddemann under
the direction of the author.

surviving types are known principally from regions outside
western Europe.

In physical development, and apparently in mentality, the
Cro-Magnons approached closely the characteristics of modern
man. This race represents in western Europe the beginning of
modern life taking its origin in ancient times. The Neander-
thals go far in physical characters, in mentality, and in environ-
mental setting to bridge the gap between modern man and the
earliest humans. The Cro-Magnons show us that even the mod-
ern cast of physical development is rooted deeply in the re-
moteness of an early geologic day.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DATA BEARING UPON THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN
ORIGIN

Passing in review the stages in evolution of man, it is de-
sirable to note once more the evidence of geological succession
of the four human types already discussed, and with this to
state that all four were present on the earth before the begin-
ning of the present period. The proof of their antiquity seems
especially striking when we consider that between the time of
appearance of the third or Neanderthal type and the present
day events of great geological and biological significance pro-
foundly changed the face of nature, and that after the Neander-

436 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

thals had become established in this region a period of fifty
thousand to two hundred thousand years probably elapsed be-
fore the modern races became dominant.

It should be noted again that remains of the later stages, in-
cluding Neanderthal, although apparently absent from the New
World, seem widely distributed over Europe, Asia, and Africa.
The first two stages, represented by Pithecanthropus and Heid-
elberg man, are known by single occurrences, and the one gen-
erally assumed to be the earlier is situated in a region known
to be an area of evolution of the anthropoid group.

We have also seen that the series shows us, in passing back-
ward through it, a reduction in brain capacity, increase in the
prominence of the face, and a general taking on of anthropoid
characters, until the earliest form is recognized as unquestion-
ably of all human types the one standing nearest to the apes,
and yet apparently distinguished from anthropoids by its spe-
cialized human limbs.

While the evidence is incomplete, the record as it stands
agrees down to extraordinary detail with the expectation which
one might have of early human history based upon the view
that man, while a derivative of the anthropoid group, is now
widely separated from all simian types, and has presumably re-
quired long ages in which to reach his present stage of differen-
tiation away from the primitive stock.

The earliest occurrences are at the geographic point where
we would expect to find them. The earliest types represent ap-
proximately the stages of evolution that the paleontologist
would anticipate discovering in the strata from which they have
been recovered. The later history shows a gradual modifica-
tion at a rate corresponding in general to that seen in history
of other groups of mammals. We note also that the family
seems to spread itself gradually over the world, and as nearly
as we can determine, with this wider distribution there begins
the differentiation into distinct types or species characteristic
of geographic provinces.

In a word, human history, so far as the development of
physical or biological man is concerned, indicates that our origin
is comparable to that of other organic groups, and that we are
apparently an outgrowth from the mammal world subject to
the same laws of evolution and differentiation as are expressed
in myriads of other organic types. The existing races of man
represent the morphological and geographical expression of this
evolutionary history. Their characteristics are clearly the re-
sult of hundreds of thousands of years of differentiation. The

THE BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN HISTORY 437

stamp that is put upon each type is the product of extraordi-
narily complicated influences in which inheritance and environ-
ment are essential elements. They are not fleeting impressions,
but have significance comparable to that definiteness in organic
type which leads us to expect the rose to beget roses, and lions
to be the offspring of lions.

As was noted in the introduction to the first lecture, stu-
dents of biological aspects of the human problem have recently
called particular attention to the importance of race as weigh-
ing definitely in consideration of many world problems, along
with the factors based upon differentiation of peoples according
to linguistic stocks, ethnologic relationships, and social organi-
zation. This is not interpreted to mean that great significance
does not attach to the group influence in peoples organized ac-
cording to ethnologic characters, or by reason of the effect of
language, or through many other causes. It does mean that
factors of fundamental significance, resting upon basal char-
acteristics of human nature, brought out in our long history,
and represented now in race, have perhaps received less con-
- sideration than is their due. It means not only that a clear
view of the human situation must present a picture showing the
common generalized characters represented in practically all
human types and individuals, but that with these we must see
also the length and breadth, the height and depth of human dif-
ferences. Unless this view is taken we shall fall short of the
interpretation of humanity needed in order to give to every
group, as well as to every individual, that full freedom to de-
velop its own peculiar talent, and to grow into the fullest use-
fulness which we assume to be the natural right of all.

And finally, ‘the whole trend of history within the chapter
just read from ancient records exhibits without question a
definite progressive movement of the human type. This is ex-
pressed in physical capacity for greater breadth of comprehen-
sion, and in wider range of activity and occupation given by
coordination of the brain and hand as also of the brain and
tongue. Man of the present day may read his story back to that
early stage in which he first sees himself distinguished from
the beast. He sees the beast made to a man-like beast and then
a man. Perhaps to you the student of this ancient life has
seemed to look upon a passing scene which might well have been
left unknown—and yet to those who read what he who runs
may see, the present world is brighter for the view—the future
built upon the upward striving of the past must see the best
there is in life at length prevail.

438 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY IN
TUBERCULOSIS’

A CRITICAL RETROSPECT UPON THE PROGRAM OF PHYSICAL RE-
CONSTRUCTION AS DEVELOPED IN THE MILITARY HOSPITALS
FOR TUBERCULOSIS

By FRANK A. WAUGH

CAPTAIN, SANITARY CORPS

¥¥\ HE reconstruction of disabled soldiers is something new.
[ It had never been tried before the great war on any ap-
preciable scale. Nevertheless all the leading nations in this war
undertook extensive and systematic reconstruction almost from
the start. Germany, France and England began the work
promptly, and on a large scale. The success of their efforts was
sufficiently plain, so that the United States coming later into
the struggle, felt constrained to undertake something along
similar lines.

There was some uncertainty for a time as to how and under
what direction this work should be organized. The plan even-
tually adopted was for the preliminary work of the hospital
period to be done by the Surgeon General’s Office, while the
more extended work of vocational retraining was deferred until
after discharge from the hospital and the Army, and was placed
in the hands of the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

A Division of Physical Reconstruction, with Colonel Frank
Billings at its head, was therefore organized within the Surgeon
General’s Office, and definite work began early in 1918. One
general hospital after another was manned and equipped, and
finally the work, having proved its value, was extended to sev-
eral base hospitals. The first of the tuberculosis hospitals to be
regularly organized for this work was No. 16. Lieutenant-
Colonel Alexius M. Forster, Comanding Officer, an experienced
sanitarium man, had begun certain work along reconstruction
lines, especially gardening, early in the spring of 1918. In
July, Captain Frank A. Waugh arrived to take up the organiza-
tion of a larger reconstruction service under direction of the
Division of Physical Reconstruction in the Surgeon General’s
Office. For the next few months the reconstruction program

1 Published under authority of the Surgeon-General, United States
Army.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 439

was expanded, adapted and readapted to varying needs as fast
as experience showed the way and equipment could be found.
Other Army hospitals handling tuberculosis were later organ-
ized for reconstruction work, including No. 8 at Otisville, New
York; No. 17 at Markleton, Pennsylvania; No. 19 at Oteen,
North Carolina; No. 21 at Denver, Colorado; Fort Bayard, New
Mexico; and Whipple Barracks, Arizona.

It is the purpose of the present report to review, summarize,
and criticize the work thus far done under the reconstruction
program in the tuberculosis hospitals. It seems highly desir-
able to make a full record of this large and interesting exper-
iment and to determine as accurately as possible just what has
_ been accomplished, to know what parts of the program have
proved successful and in what degree, as well as what items
have failed and in what degree. This detailed criticism is all
the more needful because of the fact that civil sanitoria for
tuberculosis are particularly anxious to profit by the exper-
iments made in the Army hospitals. The present discussion is
based mainly upon the experience accumulated at General Hos-
pital No. 16; but Hospital No. 8 and No. 19 were also visited
(as well as several other Army hospitals not specializing in
tuberculosis), and considerable help has been secured through
correspondence with officers doing reconstruction work in Den-
ver and Fort Bayard.

SPECIFIC PURPOSES

Several quite distinct motives have been influential in the
development of the reconstruction program. These have not
all worked together, but have operated differently at different
times. Any fair understanding of the work must be based upon
a clear conception of these objectives. Those which appear to
have been the most influential may be summarized as follows:

1. Return of Men to Military Duty.—During the progress
of the war this motive stood above all others. In Germany and
France, particularly, special effort was made to redevelop for
military service the largest possible proportion of disabled men.
In American hospitals likewise the salvage of fighting men was
earnestly sought. Much of the reconstruction work done prior
to the armistice was directed to the training of men for further
military or semi-military service. Instruction in the automobile
shops, for example, prepared men for the Motor Transport
Corps, and training in telegraphy was directed to the prepara-
tion of men for the Signal Corps.

2. Vocational Reeducation.—At the outset of the work in
the United States probably the leading thought was the voca-

440 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

BEDSIDE WORK IN AN OPEN WARD. Bead-weaving—very popular and remunerative.

tional rehabilitation of disabled men. It was conceived that
many soldiers would be so injured, especially by the loss of
limbs or of sight, as to be incapacitated for their previous em-
ployments, and their retraining for new vocations was consid-
ered a prime duty of the government. Two important observa-
tions may now be made with reference to this idea: First the
number of men requiring replacement in new vocations proved
to be very much smaller than anticipated; Second, such voca-
tional retraining, when necessary, can be more efficiently given
after discharge from the hospital. In the United States the
work of the Reconstruction Service of the Surgeon General’s
Office divides naturally from that of the Federal Board for Vo-
cational Education precisely on these lines—a division which
now seems wholly sound and sensible.

3. Functional Restoration. —Historically this was one eof the
earliest and strongest motives behind the program of physical
reconstruction. In orthopedic practice it obviously plays a
major role. In the treatment of tuberculosis, however, func-
tional restoration is of such minor importance as hardly to be
considered a direct objective at all. However the functional
test which comes toward the end of the treatment period is in
some sense restorative.

4. Graduated Exercise—Perhaps the nearest approach to
functional restoration in the tuberculosis program is found in
the application of graduated exercise as a therapeutic measure.
The therapeutic value of graduated exercise seems to be still a
very much debated point among medical men. The case ob-

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 441

viously can not be reviewed here; but we may say briefly that,
wherever and to whatever extent graduated exercise is brought
into play, it fits immediately in to the general program of re-
construction.

5. Functional Test—Many medical men who do not believe
in graduated exercise as a form of therapy applicable to any
stage of the tuberculosis treatment would nevertheless favor a
functional test or try-out for cases apparently fully arrested,
this test to be carefully given under medical supervision before
the patient is finally returned to full military or economic duty.
This test would take the form of graduated labor increased
from day to day, as indicated, up to the point of a full day’s
work. Such a test also becomes a part of the reconstruction
program.

6. General Therapy.—lIt should not require argument to
show that the various activities grouped under the rather loose
term of physical reconstruction are capable of assisting in the
cure of patients in many indirect ways. As regards the treat-
ment of tuberculosis, a special point may be made of the recon-
struction contribution to the rest cure. Rest in bed and later
in chairs in the open air constitutes the standard treatment; at
least it is the one feature to which constant attention is required.
Now it has been amply demonstrated that for convalescing

BUSY HOURS ON AN OPEN-AIR WARD. Reconstruction Aide in center;
Nurse in background.

VOL. x.—30.

442 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

MAKING BASKETS AND TOYS ON THE OPEN PORCH IN THE SUN.

(non-febrile) bed cases and for all porch-chair cases the va-
rious forms of occupational therapy give more practical help
toward the enforcement of the rest program than anything yet
devised.

7. Psychotherapy.—Eminent tuberculosis specialists have
laid much stress upon the mental attitude of the patient as a
leading factor in treatment. While the value of this factor will
doubtless be estimated differently by different men, all are likely
to assign some importance to it. Experience shows that noth-
ing does more than congenial occupation toward establishing an
orderly state of mind, a healthy equanimity, an efficienti self-
control and a hopeful outlook toward the future. Results at this
point have been so emphatic as hardly to leave any room flor
question.

8. Morale.—There is to be considered further the question
of social psychology or the morale of the whole community. In
the Army hospitals morale has been a critical factor, and it is
certain to play some part in every sanitorium or colony. And
we may say without hesitation that well-directed occupation for
the hands and minds of patients does much to maintain morale.

9. General Education.—In the programs devised for the
Army hospitals, general education early became a leading fea-
ture. The principal reasons for this were three: (a) The oc-
cupation of the patient’s mind with interesting studies is fre-

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 443

quently the simplest form of occupational therapy; (b) The
extraordinary and unexpected deficiencies in general education
revealed in the Army made it seem a public duty to seize every
opportunity for improvement; (c) Especially the illiterate ele-
ment, which reached alarming figures, seemed to call for heroic
measures of correction. Beyond these cases lay a certain num-
ber of men of better education who were glad to take advanced
studies in commercial, scientific or semi-professional lines.
The work in general education therefore developed to consid-
erable proportions in the Army hospitals.

10. Americanization.—The alien soldiers, of whom there
were vast numbers, presented a most serious special problem.
Some of these were wholly illiterate, others could read their
_ native languages but could not read English, practically all of
them were very imperfectly schooled in elementary branches
and dangerously ignorant of American institutions. It could
hardly be denied that the government of the United States owed
a special duty toward these men, and had a special need to pro-
tect itself by the Americanization of all such men to the utmost.
A carefully planned and intensive effort was made therefore
toward this end.

THE RECONSTRUCTION STAFF

In each of the general and base hospitals designated for the

HANDCRAFTS FOR BED PATIENT.

444 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

TELDGRAPH SCHOOL ON AN OPEN-AIR WARD.

reconstruction work a special staff was organized under direc-
tion of the Division of Physical Reconstruction. The staff
was made up of four classes:

(a) Commissioned officers (those specially selected for this
work being commissioned in the Sanitary Corps).

(b) Enlisted men, Medical Corps, specially chosen for edu-
cational or technical qualifications and taken by voluntary in-
duction from deferred draft classifications. (A large propor-
tion of these men were eventually given a noncom status).

(c) Reconstruction Aides, women specially trained in crafts
or as teachers, and having a rather anomalous status some-
where between that of an Army nurse and a civil employee.

(d) Civil employees, both men and women, used in a great
variety of duties.

METHODS EMPLOYED

In pursuit of the various objectives already set forth a great
variety of expedients were adopted. Many methods were tried,
with varying success. A review of the principal experiments
seems necessary at this point.

1. Vocational Teaching in very mild forms was attempted
at General Hospital No. 16 in gardening, poultry culture, teleg-
raphy, typewriting, woodworking and automobile mechanics.
For this work the personnel was good, the physical equipment
meager.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 445

2. The General Schools.—Small groups, mostly placed on
wards and porches, were organized for instruction in general
subjects, such as reading, writing, arithmetic, history, book-
keeping, drawing, French, etc. The inst~uctors in these schools
were of rather extraordinary caliber.

3. Americanization School.—A special school was organized
to assist in the Americanization of foreign soldiers and partic-
ularly to secure the actual naturalization of every fit alien.
This work was facilitated by special act of Congress. At No.
16 the Chief of the Reconstruction Service was also made Chief
Naturalization Officer, thus coordinating the two undertakings.
First of all every effort was made to teach every alien soldier
to read and write the English language. All these men were
then taken into a class in civics which met daily with a par-
ticularly competent instructor. The central feature of these
daily meetings was open discussion of phases of government in
which the patients themselves had had experience, e. g., the
post office and what it does, the policeman and his duties, the
health department, the Army draft, the American schoo! sys-
tem, etc. The purpose of this instruction was to lead the men
to see what American institutions are like, how they are man-

AUTOMOBILB SHOP—THE WORK CONDUCTED OUT OF DOORS IN THE SUNLIGHT,

446 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

A GREEK PUPIL; ILLITDRATE, LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE AND BECAMD AN
AMERICAN CITIZEN.

aged and what is the real spirit of American government be-
hind them. Finally these men were examined by a special
agent of the Naturalization Bureau, were taken to the Federal
Court by their instructors and given the papers which made
them full-fledged American citizens.

4. Individual Instruction.—A considerable number of pa-
tients who could not, for one reason or another, come into these
school groups were given daily instruction on their home wards
by enlisted men or reconstruction aides. This work was reason-
ably efficient.

5. Crafts Teaching.—As the reconstruction program de-
veloped the largest single enterprise was the teaching and
supervision of handcrafts on the wards. This work was wholly
in the hands of reconstruction aides. The most popular crafts
were hand weaving (colonial mats), rake knitting, bead weav-
ing, leather working, basketry, manufacture of wooden toys,
wood carving, simple metal working.

6. Hospital Service.—A certain proportion of patients are
judged by their ward surgeons to be able to perform various
necessary duties about the hospital, such as sweeping floors,
helping in the kitchen, etc. Work of this sort has been assigned
on prescription and recorded as a part of the reconstruction

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 447

program. When properly supervised it can be readily fitted
into a scheme of graduated exercise.

7. Military Drill—wWhile the war was still in progress and
the effort to return men to military service was still strong, a
* Reconstruction Detachment” was organized at No. 16 into
which were brought all men approaching recovery and destined
soon to be returned to duty. Such men were given daily mili-
tary drills, were present at retreat, etc. This routine was con-
tinued in a slightly modified form after the signing of the
armistice.

8. Graduated Walks.—At some of the tuberculosis hospitals,
notably at No. 8, extended use was made of graduated walks as
a part of the reconstruction program. To a less extent this fea-
ture was developed at No. 16.

9. Recreation.—Athletic games are capable of contributing
very largely to the restoration of physical function in cases
where ordinary muscular functions are impaired. Thus in
orthopedic hospitals the extensive development of athletic
sports was natural. Such forms of recreation may also assist
materially in keeping up morale. In the treatment of tuber-
culosis, however, active games have to be prohibited; but mild

A CITIZENSHIP CLASS. These alien soldiers all received their naturalization papers.

448 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

inactive diversions and games upon the wards are encouraged
as a morale measure. For reasons of morale also the Recon-
struction Service cooperated at all times with the various wel-
fare agencies in a general provision of recreation for the post.

10. Social Service.—On March 6, 1919, the Surgeon Gen-
eral’s Office sent to this hospital a special reconstruction aide
designated for “‘ medical social service.” The field of her opera-
tions was most problematic, but the incumbent proved to be a
well-trained and tactful woman who made herself distinctly
useful in many ways. In general her duties were to collect per-
sonal histories of all patients as required on the Surgeon Gen-
eral’s Office Form 58, to put patients in touch with the facilities
of the Reconstruction Service, to see that every case of need of
every sort was passed to the appropriate official or welfare
agency, to follow each patient through the hospital and to see
that his case was cleared up at all points when he left.

CRITICISM OF RESULTS

Having outlined the purpose of the reconstruction work and
the methods adopted for reaching those objectives, it is now
possible to make an appraisal of results.

1. Return of Men to Military Duty.—The work had not gone
far enough prior to the signing of the armistice to have given
definite results in the return of many tuberculous men to mili-
tary service. It is obvious that such returns would necessarily
be slow and comparatively few, and that the majority of the
men returned would be fit only for limited service. Yet there
was considerable promise of results within these limits.

2. Vocational re-education, as has already been pointed out,
has proved to be generally impracticable under hospital condi-
tions, and the burden of this responsibility has been taken over
by the Federal Board for Vocational Education. Experience
seems to indicate that a few cases in civil sanitoria may be
found where a change of occupation seems advisable and in
which the beginnings of vocational retraining can be made dur-
ing the sanitarium period. Inasmuch as the cure of tubercu-
losis frequently involves the adoption of an entirely new plan of
life, with all its psychological readjustments, and since vocation
must bulk large in the adjustment of most men, it is obviously
desirable to meet these problems as a part of the treatment and
during the period of sanitarium reconstruction.

3. Graduated Exercise.—Avoiding still any argument as to
the therapeutic value of graduated exercise, the possibilities of
auto-intoxication, and all that endless debate, we may reiterate
the statement that such exercise is perfectly feasible as a part

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 449

- of the reconstruction program. However if it is to have any
practical application it must have much more constant medical
supervision than could be given to it in any of the military hos-
pitals. This supervision must gauge the whole daily sum of
exercise for each patient, not merely the relatively light work
of an hour in the garden. This criticism plainly applies with
equal force to the prescription of graduated walks. Such reg-
ular walking exercises may possibly be of considerable value
to tuberculosis patients, but not unless they are supervised with
great care.

4. General EHducation.—The general teaching given in the
reconstruction schools was apparently of much practical value.
Indeed it is clear that more of this work should have been done.
Many patients who sorely needed help missed the opportunity.
Possibly more compulsion or greater tact in handling these
patients would have accomplished more. The work was most
needed in the most elementary subjects; but much more might
have been done to the general profit in commercial subjects,
particularly typewriting and simple bookkeeping. The work
succeeded best when given to small groups or to individuals
upon the ward porches.

5. Americanization.—The work for the Americanization of
alien soldiers has been one of the most fascinating and inspir-
ing undertakings in the whole reconstruction enterprise. Its
value can not be doubted. It has met with distinct success.
‘While it has been peculiarly appropriate to the Army, it has
such a general social value that it may seem almost indis-
pensable in future tuberculosis work. Tuberculosis in our
country is likely to be always partly a problem of the foreign
population, of un-Americanized, uneducated, ill-paid social
groups; so that whatever may be done to assist in general edu-
cation and in Americanization cuts toward the very root of the
disease.

6. Handcrafts.—The striking success of the handcrafts in
all the tuberculosis hospitals makes it necessary to consider this
branch of the work with some detail. First of all it must be
seen that the success of the work was due in considerable part
to the personal attractions of the reconstruction aides. This is
offered as a cool scientific statement without any implications.
The women secured for this service during the war period were
nothing less than remarkable in their high character, their
wholesome behavior and their inspiring personality. In this
work personality counts very heavily.

But the character of the work itself makes it highly effectual
to the purposes in view. It is interesting; it occupies the hands

450 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

and mind; it is not tiring; it can be taken up or laid aside at
will; periods of work alternate pleasantly with periods of re-
laxation; the finished product has demonstrable value. It must
be recognized as a fact that the great majority of patients are
not capable of any intense of prolonged mental attention. The
handcrafts, however, reach their minds through their fingers,
the shortest and surest route.

The educational value of these crafts has not been suffi-
ciently recognized. Education is too generally regarded as a
wholly mental process. This is far from true, yet if it were the
literal fact, the handcrafts might still be the most effective
means of arousing mental activity. Work upon a bead-loom,
for example, requires a certain concentration of attention, and
control of attention is one of the foundations of all education.
It requires further a close coordination of the eye, of delicate
muscular movement and of mental direction. This cooperation
of mind and body is in itself education in one of its highest and
best forms.

Moreover the pupil in handcrafts learns something of de-
sign and of honest construction. Both these items are of serious
value to every hand worker whether he be carpenter, tinsmith,
weaver, tool-maker, or farmer. It is a great defect of modern
society that it depends too much on machinery. Everything we
touch is machine-made. The common laborer in particular
hardly ever sees or touches anything but machine-made objects.
He begins life in a machine-made go-cart, eats canned food from
a machine-made table with a stamped steel knife, fork and
spoon, dies in the hospital in a machine-made bed, is buried in
a machine-made coffin and marked with a machine-made tomb-
stone. When such a man once makes with his own hands a
good basket or leather pocketbook he begins to realize the value
of honest craftsmanship—the place of personal responsibility
in the day’s labor. This is a most fundamental element in
human psychology now largely lost in a mechanical world where
objects are made by machines, not by men. The men only feed
the machines and are themselves controlled by another social
machine called a labor union.

Still further, though less important, it must be pointed out
that the objects made by the patients taking handcrafts have an
immediate commercial value. They are readily saleable and at
good prices. The objection sometimes raised against the work
of tuberculosis patients was conspicuously absent from our ex-
perience at No. 16. The patient who turns out a product which
sells for real money experiences a stiffening of morale which is

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 451

of the utmost value. No matter how discouraged he may have
been he can no longer feel himself completely down and out.

This feature of the work, the sale of products of occupa-
tional therapy, demands careful handling, but it is worth all the
trouble required.

7. Hospital Service.—Experience at Hospital No. 16, sup-
ported by the experience of others, shows that hospital service
is a very difficult form of exercise to administer. The diffi-
culties in fact are so great as to make the effort inexpedient ex-
cept in a minority of cases. It seems probable that in civil hos-
pitals where simpler relations obtain amongst patients and per-
sonnel more can be expected. Especially if a cash value can be
placed on the service of the patient and this amount subtracted
from fees which the patient must pay, or some other arrange-
ment can be made so that he feels he is being fairly remunerated
for his work, reasonably good results may be expected. This
form of reconstruction work, however, is the most difficult of
all to manage and the least effective for all purposes, so that we
can hardly feel that those sanitaria which have made it the lead-
ing feature of their reconstruction programs have fairly
broached the possibilities in this field.

8. Recreation.—While athletic sports are hardly admissible
to a program of tuberculosis therapy, other forms of recreation
are highly desirable. In every hospital, sanitarium or convales-
cent colony adequate provision should be made of wholesome
recreative recreation. This matter is of such importance that
it must not be left to chance. The recreation should be planned,
directed, carefully supervised and coordinated with all the other
therapeutic measures which we are grouping here under the
rather loose general term of reconstruction. In the military
hospitals these recreation activities have been divided amongst
several volunteer welfare organizations, an arrangement ob-
viously impracticable under other circumstances.

9. Welfare Work.—Inevitably a certain amount of welfare
work or social service was done by the Reconstruction Service
at No. 16. The more definite undertakings of this sort were
made at the hands of the medical social service aide sent from
Washington for that purpose. The great bulk of all such work
however was done by the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., and the
K. of C., not forgetting the official chaplains. A most consid-
erable amount of such work has to be done at every civil hos-
pital. Our experience shows that it can be effectively admin-
istered as a part of the reconstruction program and indicates
pretty definitely that this is the best way in which to direct it.

452 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

SUMMARY OF RESULTS

This experiment in the application of reconstruction ideas
to the tuberculosis hospitals of the military group covered
something over one year. During that time great changes oc-
curred, not only in external conditions but in our intellectual
conceptions of the purposes and methods. These changes have
followed one another with bewildering rapidity. There was no
leisure for study, reflection and generalization. These expe-
riences remain yet largely undigested. There are many ob-
servations which still seem to contradict one another. Under
such circumstances any statement of conclusions must be of-
fered with great care. However a few points seem to be suf-
ficiently clear to bear statement.

1. The reconstruction program has definite value in the
tuberculosis hospitals. Every one seems to agree to that. Its
chief utility lies in the assistance which it gives to the rest cure
and the favorable mental attitude which it induces in the
patient. .

2. The work done in lines of general education and Amer-
icanization has also had considerable value.

3. The most successful feature of the program has been the
occupational therapy or crafts work on the wards.

4. To make the work as successful as it should be, strict
medical supervision is necessary. As a matter of administra-
tion, however, this supervision may be largely delegated to re-
construction officers as was done at General Hospital No. 8.

5. The experiment has been valuable, has probably been
worth its cost, and much of the experience gained can be passed
along to civil institutions.

THE FUTURE

Indeed this look into the future is what chiefly justifies the
whole experiment. Tuberculosis we have always with us, and
the war against it promises to be a much longer affair than the
little flurry with the Central Powers. The treatment of tuber-
culosis in sanitoria and colonies of various sorts seems likely to
be increasingly important, and in all such circumstances some
form of reconstruction ought to be utilized. What does the
Army experiment suggest for adoption into the peace-time war-
fare against tuberculosis?

1. In any given institution the work ought to begin on a
small scale and be allowed to grow as its value is demonstrated
and as means are available.

2. In a great majority of cases this beginning can best be

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 453

made with one first-class reconstruction aide, who must be a
woman of experience, sound character and attractive personality.

3. Other sides, male and female, may be added as circum-
stances warrant. A male director should be appointed when-
ever the extent of the work justifies, and this director should be
an educator rather than a physician. This distinction is im-
portant.

4. From the beginning there should be combined in this one
service all the reconstruction functions of the hospital, 7. e., all
social service, teaching, direction of crafts, supervision of re-
creation, etc., including everything now known either as re-
construction or welfare work.

5. In general the work should begin in the wards, and only
after there are positive advantages in sight should there be de-
veloped any separate workshops or schools. Exception may be
made for schools maintained primarily for the protection and
observation of children of tuberculous parentage.

6. Hospital service as a form of reconstruction must be
handled with great care, and should be presented in such a light
as to seem to offer a direct financial advantage to the patient.

7. Gardening, poultry culture, bee-keeping and other light
forms of agriculture may be used where good physical equip-
ment and good teachers are available, but the medical super-
vision must be exceptionally careful.

8. The work must be at all times under the full control of
the medical service, but best results may be expected if the de-
tails of all reconstruction activities are left entirely to the re-
construction workers. The value of experienced educational
workers in this field seems to be fairly demonstrated.

9. Arrangements should be made in most hospitals for sell-
ing the products made by patients. These arrangements are
important; they may also be difficult, and they should therefore
be managed with considerable prudence.

THE COST

Every one who considers the introduction of reconstruction
work into civil sanitaria must early face the question of cost.

To begin the work as recommended with one first class
woman aide will cost approximately $1,500 a year for her sal-
ary. There should be a fund of about $500 for initial equip-
ment. In the judgment of the writer it will be entirely feasible
in most institutions to make the products of occupational
therapy pay the cost of raw materials, probably something over,
so that steady expenditures on this account need not be antici-
pated.

454 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

It may be estimated that each good reconstruction worker
can care for from 50 to 100 patients. Indeed one single worker
could do a world of good amongst 500 patients, but a ratio of
1750 or 2 100Ns sater:

If workshops or outdoor schools or other buildings must be
provided they present another item of expense, but this item is
so variable as to escape estimate.

POST-SANITARIUM APPLICATIONS

The spirit and methods of reconstruction furthermore seem
capable of projection even beyond the sanitarium in the treat-
ment of tuberculosis. It is well known among tuberculosis
workers that one of the most critical periods in the cure comes
at the point of discharge from the sanitarium. The patient
passes abruptly from a regimen of rest (or comparative rest)
to a full day’s work, from the wholesome surroundings of the
sanitarium to the old home, sometimes unsanitary to a degree,
from constant medical supervision to no supervision at all.
Worst of all he feels compelled to do what others do, whether
that be hard lifting in the day’s work or staying out late at a
dance. The results are seen in a deplorable percentage of re-
lapses. :

It has seemed that much might be gained if this transition
could be made more gradual. The one crucial point usually lies
in light part-time work at which the patient can become par-
tially self-supporting and in which he can progress safely to
heavier labor and longer hours as he gains in strength. In
short the problem is one of graduated exercises, of occupational
readjustments, and follows logically upon the reconstruction
work of the sanitarium period.

The solution which appeals to many minds as promising for
trial lies in the provision of industrial colonies, institutions
which would lie between the sanitarium and general industrial
life. A very interesting study of this proposition has been pub-
lished recently by Dr. H. A. Pattinson.2. The present writer
prepared an outline project running along similar lines which
was considerably discussed at General Hospital No. 16 by the
medical and reconstruction staffs. The outline is herewith re-
produced as suggesting a further extension of reconstruction
ideas to the everlasting fight against tuberculosis in civil life.

RECONSTRUCTION TOWN
Sketch Project for a Village devoted to the Care and Rehabili-
tation of Persons recovering from Tuberculosis

2 Federal Board Vocational Education Bulletin, Series 6, No. 32, June,
1919.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY 455

1. Purpose.—Primarily to supply post-sanitarium care for
persons recovering from tuberculosis, and to effect their full
and permanent rehabilitation, physical, economic and social.

2. General Scheme.—To provide the facilities necessary to
this purpose in a special village or villages. Preferably such
centers will be created de novo in selected locations. The essen-
tial facilities would appear to be:

(a) A rather full and paternalistic control of industries, exer-
cised perhaps by a director of industries.

(b) Adequate medical supervision, probably exercised through
a public dispensary and clinic.

(c) An intelligent social service.

3. Physical Setting.—Such a colony should be located within
reasonable distance of large centers of population yet outside
the urban districts. The village should be designed by the best
specialists in modern town-planning and industrial housing,
and such plans should conform clearly to the special purposes
to be served.

4. Location.—Sites for such colonies might be found within
or upon the borders of the national and state forests. Certain
advantages would derive from such location, in particular the
following:

(a) Large tracts of suitable land are easily available.

(b) The surroundings would be wholesome, sanitary and at-
tractive.

(c) The forests supply the foundation for permanent indus-
tries especially adapted to the needs of such a colony.
This is a most important consideration.

(d) Necessary conditions of land tenure and administration
would assist toward the somewhat paternalistic control
essential to success.

5. The Family Unit.—Since this plan assumes the pro-
tracted—in many cases permanent—residence of convalescents,
it must provide for their families. In fact an essential feature
of the service contemplated is to transplant infected families to
a new environment where the children may be protected.

6. Hconomic Foundation.—Industries should be of such a
nature and managed in such a way as to provide graduated
labor, under safe and wholesome conditions, to convalescents
and recovered patients in all stages. Light occupational therapy
could be given to chair patients or those still in their homes;
light work in special shops for short periods to patients more
fully recovered ; full-time work to those capable of it. All would
be under constant medical inspection. (The small wood-work-

456 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

ing industries seem particularly adapted to this end.) Ob-
viously these industries must be organized and supervised with
a view to the rehabilitation of men and women rather than to
the exploitation of man power or of the forests.

7. Other Employments.—The economic ideal would be found
in a completely autonomous and self-supporting community.
Beside the basic industries there would be many correlative
functions open to convalescents and to recovered persons.
These would include laundry, garage, telegraph and telephone
service, shop-keeping, road mending, etc. In particular should
opportunity be available for small farming, truck growing,
poultry keeping and other food-producing enterprises as a part
of the community development.

8. Social Engineering.—It would be clearly necessary to
provide schools, religious opportunities and specialized facili-
ties for recreation. These should be directed by competent per-
sons and definitely coordinated with the therapeutic and pro-
phylactic control.

9. Financial Support.—Such a community might eventually
become largely self-supporting. At its inception, however, con-
siderable sums of money would be required. It would probably
be necessary to look to private sources for these funds rather
than to federal or state support.

10. General Control.—Might be exercised through a special
board of trustees, through the National Tuberculosis Associa-
tion, or in some similar way. Some form of self-government
for the community should be devised compatible with the cen-
tral control of essential features.

ACADEMIC UNREST 457

ACADEMIC UNREST AND COLLEGE CONTROL

By Professor J. J. STEVENSON
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

REAT unrest exists, for many reasons, in academic circles,
(> but the most disturbing protests are against efforts to
control expression of opinion by college professors, which are
denounced as not merely infringements upon the right of free
speech, but also as attacks upon ‘‘ academic freedom,” certain
to bring about disaster in the near future. The general unrest
may be regarded by some persons as manifestations of the
growing unwillingness to endure restraint of any kind; yet one
must not dismiss it as simply a phase of the anarchistie tend-
ency in all classes of society; the matter is of vital importance;
it involves complex problems, affecting the usefulness of our
colleges and secondary schools.

A man, sole occupant of a far-off island, is untrammeled
save by physical conditions; but in a community no such free-
dom can exist. Each man has rights, but, in exercising them,
he must not interfere with the rights of other men. This law
is recognized as obligatory especially upon men in responsible
positions, who, in the nature of the case, may not do many
things, which an ordinary citizen may do. They have con-
sented to curtailment of freedom because they prefer honor or
emolument. When a man becomes employee of any type, be he
bank president or sorter of rags on a dump, he voluntarily de-
prives himself of rights that he may gain something more to
be desired. This is equally true of professional men, since they,
in some sense, are employees. They make the surrender with-
out compulsion; no man is compelled to become clergyman,
physician, teacher or lawyer. He is untrammeled in choice;
the world is wide and he may gain a livelihood in any one of
many directions.

But there have always been college teachers who refuse to
concede that they have renounced the exercise of any personal
rights; men, whose acts assert the conviction that a college ap-
pointment confers the right to be a free lance in discussions
relating to morals, social matters, politics or religion. Yet no
one has suggested that such appointment endows a man with
omniscience or even with ordinary common sense. But col-

VOL. x.—3l.

458 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

leges are under bonds, which must be kept in mind not only by
the trustees, but also by all employees, from the president, down
or up. Gifts, usually more or less conditional, have been re-
ceived from donors and similar gifts are sought from others.
The greater part of the older colleges were founded as denomi-
national schools or in close relations with a group of religious
bodies. The usefulness of a college is dependent on the good-
will and confidence of the community, which is apt to be con-
servative in educational matters—for, however radical in opin-
ion the ordinarily intelligent man may be, he rarely desires to
have his children begin where he expects to end. As holders of
trust funds and as responsible for training of youth, trustees
of colleges are under obligations, which honorable men can not
ignore—and those who seek appointment as college teachers
should bear this in mind. Reference to such permanent obliga-
tions seems to give pain to some advocates of “ academic free-
dom,” as savoring of vulgar ‘‘ commercialism ”’ and as unworthy
of consideration by dwellers in an intellectual atmosphere.
But commonplace honesty ought to be at least as important in
the conduct of college affairs as in ordinary life.

“Independent thinking ” does not mean advance or original-
ity in thought; it may be only erratic thinking. Opposition to
prevailing opinions is no proof that the man is a “reformer”;
his sincerity in independent thinking has nothing to do with
the matter. He may be convinced that marriage is merely a
survival of property rights; that a trade unionist, punished for
dynamiting houses and imperiling lives, is a martyr in behalf
of human rights; that ownership of land is positive proof of
crime in the past or present; that the whole organization of
society is based on injustice by the few; that the only hope for
this world is overthrow of all conditions now regarded as nor-
mal; but this sincerity gives him no right to demand that the
college retain him and pay a salary that he may conduct a
propaganda, at its expense, inside or outside of the classroom.

But there are matters which too rarely are considered care-
fully. Colleges do not exist in order to petrify intellectual con-
ditions, or to prevent increase of knowledge; no sane man would
maintain that restrictions should be placed on investigation,
for such procedure would be disastrous. A teacher, who is not
a genuine investigator, becomes a mere lesson-hearer, a pur-
veyor of second-hand opinions, as expressed in the text-book.
To be efficient in the classroom, one must be a coherent thinker ;
but that mode of thinking becomes confirmed only after patient
search for the truth, diligent comparison of arguments on both

ACADEMIC UNREST 459

sides of the questions involved. This type of work should be
done without consideration of possible results, as truth alone is
the object sought. When the writer entered college, more than
sixty years ago, the respectable community knew that scientific
man and infidel were practically synonymous terms—astron-
omers alone being possible exceptions. But chemists, physi-
cists, geologists and naturalists held close to their work; their
discoveries came in quick succession and, in great part, were
accepted as genuine. The world soon recognized that the preva-
lent conception respecting scientific men was born not of knowl-
edge, but of prejudice, that it was merely an echo of the meta-
physicist’s dictum, that study of material things unfits a man
for contemplation of spiritual things. This was the outcome
of untiring, patient investigation, of which the results were
published, with rare exceptions, in a judicial manner, without
reference to misrepresentation by opponents. Such work must
be encouraged not only in natural science, but also along other
lines of study. There are problems in psychology, economics
and sociology, which are perplexing to the last degree, as the
facts are obtainable only with difficulty and the evidence is ap-
parently conflicting. Here, however, the temptation to publish
incomplete work is too great for men anxious for recognition
by the reading part of the community. Startling hypotheses
are apt to be published as if they were final results. Such
hasty publication should be discouraged as emphatically as
patient, judicial investigation should be encouraged. To deter-
mine the border line between investigation and mere compila-
tion of so-called statistical facts is difficult—it is not easy to
determine when veal becomes beef; but there must be a deter-
mining body.

Equally perplexing are questions relating to participation
in political and religious discussions. The opinions now main-
tained by the writer are wholly different from those which he
maintained twenty-five years ago, the change being due as
much to actual experience as to wide observation. It is not
wise for college professors to take active part in such discus-
sions; their calling unfits them.

In the class room, they are regarded by students as prac-
tically infallible and, in time, they are apt to become convinced
that the students are correct in their estimate. Too often the
nature of their studies renders them self-centered and, except
in a few departments, they are not brought into such contact
with the business world as could satisfy them that they are not
a superior race. This positiveness is only too manifest in the

460 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

cases where intellectual force or the exigencies of conflicting
elements have put them into prominent places, for there they
exhibit a strange indifference to public opinion. It would be
well if professors abstained from active participation in public
affairs and devoted their energies to work in their special de-
partments. But such limitations should apply equally to all
members of the staff; the president should not be permitted to
be Oliver Twist for one political party, unless a professor be
permitted to be the Oliver Twist for an opposing party, if he so
desire. The chief objection to prominence of this kind is that it
is due to the prestige of the college and in very small part to
the man’s ability. The respectability of the college is capital-
ized to cover defects of the machine-managers. Usually, the
innate sense of propriety determines well the extent to which
one may go, but, certainly, there have been, as there will, be,
occasions when college authorities must decide whether or not
they will permit expenditure of college funds to aid a man’s
efforts to gain prominence in church or in state.

It is well to note the strange tendency to ignore the fact
that, speaking legally, all persons receiving salary from a cor-
poration are employees. This assertion has been resented bit-
terly by some writers, who hold that college teachers are ap-
pointees, not employees, and that the corporation, having
confirmed an appointment, has no authority to remove the ap-
pointee. If such were the condition, the college trustees would
do well to seek the heirs of donors and to return the gifts, as the
trusts can not be fulfilled. But the claim is without basis. The
argument that the President of the United States appoints
justices of the Supreme Court but can not remove them is not
accurate. The President nominates, but the Senate confirms or
rejects. The Senate is the appointing authority, and it is the
jury before which an impeached judge is tried. Similarly in a
college, a committee or the president nominates candidates, but
the trustees appoint or reject. No other condition is possible,
as financial agreements must be made.

A notion seems to prevail among teachers that peculiar
sacredness is attached to their profession. This perhaps is of
medieval origin, for in most of Europe, teaching was one of the
many duties required of clericals. In this country, the older
colleges began as preparatory schools for the Christian min-
istry and were in charge of ministers. Perhaps, the wretched
salaries paid to clergymen and college teachers are due to medi-
eval conceptions, for clericals in the dominant church were
celibates, supposed to need little of this world’s comfort. But

ACADEMIC UNREST 461

there is nothing sacred about the profession of college teaching;
no reason exists why an “appointment” should be so guarded
as to render extremely difficult the removal of an incompetent
or indifferent teacher. Professorships should not be havens of
rest for the slothful or negligent. In other professions men
must prove themselves competent or must fail.

While recognizing the right and the duty of trustees to re-
move slothful, incompetent or injurious professors, one must
insist that there are cogent reasons why a certain degree of
security must be assured to the professor; and these have been
conceded in the better grade of colleges, so that one receiving a
final appointment has a, so to say, civil service hold upon the
position. Preparation is long and costly; the salary, at best, is
meager; promotion is very slow; while a man’s efficiency should
increase as he grows older in the work. The honest worker
must feel that, as long as he does his work faithfully, his posi-
tion will be secure. The interests of colleges demand this
security because the teaching staff is the essential portion; its
members have been chosen to do the work for which the col-
lege exists. There have been comparatively few cases in which
abrupt or unjust “removal for cause” has occurred, but, un-
fortunately, they are not unknown. Trustees are almost iso-
lated from individual professors in our larger institutions and
are liable to be influenced by opinions of an officer who, honest
perhaps, is certainly human, and is not apt to love those who
do not see eye to eye with him in matters of policy. Unques-
tionably, some recent events have led thoughtful men to feel
that radical changes must be made, if proper working condi-
tions are to continue.

The American college is a legal body authorized to conduct an
educational work without pecuniary profit to the incorporators.
The trustees are not expected to manage details of that work,
though they are responsible for them as much as for the finan-
cial details. The corporation employs a number of supposedly
qualified persons to care directly for the teaching, one being
designated president. The college thus consists of trustees
the faculty, with the students, who are raw material to be fash-
ioned into finished product. A university differs from a college
only in that it consists of several schools, each with its own
faculty. All machinery necessary to effective working appears
to be provided in this organization, but, naturally, some adjust-
ments have to be made in most cases to secure smooth
operation.

Originally, the trustees were intended to act as “ nursing

462 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

fathers,” guarding the orthodoxy of the professors, who were
dependent on the fees for salary; if any deficit came, the faculty
had to look after it. As a rule the trustees had great respect
for the professors and cultivated their acquaintance assidu-
ously. In later years, the great increase in property and the
greater broadening in scope of work, with consequent enlarge-
ment of faculties, have made it almost impossible to maintain
the intimacy formerly existing between trustees and pro-
fessors; one is justified in saying that in some of the larger
universities, there are trustees who can not tell the names of the
oldest professors in the several faculties. No work can be con-
ducted properly amid such conditions—a close personal bond
must exist between trustees and professors. The faculty
should have general control of educational affairs and the
trustees should have general control of financial affairs. But
there is a borderland where the duties overlap; it is necessary
that the trustees consent to changes in curriculum and methods
and, at times, the faculty must be consulted in reference to
expenditures and buildings.

The president is supposed to be a bond, as he is usually a
trustee; but, unfortunately, instead of bridging the gap, he is
apt to convert it into a wide chasm, over which he may fly in a
private aeroplane. Action by trustees has placed in his hands
control of many matters, which should be delegated by them to
no one. The self-perpetuating character of the board, so gen-
erally existing, makes possible for a shrewd man to fill vacan-
cies with persons of his own choosing. In far too many in-
stances, the president was not selected because of fitness to have
oversight of the educational work; he is no bond between trus-
tees and faculties and, under present conditions, he can not
become one; everything tends to make him autocratic, as though
the college were his personal property.

Each faculty in a university should be represented on the
board of trustees by its dean, ex officio and without vote. This
officer should not be selected by the trustees, but should be
elected by the faculty in secret ballot, that he may be truly
representative. This, however, is not sufficient, a closer bond
is essential. A joint committee of trustees and professors
should be chosen by each board for each school, two trustees
and two professors, with the president as chairman, ex officio.
All matters affecting any school should be referred to its com-
mittee, and no action should be taken by the trustees until after
a report from the committee has been presented. Such an
arrangement would bring trustees and professors into definite

ACADEMIC UNREST 463

relations, would prevent the former from becoming nominal and
would increase the dignity of the office. Such committees exist
in some universities, but they are not what they should be as,
in most cases, the members are selected by the trustees, the
faculty having no voice in the appointments.

These propositions are based on the assumption that trus-
tees, president and professors are well qualified for their re-
spective positions. Unfortunately, this assumption is not
wholly correct. Reformation in college affairs must be begun
by complete change in method of selecting men for appointment
to the several offices. The writer desires to offer some
suggestions.

The board of trustees is responsible not only for the finan-
cial affairs, but also for the teaching work, the latter being the
business for which the corporation was formed. This com-
bination of responsibilities calls for strong men, whose hearts
are in the work. One might well imagine that a liberal propor-
tion of professors should be in the board, as they understand
the nature of the work, while their success in rearing families
on small salaries proves no slight ability in finance. The writer
knows of more than one instance, where a university was saved
by the faculty, after a board of able lawyers, clergymen and
business men had given up the attempt in despair. But this
type of representation has never been tried in the United
States, though it has been remarkably successful in Scotland.
In this country the office of college trustee seems to be regarded
generally as a post of honor not of responsibility. 'There may
be no personal responsibility before the law, but for that reason
the moral responsibility is greater. Eminence in professional
life or success in business affairs is no evidence, in itself, of
fitness; no more is possession of wealth or a reputation for
generosity. Men chosen to trusteeship should be familiar with
the nature and needs of college work and they should have time
as well as will to serve the institution. No man with proper
self-respect would consent to be a nominal trustee; he would not
endeavor to shirk responsibility by transferring his duties to a
president. Any trustee who has not time and inclination to do
hard work should resign, that a proper man may have the place.

The office of college president, anomalous in many ways,
was an outgrowth of rapid expansion after the Civil War. In
earlier times, the president was the mouthpiece of the faculty,
over which he presided. Now, however, he is the executive
officer of the corporation, general manager of all operations,
financial or otherwise and in many cases he is member of the

464 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

trustees. The crying need of every college is money and more
money for “expansion” and for buildings; and the president is
expected to find this money, as well as to advertise the college,
so that the number of students may be increased and the need
for still more money may be emphasized. The condition is bad;
the duties are unrelated and should not be assigned to one man.
The college or university president should be concerned chiefly
with educational affairs, an ex officio member of each faculty
and a genuine bond between them all. He should be chosen
because of proved fitness to superintend the general internal
affairs of a college; because of known probity in speech and
action; and he should be a teacher earnestly in sympathy with
the teacher and his work. Happily, there have been, as there
are still, some presidents of this type, who care less for “ex-
pansion” than for honest work. Securing of money should be
the task of a special officer.

Trustees and their duties are important, but professors and
their duties are more important. If the faculty be incompetent,
the college can not do the work for which it was founded, even
though the lists of students increase greatly. No shoe factory
could claim public respect and confidence if it merely succeed in
foisting on the community a great quantity of inferior shoes,
labeled as the best. The type of output is the test; if it is to
be good, the workmen must be good and honest.

To secure proper men the college positions must be inviting;
but they are not inviting to strong men. There is little pecuni-
ary inducement; a life of leanness is the prospect. Formerly
there were inducements for men who cared less for money than
for opportunity to devote their lives to research. For such
men, the long vacation and the few hours of teaching were all-
important. But vacation and “literary leisure” no longer exist
for the younger men in our great universities or for the greater
proportion of the older men in the others. Summer schools
increase the total roll of students and the fees received by
teachers help to meet payments for the necessaries of life.
“Expansion” of course and multiplication of schools without
multiplication of professors have increased the hours of teach-
ing. Even in many of the larger institutions the hours of
work are scattered throughout the day; too often, the interven-
ing hours are occupied in committee work, for the machinery
has become complicated. Vitality is sapped and little energy or
will-power remains for genuine study. If a man persist in
research, his associates may soon have opportunity to lament
the untimely end of a promising investigator. Certainly, the

ACADEMIC UNREST 465

old-time inducements no longer exist, and it is becoming in-
creasingly difficult to secure able, ambitious young men as
teachers. If present conditions continue, our colleges will soon
cease to be nurseries of science and literature.

The board of trustees ought not to choose men to serve as
professors; ordinarily, its members are not familiar with the
requirements and know little about the duties which a teacher
must perform. Under present conditions, the president of a
college or university should not be authorized to make selections
or to present nominations. He has no time to investigate the
claims of candidates and, in too many cases, he is not competent.
No one would suggest that he select professors in law, medicine
or finance, yet he is thought competent to choose college pro-
fessors in arts and science, because he had taken a college
course somewhere and perhaps had taught during a year or
two in a secondary school, to secure means for a course in a
professional school. His ideal of college work and his concep-
tion of successful work frequently differ greatly from those of
the genuine teacher.

The primary selection of candidates should be made by a
committee of professors in allied departments, aided, if possible,
by competent men outside of the college. This committee
should select two candidates to be recommended to the joint
committee on the school concerned, by which a special investiga-
tion should be made and a choice made for nomination and con-
firmation by the board of trustees. A complicated process, one
may say, but an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of
cure, even in college circles. It is all-important to avoid
saddling a college with hasty injudicious or not just men. A
modification would be necessary in selection of assistants and
instructors, but in no case should the decision be left to the
caprice of one man.

The suggestions are: close contact of trustees and pro-
fessors is essential; where several schools exist, an intimate
bond should unite the faculties; trustees and professors should
be selected most carefully; the work in each department should
be supervised and all should know that a college is not an
asylum for the indifferent, incompetent or slothful; a just
salary should be paid and the importance of opportunity for
study should be recognized; zeal for increased number of
students should be discouraged and quality, not quantity, of the
output should be the aim.

466 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

PHILOSOPHY IN THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE

By Professor A. H. LLOYD
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

HILOSOPHY is often charged with being careless of sci-
ence or even with being deliberately superior to science
and anything scientific. Among scientists the very word
philosophy may even be a word of offense. In the name of ali
that is right and true and lovely and of good report the devotee
of science is warned that above all things he must not get
philosophical. To quote the Scriptures—somewhat at a dis-
tance—he can not serve science and philosophy. Simply, phi-
losophy is unscientific.

As to this charge Lord Byron has happened to speak
wisely :*

And after all what is a lie? ’T is but

The truth in masquerade; and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.

Philosophy is indeed unscientific; but also philosophy has
long and faithfully been in the service of science. How long?
Ever since science began. How faithfully? Let me not say,
lest I seem to boast. Only, in a word as quaint as appropriate,
philosophy has been true handmaid of science, serving her
mistress well if not always apparently. Philosophy most cer-
tainly, being so loyal a servant, would not speak rudely or dis-
respectfully ; but many another faithful maid has said of her
mistress: “I just tell you, it ’s me as has taught her how!”
Philosophy’s service of science, then, has not been exactly
slavish or conventional; but it has been real and, as does
happen even in service, it has been instructive.

Of course philosophy has served other disciplines besides
science; theology, for example, as will be pointed out here in
due time; but its service as handmaid of science, besides coming
in an interesting historical sequence after that of theology,
obviously relates to the subject of this present essay. Also, as
it is finding expression at the present time, especially if the
present be appreciated in the light of the historical approach,
it has special significance for certain tendencies of the time.
In her service of science, furthermore, philosophy proves every

1Don Juan, Canto xi, stanza 37.

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 467

century or two to have changed her mistress, leaving one sci-
ence to go to another. Her fickleness, however, like her uncon-
ventional way, in no sense detracts from the interest and
importance of the relationship. On the contrary, when under-
stood, it throws light on the real nature and value of the service
itself and also it provides any one, who can and will read it,
a most absorbing story.

Now I can not set up any claim to being a good story-teller ;
but I shall make an attempt, trusting that my own interest will
supply some inspiration. Before beginning, however, it seems
wise that I say something of the general character of phi-
losophy’s service of any discipline. Thus this service is—how
shall I put it?—-wholly characteristic, of course; I suppose, like
that of any handmaid with her own inevitable manner, brogue,
accent, atmosphere. Being what she is, philosophy, however
servile, must always be concerned, whether quietly or assert-
ively, with the universe, not just with some special field or
point of view. Generalization is her very life and purpose
and, although it may be what makes her restless and unconven-
tional, it is her opportunity for a vital service. True, the
opportunity has great dangers and from these many have suf-
fered; but opportunity always implies danger. Philosophy,
again, must be speculative, even in a sense imaginative, inexact,
poetic, not soberly literal, not formally dogmatic, as we say of
theology, or empirical and positive, as we say of exact or
would-be exact science. Her interest, too, must be vital and
appreciative, not just “ objective,” not just descriptive and ex-
planatory, not under constraint of too precise instruments and
too accurate measurements; concerned, then, with values, not
merely with facts. So the commands, the specific doctrines
and precepts of her mistress, whoever this happen to be at the
time, she takes and must take only as mediating symbols or—
a better word—analogies in the sense even of metaphors.
Especially must philosophy never commit the error, by no
means uncommon among scientists, of actually or virtually
taking useful standpoints and methods as literal indications of
~ reality. No science is metaphysics. So true are the various
things that have just been said that philosophy’s service of a
science is often transforming or transfiguring almost if not
quite to the point of baffling recognition. Once upon a time,
you know, just an ordinary maid went out in her mistress’s
clothes; was met on the street by the mistress herself, and was
not discovered. Philosophy, while no ordinary maid, must still
take liberties. Philosophically thinking the whole after the
manner of any scientific part, be this doctrine, standpoint or —

468 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

method, may or indeed must lead to some violence. Facts and
methods, valued for philosophy as for life, must undergo
change. It is, after all, a poor service that does not make itself
really felt!

But, to turn now to the story, the progress of Christendom
does show philosophy in a most significant succession of posi-
tions of service. To begin with, as often chronicled, in the
Middle Ages philosophy was handmaid of the Church or of
dogmatic theology, ancilla ecclesiz. In the seventeenth cen-
tury or thereabouts began the service of science; first, during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of mechanics and
mathematics; then, in the nineteenth, of biology; and, more
recently, of anthropology and psychology. Theologism, mathe-
maticalism or mechanicalism, biologism and psychologism: in
such terms, very general indeed, may one tell the history of
the philosophy of Christendom.

And this history, as it is true, can not but have interest.
Thus, it implies what many a scientist would readily and too
cheerfully overlook, that theology has a real place in the growth
of the intellectual life, being even a cry in the wilderness before
the coming of science, and that each of those sciences, at least
for philosophy, has or has had its own special day and genera-
tion. It is true that for those who must regard science and
. theology as essentially opposed and incongruous any suggestion
of historical sequence and continuity is bound to cause at least
wonder, if not something stronger! Many, too, may wish to
protest against a view that arranges important sciences in a
temporal order and so seems to question their equality and
their essential contemporaneousness. No science cares in these
days to be treated as a “has-been.” But, whatever the wonder
or the protest, theology has had its real place and, although
herein is no ground for denial of contemporaneousness, the
different sciences do fall into an historical order; the earlier,
as I would submit, being now in varying degrees of only
mediate interest and value, the latest of immediate interest and
value, to life and philosophy.

Furthermore, philosophy being life’s reaction, intellectual
and volitional, to the world as experienced and as immediately
interesting at any given time, in our history with its sequence:
theologism, mechanicalism and the rest, we can see that upon
each change in the ism man is less aloof from the natural world,
more at home in this world, more intimate with its life. In
short—and just here is a matter of special interest—that
sequence reveals a centuries-long process of civilization—syn-

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 469

onymous with naturalization?—or say biologically of adapta-
tion to environment. If the phrase, adaptation to environ-
ment, be misleading or out of date in its point of view, then
any one who prefers may substitute sympathetic or functional
change in man and his world or, again, progressive variation
in their manner of interaction or in the mediation of their
essential and persistent relationship. In history as in biology,
unless I be very much mistaken, organism and environment
have evolved or grown together. Still, for simplicity’s sake,
we may here keep the admittedly one-sided point of view of the
more conventional phrase, adaptation to environment.

After a fashion every one knows how our western civiliza-
tion, how Christendom, at first shut up in an unworldly—at
least in theory and proclamation unworldly—institution, grad-
ually came to earth; at first with much reserve and fear, with
little real candor, but eventually with open enthusiasm and ap-
preciation. In the twelfth to sixteenth century, notably in the
period of the Renaissance, the great institution, the Europe-
ruling Roman Catholic Church, turned creatively artistic, seek-
ing so to humanize and acclimatize or naturalize all the various
factors and practises, the ways and the offices, the doctrines
and the imagery, of its life and organization. However
selfishly and defensively, it made real appeal from the spiritual
to the sensuous and physical, from its own separate world to
the “external” material world, from the unnatural or super-
natural to the natural, evincing an interest in rhetoric as well
as in dogma and logic, in man’s sensitively living body as well
as in his immortal soul, in the vernacular languages as well as
in the dead and other-worldly Latin and at least for first resort
in the subtleties of cunning and artful diplomacy in place of
compulsion by holy mandate or—the worldly counterpart of
this—brute force; and, while the Church turning thus to an
artistic expression of its life doubtless did have at first more
of intrigue and indirection in it than of candor and apprecia-
tion, the step which Christian civilization took at that time, so
to speak, from Heaven towards earth, from its institutional
aloofness towards nature, was very real and very important as
a first positive step both towards an eventual adaptation and
towards natural science. Appearing as compromise and in-
trigue, it nevertheless was in service of an honest purpose. In
clear evidence of something more than mere defense and selfish
intrigue the Church of the time had its liberals as well as its
conservatives and in good time came the Reformation and the
great schism which brought a distinct and positive candor
towards the human and natural. Followed the great era of

470 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

objective science, of democracy, industrialism, machinery, in a
word of social, moral and political as well as intellectual
naturalism in place of the earlier aloofness and unnaturalism.

But now, while after a fashion every one does know this
story and in it can see man slowly but surely finding himself in
nature, adapting himself to his environment, there are aspects
of the process, as so recounted, and particular stages of it,
which need special consideration.

In the first place, how rose at all that unworldly institu-
tution in which so long civilization dwelt aloof? Historically,
whatever be any one’s religious or theological accounting for
it, it rose as a device of safe retirement, an ark some very
properly have called it, when with the collapse of the ancient
civilizations, notably of Rome, the great floods came. As those
floods rose, civilization withdrew into itself, gathering its ac-
quired ways and protective covering about it. Did not the
great father St. Augustine proclaim his “City of God,’ the
Church, and did not the Bishop of Rome come into his papal
power, as Rome approached and finally reached her fall? As
a device of adaptation the Church doubtless seems hopelessly
negative, adaptive through withdrawal rather than through
direct action and even suggesting one of those strategical re-
treats of which we were hearing so often a year or two ago;
but, negative or not, it proved not only a wonderfully effective
device, strategically wise for its day and generation, but also—
and this I would now specially stress—a most valuable prepa-
ration for the more aggressive and openly practical enterprises
that came later. The very barbarians who overwhelmed Rome
it took captive. It assimilated to itself all of western Europe
and by its rites and offices, its education in all departments of
life, its splendid organization, it really made our modern
rationalistic or scientific naturalism the true lineal descendant
of its institutional supernaturalism, possible. Very much as
alchemy developed into chemistry or astrology into astronomy,
so its régime, moral] and intellectual, strangely enough only the
more rigorous because of the magic or the supernaturalism
upon which it counted, eventually made possible the larger and
only more general rationalism and mechanicalism which was
inaugurated practically with such achievements as the suc-
cessful navigation of the open sea and theoretically with the
successful use—as for example by Galileo—of the mathemat-
ical equation in explanation of natural phenomena.

Few have seemed really to appreciate that, practically or
theoretically, the change from a supernaturalistic, militaristic
institution to a mechanical nature was only the outcome of a

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 471

generalization by which the spirit of the institution sought and
found itself in the world as a whole. Such, however, appears
to have been the fact and this fact in a peculiarly significant
way reveals the adaptation-value of the great medieval institu-
tion besides showing the active and serviceable presence of phi-
losophy and generalization. It shows, too, that the important
progress made in the eighteenth century, when the naturalistic
rationalism succeeded the old order, was really evolutional
rather than merely revolutional in character.

That the modern era got its schooling in the Middle Ages,
Protestantism from Catholicism, democracy from monarchy,
industrialism from militarism, the mechanic from the soldier,
rationalism from apologetics, mechanicalism from dogmatic
institutionalism, inductive science from deductive, mathematics
from positive legalism, even moral independence and conscience
from the Church and its confessional, needs to be clearly recog-
nized and appreciated. The pupil, moreover, learned his lesson
well. But, not to prolong this chapter of my story, the new
life did spring out of the old and an age of institutionalism
gave place to an age of rationalism. Machinery, authority,
causation all turned universal; creationalism yielded to a gen-
eral mechanicalism; theology opened into science.

And with the coming of the era of science, institutional
ritual and law being subordinated to natural law, our story of
Christendom’s progressive adaptation to environment gets
somewhat easier. Certainly any one can appreciate the prog-
ress in the change from mathematics and mechanics to biology
or in that from biology to anthropology and psychology. With
each step, as has been pointed out already, man who in the
Church had belonged to another world rather than to this and
who had lived consciously and deliberately with reference to
the hereafter gets ever nearer this or ever more truly in-and-of
this. At first we see him with mechanics coming into a gen-
eral but still only formal, then with biology into a distinctly
more vital relation to this; until with the last, psychology, he
is in an intimate and personal relationship. Certainly phi-
losophy’s present-day psychologism, as shown in pragmatism,
experimental idealism, the many types of realism—radical,
scientific, critical, ‘new,’ what you please—has quite outdone
biology in its intimations of the unity of man and nature; be-
cause it has made, not merely organically living, but also con-
sciously living man and nature most vitally and essentially one.
Consciousness carries a far closer intimacy than organic life.
Also for full understanding it should be remembered that
today, quite as truly as mechanics or biology, psychology is

472 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

to be looked upon as one of the real physical or rather natural
sciences.

In spite of all that has been said my meaning may not yet
be clear. In the sequence of philosophy’s disciplines: theolog-
ism, mechanicalism, biologism, psychologism, no such story as
was promised may have appeared. Possibly, then, at risk of
tedious repetition, it may be well with a change not of the
subject-matter but simply of the angle of view to add the fol-
lowing. Four conceptions: institution, mechanism, organism
and conscious being, the human individual or person, have
taken, each its turn in the order given, at holding the center of
man’s interest in and understanding of nature and have marked
each an important step in man’s progress, as he has taken
possession of the earth. To science, even including under this
term theology which has been found to have its place in the
sequence and, as now I would add, including also jurisprudence
which characteristically is science of the institution as tem-
poral, formal, positive, theology being characteristically science
of the institution as eternal and vital, as originally purposed
and created and as maintained—to science, I say, the concep-
tions: institution, mechanism, organism and person, each one
as it has come up, have referred to something special and defin-
able, tangible and capable of positive identification. Definition
and such identification are conditions of science. But in each
instance, not less from demands of practical life than from
those of theory, the handmaid philosophy has been in attend-
ance and her service, faithful if not always appreciated, has
induced a generalization from the particular and positive con-
ception involved and so has opened the way to the next concep-
tion. Thus, as we have remarked, a dogmatic, supernatural-
istic institutionalism gave place to a general and naturalistic
mechanicalism. Even the creating cause and propelling force,
acting from without, of the institution was made general, as is
shown in mechanicalism’s substitution of universal causation
for the institution’s dogma of only-once-upon-a-time causation
or creation.2 But also, thanks again to the service of phi-
losophy, the conception of mechanism in its turn gave place
to that of organism. What is an organism but general mechan- —
ism or mechanism become versatile, that is, natively mobile or
active with the freed mechanical principle and so no longer
bound to the routine of any single application of that principle,
capable in other words of indefinite mechanical adaptations.

2 Physical science’s long dependence on the two principles, uniformity

of nature—no longer just of the institutional life—and wniversal causa-
tion, has thus a most interesting historical antecedence.

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 473

In the person, finally, the generalization or the versatility is
seen to be developed still further by the addition of conscious
initiative to the adaptability.

So in the four conceptions, as in the four isms, we now
have our story before us. The story does show, too, what was
promised for it, namely, man’s progressive adaptation to the
natural environment, his gradual finding himself in nature,
and it shows also in each important episode the constant service
of philosophy, whose generalizations have really served sci-
ence; not servilely, but in the vital way of inaugurating the
new epochs instead of merely maintaining the old ones.
Again, in indication of what the progressive adaptation and
generalization have implied, the story shows an increasing
versatility for human life. But particularly interesting as is
this association of progressive adaptation with increasing
versatility, it is for us here only to note how the history reveals
philosophy as vitally, although never formally, scientific and
thus shows how that lie about philosophy being unscientific
was only a great truth in masquerade. That, unfortunately,
professional philosophers have often neglected their great op-
portunity and even flagrantly abused it or that scientists them-
selves have sometimes turned philosphical and have so led their
own science out of its particular captivity does not affect the
matter at all.

Now, once more as to the progress from mechanicalism
through biologism to psychologism, there is an interesting inci-
dent of the movement that merits some attention, although
easily too much might be made of it. Not only does mechan-
icalism mark an early stage of the adaptation-process, in which
man and his environment can hardly be said yet to have come
into a close or vital unity, but also the early science of me-
chanics, especially as appealing to philosophy, was what might
be called a gross mechanics, dealing as it did with the great
bodies of the solar system, that is, with the gross and also the
more distant factors of the physical or natural environment,
Psychology, in sharp contrast, as the latest of the sciences, is
concerned with the minute and very closest factors. For psy-
chology the environment is no glorious and wonderful firma-
ment, no orderly procession of the planets, impressive for the
distances and the orbits and expressive of a great law, but is,
instead, a close, sensuously felt and very real presence; not a
matter, then, of distant view and contemplative wonder, but
something immediately at hand.

VOL. x.—32.

474 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

No wondrous whirl of earth or sky,

Nor stars in ordered place:

But nearer things, like wind and rain,

That beat against one’s face.
Such a difference, I say, between the earlier mechanics and the
later psychology must not be taken too seriously; but, however
superficial it may seem to be, it does in one more way show
the progress of adaptation.

But, finally, of psychology and psychologism something
special needs still to be said, lest there still be misunderstand-
ing. Psychology is “science of conscious life” and in this
character it might be taken for almost anything, including
even the old-time “science of the soul.’”’ Present-day psychol-
ogy, however, while truly being “science of conscious life,” is
also at the same time the latest natural science, as has been
pointed out here. It is a natural science and to it such special
branches of natural science as biology, physiology, neurology,
are of greatest mediate value. It is itself, too, an experimental
and laboratory science and so through mechanical methods and
instruments it depends, albeit only mediately, on the narrowly
physical as well as on the biological sciences. Accordingly in
its character of being a natural science even while it is also
psychology we may see the peculiar value of its coming at the
close of the historical sequence. For it man and nature are
indeed one. In fact its two characters or roles, psychology and
natural science, are so mingled that, just to allow ourselves a
little amusement, its situation is not unlike that of the man
who unfortunately or fortunately was so very thin that he could
never decide, when in pain, whether he had a backache or a
stomachache. Current philosophy, essentially psychologistic,
knows not whether it is idealism or realism. A most happy
predicament!

It would be interesting to close the story of adaptation as
told here with some discussion of the moral and political, social
and economic changes that have come with the changes in isms
or in ruling conceptions. About an association of one group
of changes with the other there can be no doubt. Science and
philosophy are hardly epiphenomena. They are hardly accom-
paniments of the history of human affairs without being really
and vitally of it. Their very reflection of the process of
adaptation would seem to be conclusive evidence of this, if evi-
dence were needed. But the story originally promised has been
told and other matters, however interesting, must be left for
another occasion.

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 475

THE PROBLEM OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
IN THE COLLEGE CURRICULUM*

By Professor HENRY CREW
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

F one were asked to describe in a single phrase the present-
day position of the history of science in the college cur-
riculum, I think he might fairly call it the “ Ugly Duckling” of
the program. For while it is just now receiving the treatment
of an orphan, and the department of history has never seen fit
to take this fledgling under its wing, the young bird has perhaps
nevertheless all the possibilities of becoming a swan.

I hope to make my meaning clearer by saying a few words
about the place for such a course, about the character of the
course, and finally about the man for the course. In fact, I wish
to offer a brief plea for a more human treatment of the funda-
mental sciences than they are now receiving, and I want to sug-
gest that the most effective method of accomplishing this result
is the introduction of courses on the history of science.

1. First, as one glances down the average college curriculum,
and the faculty list, he may, I think, fairly admit that political
and social history are well handled by men who are competent
specialists—the men, indeed, who constitute the membership of
your association.

Of the history of English literature the same may be said.

In the case of foreign literature, it is only after the student
has passed beyond the technique required for easy reading, that
he is introduced to the historical development of either the lan-
guage or the literature. Economics, philosophy and psychology
are frequently, at least, presented in the order of their chrono-
logical development, 7. e., in the historical order in which the
facts were discovered—the order which Darwin has taught us
is the natural order.

The modern college offers to its students practically only
four lines of training—four topics which one might call ‘the
modern quadrivium.” These are

(i) Languages and literature.
(ii) Historico-political study and economics.

* A paper read before the American Historical Association at Cleve-
land, December 31, 1919.

476 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

(iii) The Philosopical group, including psychology, education, religion,
logic, and mathematics.

(iv) The experimental and observational sciences; or, if you prefer, the
physical and natural sciences.

Of these four topics, it is only the last mentioned which is
not already receiving a more or less distinctly historical treat-
ment. The typical natural sciences are, I suppose, Zoology and
Botany; the corresponding physical sciences are Physics and
Chemistry. These four sciences constitute the foundation upon
which the other sciences rest; or, if any one prefers, they are the
sciences which are in an especial way ancillary to all the others.

Physiology, hygiene, bacteriology, medicine, etc., naturally
develop from biology, just as astronomy, geology and engi-
neering come from physics and chemistry. Each of these four
fundamental sciences does, of course, receive historical treat-
ment in numerous curricula; but in many institutions no such
course is offered. Professor W. F. Magie has published a com-
plete treatment of physics written from the historical point of
view. It might be called historical physics rather than a history
of physics ; since the emphasis is rather upon the clear and care-
ful statement of the principles of the science, than upon its his-
tory. A combined course on the natural and physical sciences
is offered by Professors Sedgwick and Tyler. My colleague,
Professor Locy, has for many years given a very successful
course on the history of biology. Numerous courses in the his-
tory of chemistry are given: more than twice as many as are
given upon any other of the four fundamental sciences. Some
are also offered in the general history of science, such as those
by Professor L. J. Henderson, of Harvard, by Professor Walter
Libby, of Pittsburgh, and by Dr. George Sarton.

The need for courses in the history of science appears to
lie rather in these four fundamental sciences than in any sub-
ject outside: this, partly because the early history of these four
subjects covers practically all the other sciences, and partly be-
cause the history of science, in general, appears to be quite too
large a topic for one man to treat intelligently and sympa-
thetically.

The theorem then which I propose is the following: Every
college of liberal arts owes it to itself and to its students to
offer at its earliest opportunity courses in the history of botany,
zoology, chemistry and physics, in addition to the numerous
historical courses already offered in other branches of the mod-
ern quadrivium.

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 477

2. Passing now to the character of the course which should
be presented, this is, manifestly, always a question of time,
place and man. Nevertheless, there are certain considerations
which have, I believe, a wide validity among American colleges.

It was my privilege a few weeks ago to attend a lecture on
general physics given by a young man who was offering the
course for the first time. I was present on invitation and the
comments which I am now about to make are precisely those
which I gave to the young man himself at the close of his lecture.

The discourse was well illustrated by experiments; his
demonstrations were clever and orderly; his explanations were
clear and correct. He was evidently master of his subject,
which on this particular morning happened to be elasticity.

But Hooke’s Law was demonstrated without the slightest
reference to that crabbed and crusty, but tremendously clever
old bachelor, Robert Hooke, who lived in Gresham College and
entertained the Royal Society of London so frequently and
faithfully with the latest scientific results obtained sometimes
by his own labors, sometimes from the labor of others.

This young instructor next proceeded to define Young’s
modulus and to derive the algebraic formula for it, without so
much as a mention of that brilliant London physician, who at
the beginning of the nineteenth century was perhaps the most
variously accomplished man of science in England, the young
Quaker, who as a medical student at Gottingen found ample
time, between the more serious duties of a strenuous program,
for lessons in dancing and horseback riding.

The elasticity of air was next expounded under the caption
of Boyle’s law, without any one of the one hundred and fifty
auditors suspecting the existence of that charming old Irish
bachelor, who largely held together and inspired the “ Invisible
College ” out of which the Royal Society grew; the author of the
“Skeptical Chymist”; ‘“ Robyn,” as his sister called him; the
intimate friend of Evelyn, Pepys, and Newton; director of the
East India Company.

One can imagine that in his succeeding lecture my young
friend would deduce and demonstrate with precision and ele-
gance, the laws of collision, while his students are kept com-
pletely in the dark as to the three remarkable men—men of the
first order—Huygens, Wallis and Wren—who first established
these laws.

This bit of experience is mentioned, not in criticism of this
young man, of whom I am an ardent admirer and to whom
I have already said all I am saying to you, but rather to raise

478 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

this question: Is science in America to be forever presented as
a set of abstract principles, a set of generalizations, derived, it
may be, in the first instance, from experiment or observation,
but now formulated in the most impersonal way possible? Or
is science to be treated as a distinctly human achievement? .

Are not experimental results simply the facts which human
beings have deciphered from the scroll of nature? Are the laws
of physics and chemistry anything more than human expres-
sions, adapted to finite human capacities, and accepted because
of their convenience in human conversation? Is a theory in
astronomy anything more than the “present policy ”’—to use
Sir J. J. Thomson’s phrase—proposed by some human ob-
server for convenience in making prediction for later human
observers? Are the bodies of plants and animals anything more
to the student of biology than the source-books from which some
human investigator has unraveled the laws of development and
hygiene—the laws of birth, growth, death and disease? Do the
various extensions of physical and natural laws to include new
observations mean anything more than the fact that present in-
vestigators stand upon the shoulders of their fathers and thus
acquire a wider and deeper vision?

If now this edifice which we call modern science—this body
of “‘impersonally verified truth ””—borrowing Professor Minot’s
excellent phrase—is an incomplete human structure, if it is
after all merely a record of human thought, a formulation by the
human mind, tremendously useful to the physician in the pre-
vention and cure of human disease, valuable to the engineer in
securing human comfort and safety, and human leisure for
other forms of human activity; if, I say, science has all these
human elements in it, why may it not be so presented to the
student?

Let us, of course, concede that Dante’s Comedia, with its
human inferno, filled with striking pictures of all human qual-
ities, the frail and the strong, the good as well as the bad, is a
rare and powerful stroke of the human imagination. But what
shall we say of the investigations of Copernicus and Kepler and
Aristarchus, reaching out into vast space and finding unheard
of orbits, speeds and distances?

Let us concede that Homer’s story of Achilles going out after
Hector is one of intense human interest. But what shall we say
of the fight which Galileo maintained from boyhood to death,
in such a skillful manner as to allow him, meanwhile, to accom-
plish his two great works and get them through the press?

Let us concede the lofty flight of the human imagination in

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 479

which Milton casts Satan out of heaven. But what shall we say
of the many superstitions cast out of the human mind by Mil-
ton’s contemporaries—Huygens, Newton, Pascal, Harvey and
Leeuwenhoek?

We are all glad to recognize the rare and human beauty of
Tennyson’s verse; but let no one imagine that he is either nod-
ding or stepping down when he sings the story of evolution. Is
the exquisite flight of genius in which his contemporary, Clerk-
Maxwell, describes the essential features of that wonderful
human convenience called wireless telegraphy, a quarter of a
century before the art was realized in experiment, any less
appealing?

Now having made all these concessions and as many similar
ones as you like, does there not remain sufficient human interest
in science to justify its presentation as a human achievement,
rather than a heartless, bloodless, colorless, body of cold rigid
fact? Tragedy and comedy, pathos and humor are, of course,
never found in nature. We must seek them in human nature;
the history of science is full of them. “The fairy tales of sci-
ence and the long results of time” with which Tennyson nour-
ished his “‘ youth sublime,” offer as large a field for the imagina-
tion as any other theme of poetry; the one difference lies in the
fact that the scientific imagination must be bridled by reason;
but this curbing of the imagination by reason is all that we
mean by clear thinking; and clear thinking is the goal of all
our work.

Now, I have not even mentioned the “humanities.” I shy
at the term, only because I fear it has come, in many quarters,
to mean almost the exact opposite of the spirit which prompted
the composers of Greek and Roman literature, and also the op-
posite of that which was intended by the men who introduced
the term in the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, I trust, I have
fairly indicated the possibility and desirability of treating sci-
ence in a humanitarian manner and of making it one of the real
humanities of the modern curriculum. If accuracy of judg-
ment and clearness of thought are to be sought in the new quad-
rivium, they will be found most easily and most frequently
through the study of language and science. It is especially up
to those of us who teach the history of science to present its
human aspects—which are not for a moment to be identified
with its merely practical and commercial aspects—and thus re-
deem the word “humanity ” from the narrow sense in which it
is employed at Oxford and in the Scottish universities.

480 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

3. Let us now pass to the man who ought to offer such a
course; that is, a course which shall present science as an evo-
lution of the human mind—as a growth rather than as a finished
product. There is a helpful French proverb to the effect that
“at thirty every man is either his own physician or a fool,” sug-
gesting that at an earlier age he is too busy with other matters
to care much about his own health. It is somewhat so with the
young man who has just made his doctor’s thesis in science. He
is so much absorbed in the beautiful unity which he has recently
discovered in his subject, and so eager to get a still wider and
firmer grasp of his specialty that he finds little time to spend
upon its developmental history.

With the recently appointed assistant professor, the circum-
stances are not very different. He also has little time for the
past. ‘“‘Dead men ride fast horses.” He is too busy with his
own research along his chosen line. He can not leave it except
for the perfunctory teaching of those courses which, in common
decency, he must offer. If one sugests to him the possibility of
his offering a course in the history of his topic, his reply re-
sembles a stanza in which Mr. Kipling once declined an invita-
tion to dinner from the boys at Yale.

When you grow older, and skin your shoulder
At the world’s great wheel in your chosen line,
You’ll find your chances, as time advances,

Of taking a lark are as slim as mine.

This was indeed my own view for many years. Time spent on
the history of physics was time spent on a luxurious lark. ‘‘ The
years go fast at Oxford.”

The full professor is not far from forty years of age. With
him the circumstances have begun to be a little different. The
connection of his own work with that of others is more evident.
The philosophy of the subject is interesting him more and
more. He is now aware of the fact that the lives of the
founders of the Royal Society are inseparable from the civil
wars of England, the great fire and the great plague of London;
that Darwin and Kelvin are just as essentially features of the
Victorian era as are Gladstone and Tennyson; that Pascal and
Torricelli and the Accademia del Cimento are inseparable from
the religious history of their times—the age when science was
supported, if at all, by royal patronage. “ Knowledge comes,
but wisdom lingers.’”’ Here then is the man who ought to teach
the history of science. One who is familiar with the technique
of investigation. One who knows the mode of thought employed

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 481

in research. One who is willing to take the pains and pay the
price of making some small contribution to human knowledge:
one who is able to bend the English language to his own purpose.

This man will be too keenly aware of his limitations to un-
dertake the history of all the sciences, and will find the avail-
able hours brief enough for a history of his own science. An
illuminating confession along this line is the public address
given by the distinguished editor of the Review when, over-
whelmed with the rapid development of mathematics, he broke
off in the midst of a brilliant university career to take up news-
paper work. A similar confession came to me a few weeks ago
from a man who had left his favorite field for ten years of
executive work, only to find on returning to the field that the
landscape was covered with a new and entirely unfamiliar
growth.

The outstanding difficulty in the way of any man of science
giving a historical course is that scholar’s instinct which tells
him that, as a rule, he lacks the proper historical background,
and does not have the easy confidence of the man who has been
long in training at general history. Nevertheless, if we can find
men of breadth and vision, men of at least forty years of age,
who are willing to present the developmental histories of the
fundamental sciences, especially physics, chemistry and biology,
and to present them in such a way that they will furnish the
student with a generous culture, and put him en rapport with
his environment, the place of our subject in the college cur-
riculum will soon be established.

Nor is the proposition one which we need fear to urge upon
our university presidents, our colleagues or our students; for
just as water is the great, common and dominating feature of
the globe, so is science the one common feature of all nation-
alities and all civilizations. Science does not differ from nation
to nation as do language, religion and politics. The history of
science is therefore something almost as wide as the human
race and deserving of humanitarian treatment.

482 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS IN
RELATION TO THE EARTH

By Professor REGINALD A. DALY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION

HAMBERLIN’S recent book on “ The Origin of the Earth”

was welcomed by geologists as the most complete state-

ment yet made for the planetesimal hypothesis of the origin of

the planets.t. Barrell has given a convenient summary of the
hypothesis, in the following words:

The volume of a star [the sun] represents a balance between expan-
sional and condensational forces acting on a vast body of gaseous nature.
On the approach [of another star] their mutual gravitation would pro-
duce tidal forces diminishing their self gravitative power along the line
between the centers and give the expansive forces opportunity to rise to
explosive violence along that line. This tidal force is actually greatest
at the centers and would lead to a very deep-seated disruption. The gas
bolts shot out would, owing to viscous resistances, be pulsatory, and sepa-
rated nuclei would therefore be expelled. These nuclei and the associated
dispersed matter would, on the nearer side, be dragged sideways by the
passing star. On the reverse side the symmetrical tidal protrusions
would be left behind, the sun being dragged more than they. The result
would be a spiral nebula, a form which would meet the dynamic demands
of the existing solar system. ...

The building up of the planets is believed to have followed three
stages: first, the direct condensation of the nuclear knots of the spiral
into liquid or solid cores; second, the less direct collection of the outer, or
orbital and satellitesimal matter; third, the still slower gathering up of
the planetesimal material scattered over the zone between adjacent planets.
This third factor in Chamberlin’s view is regarded as very important and
he believes this diffused matter contributed much of the earth substance,
very slowly and in a dust-like form. This is one of the critical points in
the details of the theory, unessential to the larger framework, but upon
which turns much of the development of the following argument. In
earth-growth the denser planetesimal dust, Chamberlin argues, tended to
be somewhat segregated into the primitive ocean basins and served to .
maintain in them, as the earth was built outward, a greater density than
in the elevated zones between...

The earth is conceived as beginning to hold an ocean by the time it
contained 80 or 40 per cent. of its present mass... .

The particles of radioactive matter [in the earth] would tend toward

1T. C. Chamberlin, “ The Origin of the Earth,” University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 1916.

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 483

local heating and fusion. Thus they would be progressively concentrated
into the outer shell of the earth by the rising of igneous matter. Pulsa-
tory stresses from body tides and from shrinkage are regarded as the
chief agents leading fused matter outward and serving to maintain the
earth’s body in solid form.2

On the astronomic side this conception of the solar system
represents one of the grandest achievements of modern science.
The distribution of masses and momenta, the directions of revo-
lution and rotation, and the constitution of each member of the
system, so far as ascertained, are explained with such a degree
of probability that astronomers are becoming more and more
impressed by the planetesimal hypothesis. However much in-
creasing knowledge may change premises and conclusions, the
critical and creative work of Chamberlin, Moulton, and their
associates has resulted in stimulus tec many minds and marks a
permanent advance toward a final understanding of the earth’s
beginning.

Chamberlin was led to his great idea while studying ancient
climates, and it is natural that he has attempted to apply his
cosmogony to that later part of terrestrial history which is cov-
ered by geology proper. He has recognized the exceeding dif-
ficulty of this extension of the hypothesis beyond the astronomic
limits, but has courageously attacked the problem as it affects
the general distribution and shapes of the existing continents
and ocean basins; hence the making of assumptions which have
no vital connection with the splendid cosmogony itself. Some
of the subsidiary assumptions are doubtful, if not quite inad-
missible, and it now looks as if general recognition of Chamber-
lin’s working hypothesis would have been hastened if it had
been announced without direct reference to the later, geological,
history of our globe.

One doubtful postulate is that the earth has been essentially
solid since the time when it had less than half its present mass.
To a discussion of this point the present paper is devoted; the
postulate is hard to reconcile with the main planetesimal hypoth-
esis itself, on the one hand, and with leading facts of astronomy
and geology, on the other.

SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS

Neither the mass, nor the temperature, nor the dynamics of
the original earth-knot or nucleus are deducible from the root
premise of expulsion from the sun. According to some astron-
omers, the visible spiral nebule are not homologies of the plane-

2J. Barrell, Science, Vol. 44, 1916, p. 241.

484 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

tesimal nebula. In any case one can not infer from the spirals,
even in rough measure, the state of the earth nucleus imme-
diately after its expulsion. The general hypothesis gives no
direct information concerning the ratio of the mass of the knot
to the mass of the existing earth. Around the earth is now a
“sphere” (spheroid) of control within which our planet’s grav-
itative influence surpasses that of the sun. The sphere of con-
trol is roughly 5,000,000 times the volume of the earth. Within
so great a space nearly all of the earth’s matter might have been
aggregated at the nuclear stage, in spite of the high temperature
prevailing at the initiation of the earth-knot. If so, condensa-
tion of the earth-knot by its own powerful gravitation would
be rapid, with the consequent speedy increase of temperature.
Initially hot enough to be completely gaseous, the nucleus radi-
ated much heat, but this effect on temperature was at least
partly offset by the development of heat through self-compres-
sion and chemical changes. A very large part of the initial heat
and of the original potential energy would have to be lost by
radiation before a liquid state were assumed and still more
before a solid crust could be developed. According to Lane’s
law, radiation and consequent contraction would actually raise
the temperature of the knot if its gas behaved like a “ perfect”
gas. The potential energy of such a system is far from being
measured by the amount of the contraction. Doubtless a much
greater part of the potential energy would manifest itself in the
form of heat given off during chemical reactions in the nucleus,
which was initially composed of highly dissociated elements.

In short, the original earth-knot was, by hypothesis, a true
furnace. Its generation of heat must have long continued, even
if the initial mass were only one quarter of the globe’s present
mass. The vital question arises as to whether the gaseous knot
would be solidified by cooling before most of its accretion was
accomplished. Rates of heating, rates of cooling, and rates of
accretion, as well as the initial mass and temperature of the
knot are involved, and the general hypothesis bears no implica-
tion concerning any of these quantities.

Chamberlin appreciates this fact and concludes that “the
temperature of the innermost core of the earth” must remain
‘“‘an open question.” He also states that ‘‘ the mass of the plane-
tary nucleus may have been so large and the ingathering of the
planetesimals may have been so rapid, by hypothesis, that a
molten or even a gaseous condition could have arisen. In the
case of the larger planets such a primitive state is quite within

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 485

the limits of the probabilities. The case of the earth is de-
batable.’’

ASSUMPTION OF THE EARTH’S EARLY SOLIDITY

Yet, notwithstanding his own unescapable conclusion, Cham-
berlin believes that the earth, with a mass only about one third
of its present value, was already well crusted, if not essentially
crystalline to the core. He assumes that a water ocean could
then lie on the earth’s surface, and that the heat of self-compres-
sion, chemical heat, and heat generated in radioactivity have
never sufficed, since this embryonic stage, to melt the surface
shell of the globe. With these assumptions, which are not im-
plicit in his main, astronomic hypothesis, Chamberlin proceeds
to picture the juvenile shaping of the earth, in the longest chap-
ter of his latest book. Further difficulties appear as the spec-
ulation is developed, leading to other unproved assumptions.
The latter are not of immediate concern, since they rest on the
conception of early, and thenceforth permanent, solidity for the
earth, which is the thesis specially questioned in the present
note.

TESTIMONY OF THE OTHER PLANETS

The general hypothesis assumes similar origins for all the
planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have densities
either a little less than that of water or a little greater, con-
trasting with the mean density of the earth, 5.5. There are ap-
parently only two possible explanations of the contrast. The
outer planets must be greatly expanded by heat, or else they
must be composed of hydrogen or other elements of low atomic
weights.

Each planet represents a major belch from the sun and yet
also a minute fraction of the sun’s substance. Now studies of
the sun’s photosphere, “reversing layer,” and “spots” show
that its surface shell, down to a depth of many hundreds of
miles, is composed of both heavy and light elements. Heavy
elements are likely to be still more abundant in deeper shells.
We can not assume that the sun, because of higher temperature,
was a “hydrogen” star when the planetary belches took place,
and that the gas-bolts were shot out from the outer layer of
hydrogen. This possibility is at once excluded by the facts
known about the constitution of the four inner planets, the
asteroids, and the satellites of the planets. Thorough mixture

3 T. C. Chamberlin, “ The Origin of the Earth,” Chicago, 1916, p. 164,

and “ The Tidal and Other Problems ” (Carnegie Institution Publications,
Washington, 1909, p. 18).

486 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

of heavy and light elements in the sun at the present time is
plainly due to convection and explosion.‘ Both actions would
doubtless have been still more intense when the sun was hotter.
If, as Chamberlin thinks, the belching were due largely to ex-
plosions originating in great depth, heavy elements could hardly
fail to enter into the composition of all the major belches. The
greatest belches should have tapped deeper layers than those
tapped by the weaker earth-belch, giving a larger percentage
of heavy elements to the four outer planets.

On this point Chamberlin writes: “The distal portions of
the protuberances would be obviously formed from the super-
ficial portions of the sun, while the later portions of the ejec-
tions forming the proximal parts of the arms would doubtless
come mainly from lower depths, and hence probably contain
more molecules of high specific gravity.”> But is that conclu-
sion justifiable? If all of the planetary material were put back
in the sun, the sun’s diameter would be little changed; its mass
would be increased by less than one seventh of one per cent.
If a mass equal to either Neptune or Uranus were removed
from the sun’s surface shell, the depth of the layer known to be
now affected by powerful convection would be decreased by only
a small fraction. The supposition that, at the birth of the
planets, convection did not affect the sun’s layer which was dis-
rupted, is not easy to reconcile with the sun’s present condition.
To suppose that deeper layers were not tapped is to exclude the
strong influence of explosion, a basal postulate of the general
hypothesis. Moreover, the smaller the mass ejected, the more
superficial would be the solar shell involved. All these consid-
erations make it difficult to believe that there would be any
drastic or systematic variation in the material ejected suc-
cessively from the sun. One might even raise the question
whether the general hypothesis demands that the earth-belch
really followed in time the Jupiter or Uranus belch. If, on the
contrary, the earth-belch were the older, it should, according to
Chamberlin’s principle above-quoted, have density lower than
either of the other two; lower, too, because the earth-belch was
the weakest of the three. Finally, the densities of at least two
of Jupiter’s satellites are too high to be explained by the hypoth-

4The experiments of H. Bénard (Rev. gén. Sciences, Vol. 11, 1900,
p. 1261) suggest that the granulation of the sun’s surface may be due to
the development of a cellular structure which is expected in any fluid
layer uniformly affected by convection.

5T. C. Chamberlin and R. D. Salisbury, “ Geology,” Chicago, Vol. 2,
1906, p. 58.

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 487

esis that their parent belch was made of pure hydrogen or of
hydrogen mixed with helium.

Much more probably every major belch from the sun was
made up of elements now engaged in the solar tornadoes—cal-
cium, iron, barium, sodium, magnesium, silicon, etc., as well as
hydrogen and helium. In fact, from a passage quoted above,
Chamberlin seems to have abandoned his early view, now favor-
ing the conclusion just stated. Perhaps yet more surely than
the Laplacian hypothesis, the planetesimal hypothesis demands
that all planets shall have a large proportion of elements with
high atomic weights. If so, the outer planets must have very
high temperatures, as so long held by astronomers.°®

We have, then, half of the planets still so hot as to be gaseous,
although, by hypothesis, they are nearly as old as the earth and
are probably composed of material which is much like the aver-
age material of the earth.? At this late day the four outer
planets must be losing heat many times faster than the earth is
losing heat through a solid crust and still they are incomparably
hotter than our globe. According to the planetesimal hypoth-
esis, they are so hot because of their size. If the common
mechanism produced in four full-grown planets temperatures
sufficient for nearly complete volatilization of highly refractory
substances, temperatures persisting after more than one hun-
dred million years, is it reasonable to assume that the mechan-
ism failed to produce the much lower temperature needed for
surface liquefaction of a fifth planet a hundred million years
ago? Do not these homologies suggest yet more—a gaseous
condition for the earth after it had attained its present mass?

In summary, the planetesimal hypothesis leaves indeter-
minate most of the essential factors affecting the earth’s suc-
cessive temperatures, namely, the ratio of nuclear mass to

6 Of course density can not give accurate intimation of temperature.
Saturn, for example, with a little over half the density of Jupiter (9.7
against 1.3, water being 1.0), is not necessarily the hotter. Moderate
differences in.chemical constitution, together with differences in internal
pressure, must also enter into the causes for the contrast.

The reasoning is not affected by the possibility of a solid core for each
of the outer planets. The core must be relatively minute, for otherwise
the average density would be too high to match the facts. With corre-
spondingly great depth for the planetary atmosphere, involving pressures
of tens of thousands of earth atmospheres, the average density of the
planet could be low only in case the main, gaseous part of its body had
high temperature.

7 The approximate identity of age is implied by the basal postulate
of disruption, for a visiting star would vitally affect the sun for only a
few years, at most.

488 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

planetary mass, the initial temperature of the earth-knot, the
rate of accretion, the heating factors, the cooling factors, and
the absolute time involved. Hence the present condition of the
other planets ought to have special attention by any one who
attempts to trace the earth’s history down into “ Archean”
time. Perhaps we can hope for no better evidence in nature on
the subject of the early temperatures of our globe.

AN EARLY CRUST A BLANKET ON THE EARTH FURNACE

If, however, radiation did actually overtake heating in the
young earth, with the development of a solid crust, the general
hypothesis implies the likelihood that this crust would be but
temporary. So far as densities are concerned, it might have
been stable if the earth had already, because of fluidity, become
stratified by density. On the other hand, the crust, an efficient
blanket, must have brought radiation to a very low minimum.
Later, considerable accretion of the earth nucleus could not fail
to develop new heat by self-compression and chemical rear-
rangements under the new, ever-changing conditions of internal
pressure. The changing conditions would affect material at all
depths. The heat waves so generated would pass outward with
great slowness, for convection was largely in abeyance if the
earth were layered according to intrinsic density of its ma-
terials. A relatively moderate heat-wave of the kind, moving
outward for but a brief time, would suffice to re-melt the crust.
Each time that the surface shell became fluid, gravitative dif-
ferentiation would be more perfected near the surface, with re-
sulting retardation of convection. On one of the reasonable
assumptions regarding the young earth, therefore, the plane-
tesimal hypothesis seems to demand a cyclical or rhythmical
change of state for the earth’s surface shell, analogous to that
observed in the lava lake at Kilauea or in other typical volcanic
vents.

Be it observed, nevertheless, that the general hypothesis, as
announced, does not necessitate belief in crustification (or in
solidification at any depth) of the earth until it had attained its
present mass.

TESTIMONY OF THE MOON

The voleanic nature of the lunar pits and maria is generally
credited and seems to be implied by the planetesimal hypothesis.
If the pits and the vast areas of the maria were due to the im-
pact of bolides, these bodies would, by hypothesis, be plane-
tesimals. They would have been practically the last to fall into

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 489

the lunar nucleus, for the visible depressions are not appreciably
veneered with planetesimal particles of smaller dimensions.
Similar masses would have fallen into the earth during the last
stage of its growth. Yet nowhere on continent or in ocean
basin is comparable topography to be found. The progress of
erosion can hardly account for the disappearance of every trace
of such gigantic features. Moreover, the symmetry of each
lunar pit does not agree with the impact hypothesis, if the great
bolides were planetesimals, added to the moon’s mass in the
normal way.

if, by fair interpretation, the planetesimal hypothesis im-
plies a voleanic origin for the lunar depressions, the main
hypothesis also implies that, after reaching full size, one of the
smaller aggregations in the solar system had internal heat
enough to permit eruptivity on a scale vastly superior to the
scale of voleanism on the present earth. In more or less close
succession all parts of the moon’s surface seem to have been af-
fected by igneous eruption. The colossal lava-floodings of the
maria have been accompanied by subsidence of the pit-covered
crust in the corresponding areas, suggesting (as in the earth’s
similar cases) that the flooding lavas were drawn from a non-
crystalline substratum close to the moon’s surface.

According to the planetesimal hypothesis, the moon’s vol-
canic heat was generated largely by self-compression and chem-
ical rearrangements in a body with mass only one eightieth of
the earth’s mass. The facts are not opposed to the conception
that the moon was itself actually molten at the surface just
before the satellite took on its present characteristics. In any
case the total heat generated in the moon must have been enor-
mous. By hypothesis, the total heat generated in the growing
earth-knot was many multiples of 80 times greater. Can one
doubt that general volcanicity in the one case would be fairly
matched by complete superficial fluidity in the other?

CAUSE OF THE EARTH’S RIGIDITY

The combination of the facts known about the solar system
thus interpreted by the planetesimal hypothesis furnishes a
cumulative argument in favor of assuming a molten or even
gaseous state for the earth’s surface shell after our globe had
grown to full size. Chamberlin’s selection of a strongly con-
trasted possibility of his cosmogonic scheme is due in part to
overemphasis on some elements of the scheme, especially those
contrasting with essential features of the Laplacian cosmogony.

VOL. X:—33.

490 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Other reasons are found in certain assumptions based on mod-
ern geophysical studies.

In the first place, he stresses the familiar principle that the
melting temperatures of rock minerals are raised by pressure.
Again it is a rate, the rate of the raising, which is absolutely
vital to his argument. But it will be long before the relation of
pressure and melting temperatures for the earth’s core ma-
terials at their actual depths can be fixed. Meantime, one thing
seems certain: pressures hundreds of times greater than those
inside the earth are unable to cause the crystallization or even
the liquefaction of most of the sun’s substance; else the mean
density would be very different from what it is. Not much
weaker is the belief of astronomers concerning the non-solid
nature of most of the materials in Jupiter, though these are
under pressures far transcending mean or maximum pressure
in the earth. Appeal to the principle here discussed has, in
fact, been much overdone by many authors in their efforts to
explain the earth’s high rigidity.

Secondly, the proof of the earth’s present high rigidity is
taken by Chamberlin to mean solidity, that is, crystallinity, for
the whole interior of our globe except for local “tongues” of
melted rock. Even if this assumption were correct, it does not
follow that the earth was similarly crystalline to the core dur-
ing the period of accretion. But high rigidity does not neces-
sarily mean crystallinity. With uniform laboratory pressures
the viscosity of paraffin increases so much faster than the vis-
cosity of nickel steel under the same pressure, that the hydro-
carbon finally becomes more rigid than the steel. Rock glass,
a supercooled liquid at ordinary pressure and temperature, is
much more rigid than many crystalline solids. Under high,
uniform pressure glass is many times more rigid than nickel
steel. Under pressures of from 10,000 to 500,000 or more
atmospheres, rock glass might attain, at high temperatures,
degrees of rigidity quite competent to match the earth’s stress-
strain relations so far demonstrated. Neither seismic nor tidal
vibrations within the earth demonstrate crystallinity for below
the surface. If the earth’s core is crystalline, the proof thereof
must lie in some other direction, as yet unguessed.

For some geophysical inquiries it may be a matter of indif-
ference whether the earth’s rigidity is due to crystallinity plus
pressure or to pressure alone; but Chamberlin’s speculations on
the shaping of the juvenile earth and on the cause of igneous
action are critically affected by his choice between these alter-
natives.

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 491

PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS IN RELATION TO IGNEOUS ACTION

The growing earth being a highly efficient furnace, by
hypothesis, crystallinity could not be preserved for the interior
materials, if the central heat were not quickly removed. To
support his idea that liquefaction of the interior did not take
place during most of the period of accretion, Chamberlin has
imagined a special mechanism for the removal of heat. This
involves selective mutual solution of the “more fusible” crys-
tals and, through tidal kneading of the remaining solid ma-
terials, the upward streaming of the new magmatic “ tongues”
to the earth’s surface. The heat is there dissipated by radiation
and no longer threatens the stability of the solid state for the
interior materials in general. The continuance of the crystal-
line state inside the earth is thus explained by the generation
and rise of magmatic “tongues,” and the generation and rise of
the “tongues” is in turn explained by assuming a crystalline
state inside the earth. The argument has some resemblance to
reasoning in a circle.

RELATIVE RATES OF GENERATION AND TRANSFER OF HEAT

The rise of the magmatic “tongues” is attributed by Cham-
berlin to tidal kneading of the earth’s body. Barrell has pointed
out the comparative feebleness of the tidal stresses now af-
fecting the earth’s interior. Those affecting the small, young
earth at a time when the moon’s material was still largely dis-
sipated in the planetesimal state must have been much smaller
still, unless the two bodies were then closer together. However
this may be, the problem of the rate of heat transfer by the rise
of “tongues” as against the rate of heat generation in the
earth’s interior is of first importance. The planetesimal hypoth-
esis by no means implies that the special cooling mechanism just
described was more efficient than the earth-furnace during the
period of accretion. If the development of heat were more
rapid than the heat loss, to the point of producing general fluid-
ity, the imagined mechanism of extrusion and differentiation of
material, as well as the mechanism of cooling itself, would be
destroyed.

Nevertheless, Chamberlin prefers the view that there has
been a stupendous sorting of the terrestrial substances through
the expulsion of “tongues” working outward in an essentially
crystalline earth. He writes:

The mutations of the inner earth may be summarized as a single
prolonged process by which the more fluent, solvent, and lighter material

of the earth-body was concentrated toward the surface, while the more
immobile, refractory, and heavier matter was concentrated toward the

492 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

center. The result may be pictured as a central core dominated by metal-
lic alloys and a thick enveloping sphere dominated by silicates.’

The core residuum is supposed to have been originally crys-
talline, but recrystallized, without fusion, after the manner of
the familiar metamorphic rocks. During these secular changes,
“the arrangement of atoms and molecules in the heart of the
earth was probably controlled in the main in the interest of the
internal fixation of energy and was predominantly endo-
thermic.” Chamberlin assumes, on the other hand, that energy
was not stored in the radioactive elements, which have con-
tinued their break-up throughout the earth’s history and at all
depths. Since radioactivity is taken to be the chief source of
the latent heat represented in the molten “tongues,” that as-
sumption is necessary, but it is immediately seen to rest on an
unsounded mystery. The conditions for the potentialization of
energy in the radioactive elements are quite unknown, but those
conditions may include very high pressure and temperature,
such as those prevailing deep in the earth. The laboratory tests
so far made are clearly inadequate to deal with the profound
mystery, the existence of which prevents confidence in the ex-
trusive mechanism imagined and in the allied argument for
permanent crystallinity of the earth’s core.

DOMINANT MAGMAS

Further, differential fusibility or solubility of planetesimal
materials can hardly explain the visible eruptive rocks. The
dominant magmas whence these rocks have come are the basaltic
and the granitic, each of nearly uniform composition from con-
tinent to continent and from ocean basin to ocean basin, and
throughout geological time. They are strongly contrasted
chemically. Both can not be the “most fusible” or ‘‘ most sol-
uble” constituents of the earth. If one is a late differentiate of
the other, field evidence of the splitting might be expected; there
is none.

Nor does Chamberlin’s speculation explain: (a) the fact
that the bulk of the visible granitic rocks are intrusive, while
the bulk of the basaltic masses are extrusive; (b) the fact that
the pre-Cambrian basement terranes are on the average granitic,
while the eruptives of the open-ocean floors are almost entirely
basaltic or derivatives of basalt. The imagined “tongues”
should not have risen from the earth’s interior in this selective
way. On the other hand, mere inspection of the quantities in-
volved (including the oceanic salts) forbids the notion that the
granites of the continents represent a re-melted residue of
secularly weathered basalt.

8 T. C. Chamberlin, “ The Origin of the Earth,” Chicago, 1916, p. 240.

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 493

CRUSTAL SUBSIDENCE CONNECTED WITH ERUPTION

Another fact not readily understood according to Chamber-
lin’s mechanism of igneous action is the strong subsidence of
the floors of major volcanic bodies and of laccoliths (lopoliths).
The best theory of these sinkings refers them to the necessity
of crustal collapse over the respective subcrustal areas whence
the erupted magmas were drained. Each subsidence is readily
comprehended if the feeding magmatic reservoir is a nearly or
quite horizontal layer, local or general, below the crust. There
is no reason to suspect that “tongues” from the deep interior
would spread out at just the right depth to explain the many
observed sinkings of the crust.

ERUPTION LARGELY CONCENTRATED IN MOUNTAIN CHAINS

Most of the post-Cambrian eruptivity of the continents is
concentrated in orogenic belts, leaving the larger part of the
continental surfaces free from igneous rocks. For example, the
North American Cordillera has been many times, at long inter-
vals, the scene of magmatic eruption, while the Great Plains
region of Canada and the United States has witnessed little
activity of that kind. Mid-continent ranges, like the Alps or
Urals, and their respective environments suggest that this con-
trast has little to do with the meeting of continent and ocean
basin. There is no apparent reason why magmatic “ tongues”
from the earth’s core should so persistently reach or approach
the surface only along the belts where the earth’s surface shell
is periodically wrinkled or broken. A genetic connection be-
tween orogeny and igneous activity must be assumed, but it
becomes intelligible only on the supposition that the locus of
eruptivity is in every case relatively close to the surface and
not in the deep interior of the globe.

ERUPTIVE SEQUENCE

Finally, Chamberlin’s speculation needs much supplement-
ing before it can account for the general order of eruption in
continental petrogenic cycles. The order is from “basic” to
“acid,” though often the sequence is closed by minor eruptions
of “basic” magma. For reasons elsewhere detailed, this
sequence seems to imply initial eruption of basaltic magma,
followed, in batholithic provinces, by considerable assimilation
of solid ‘‘ acid” rocks, entailing differentiation of the new solu-
tions. The chief rock assimilated in batholithic chambers
seems to have been pre-Cambrian gneiss of granitic composi-
tion. During post-Cambrian time the only primary magma
erupted has probably been the basaltic; if so, all other pre-

494 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Cambrian eruptives are of secondary origin. On the other
hand, the older pre-Cambrian granites and gneisses, composing
most of the continental plateaus, are not in similar relation to
basaltic magma and must be regarded as independently erupted.
If their eruption took place by the “tongue” mechanism, the
composition of these melts must have been changed from the
granitic to the basaltic during some part of the pre-Cambrian
era, though long after the earth had reached its present size.
No reason for such a systematic change is in sight if the
“tongue” hypothesis of eruption be regarded as valid.

CONCLUSIONS

Many other facts of igneous geology are inexplicable on a
cosmogonic theory which postulates a general solid (crystal-
line) condition for the earth during most of its growth. This
is, however, not a necessary feature of the planetesimal hypoth-
esis, which, apparently sound itself, points rather to the prob-
ability of a fluid state for the earth both before and for some
time after accretion was completed. In a problem where so
few of the essential elements can be quantitatively defined, the
condition of the other planets, the satellites, and the sun is of
primary importance. The planetesimal-nebula hypothesis is
partly founded on the analogy of the visible spiral nebule. An-
alogy might be as fairly used to test it. However, the other
planets are homologies, by hypothesis, and their testimony gives
ground for deductions yet stronger than those from pure an-
alogy. There is nothing in the dynamics of the planetesimal
cosmogony which forbids belief that the earth long ago passed
through a Jovian stage. To assume that its surface shell was
not at least liquid when the earth attained full mass is seen to
be hazardous when one reflects on the relatively slight differ-
ence between the efficiency of an earth-furnace competent to
keep that shell liquid for a time and the efficiency of an earth-
furnace which kept the thermal gradient and solution (fusion)
curve “identical”? (Chamberlin) within the globe. The iden-
tity of these two curves could persist only through a balance
between heating and cooling, a balance incredibly delicate in
view of the suggested origin of the planets.

Making the more probable deduction from Chamberlin’s
cosmogenic scheme—an earth once largely fluid from the sur-
face downwards—the facts of geology are better understood.
Among the leading facts are: (1) the density stratification of
our planet, induced by early gravitative differentiation in gas
or liquid; (2) the dominance of gneiss and granite in the early

9R. A. Daly, “Igneous Rocks and Their Origin,” New York, 1914.

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 495

pre-Cambrian complexes, which represent the rearranged ma-
terial of the earth’s primitive crust (a surface differentiate of
low density) ; (3) the dominance of basalt in fissure eruptions,
with other facts indicating the existence of a world-circling
basaltic couche below the crust (the upper layer of Suess’s
“Sima”); (4) the genetic connection between geosynclinal
downwarping and mountain-building with igneous eruption;
(5) the number, lengths, and wide distribution of dikes of uni-
form, diabasic composition; (6) the subsidence of the floors
beneath major volcanic masses and of the floors beneath the
greater laccoliths; (7) certain stress-strain relations of the
earth, since the high rigidity of the earth, for example, may be
partly due merely to primitive differentiation according to
gravity.

It may be added that the composition of the ocean ought to
be quite different, if the ocean began its long life when the
earth’s mass had only one third or one half its present value.
For, by hypothesis, the earth then had an atmosphere, rock-
weathering was under way, and river salts were pouring into
the ocean. Also by hypothesis, the subsequent growth of the
earth was very slow. During that long accretional period, the
soluble sodium must have entered the oceanic solution, most of
it to remain there to this day. As a matter of fact, the sodium
content of sea-water is now embarrassingly low if the earth is
no older than the visible pre-Cambrian terranes!

Applied to the earth’s later history, the planetesimal-nebula
hypothesis thus appears to overlap the gas-nebula hypothesis.
In each case a fluid state for the earth is fairly deducible from
the astronomic premises. Since the objective facts of astron-
omy and of geology, especially igneous geology, point in the
same direction, the assumption of primitive fluidity seems to be
the best working hypothesis on which geology can be based.
Meantime, our profound ignorance of the behavior of silicate
and metallic melts at very high temperatures and pressures
should prevent fixed opinion concerning the cause of the earth’s
high rigidity. Similarly, the mystery attaching to the original
potentialization of energy in the radioactive elements makes
uncertain the true relation of radioactivity to the earth’s in-
ternal heat. As critical facts are slowly accumulated, the
greatly appealing planetesimal hypothesis of Chamberlin and
his co-workers may well serve as a foundation for geolog-
ical philosophy, though the subsidiary doctrine of essential crys-
tallinity for the earth throughout geological time be not accepted.

496 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION’

By EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN
PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

VI. THE CELLULAR BASIS OF EVOLUTION

N sexual reproduction which is well nigh universal among
if animals and plants adult organisms can give rise to other
adult organisms only through the germ cells, and just as the
germ cells are the only living bond between generations, so also
they are the only living bond between species. Hereditary like-
ness and specific constancy are due to the persistence of ger-
minal organization; hereditary variation and evolutionary
changes are caused by changes in this germinal organization.

1. Modifications of Cytoplasm

Of all portions of the germ cells the cytoplasm undergoes
the most extreme modifications. The remarkable changes which
it passes through in the course of embryonic differentiation
have been referred to in preceding pages; but while these
changes constitute the sum and substances of individual devel-
opment they do not affect heredity or evolution. It is certain
that the cytoplasmic differentiation of nerve, muscle and gland
cells have no direct influence upon the hereditary constitution
of the germ cells and it is very doubtful whether the cytoplasmic
differentiations of the germ cells themselves affect their hered-
itary value. The highly differentiated cytoplasm of the sper-
matozoon has apparently no influence even on the development
of the egg which it fertilizes and while differentiations of the
cytoplasm of the egg do control some of the most important
orientations of development there is no satisfactory evidence
that these differentiations are not the result of the environment
or of the activity of chromosomes during early stages in the
formation of the egg.

The only cytoplasmic modifications or mutations which could
be of evolutionary significance would be those which might be
transmitted to other generations through the cytoplasm of the
germ cells and chiefly through that of the egg cell. One such
type of cytoplasmic transmission, which must however have
played a very small réle in evolution, is found in living bodies
such as plastids, symbionts or parasites which live and multiply

1 William Ellery Hale Lectures before the National Academy of Sci-
ences, Washington, April 16 and 17, 1917.

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 497

in the cytoplasm and are carried from one generation to an-
other in the cytoplasm of the germ cells.

On the other hand the orientations of the egg cytoplasm
initiate and to a large extent determine the character of all the
orientations of development and if it could be proved that the
polarity, symmetry, or pattern of localization of the cytoplasmic
substances of the egg are carried over from generation to gen-
eration, modifications of these differentiations would be of pro-
found influence in evolution. I have elsewhere shown that such
a marked modification as the total reversal of the symmetry of
the body can be traced to a reversal of the symmetry of the cyto-
plasm in the unsegmented egg and that changes in the orienta-
tion of organs and systems such as are found in vertebrates as
contrasted with invertebrates can be most readily explained by
tracing them back to changes in the localization of formative
substances in the cytoplasm of the egg. The problem of the
origin of one phylum or type from another has always involved
as one of its chief difficulties such changes in orientation and
localization and in a previous section we have seen how earlier
evolutionists blundered in attempting to explain how one de-
veloped animal might be transformed into another by turning
it upside down or inside out. Such changes which are utterly
impossible in developed organisms might readily be brought
about by relatively slight changes in the cytoplasmic localiza-
tions of the unsegmented egg.

Furthermore the integrating and coordinating factors in
ontogeny and phylogeny are no less important than the differ-
entiating factors; indeed in some regards they may be said to
be more important for without these not only development and
evolution would be impossible but organisms would cease to be
organized and life would cease to exist. At present we know
that many of the integrations of development can be traced back
to the polarity, symmetry and localization pattern of the egg
cytoplasm. If these differentiations and integrations of the
cytoplasm are carried over from generation to generation, then
modifications of them must be a very important process of evo-
lution. On the other hand if these differentiations arise anew
in each egg cell, as do the various differentiations of tissue cells,
through the interaction of nucleus, cytoplasm and environment.
then evolutionary changes in orientation may find their ultimate
causes in changes in the nucleus rather than in the cytoplasm.

Certain changes in polarity, symmetry and localization of
formative substances in eggs may be brought about exper-
imentally by subjecting them to strong centrifugal force but
such changes are usually of a temporary character and in no

498 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

instance have subsequent generations been studied to find
whether these changes are ever inherited. Lang has shown that
inverse symmetry in the snail Helix pomatia may occasionally
appear in normal dextral stock, but that sinistral parents almost
invariably give rise to dextral forms; in general there seems to
be no regular rule of inheritance of this character. It may be
indeed that inverse symmetry is not inherited at all but is the
result of environmental causes.

Therefore in the present state of our knowledge there is not
sufficient evidence to conclude that modifications of the cyto-
plasm of germ cells are ever really inherited or that they are
ever the initial steps in evolution.

2. Modifications of Chromosomes

We have already considered the evidences that the germinal
organization which is primarily concerned in hereditary con-
stancy or variation is found chiefly if not entirely in the chro-
mosomes. Evolution therefore involves the problem of changes
in the chromosomes or in the units which make up chromo-
somes, such as chromomeres and genes. Weismann maintained
that germplasm must be in a high degree (a) stable, (b)
distinct, (c) continuous. The chromosomal organization is
more stable than the cytoplasm which undergoes many changes
during ontogeny, while the chromosomes usually remain un-
changed. The chromosomes being located within the nucleus
and the nucleus within the cell-body are protected from ex-
trinsic influences more than the cytoplasm. Furthermore they
are relatively distinct from the cytoplasm and they are con-
tinuous from cell to cell and from generation to generation.

Undoubtedly modifications of chromosomal organization may
and do take place. Only the grosser modifications can be seen
directly, while many others must be inferred from physiological
responses such as the results of development. Most of the vis-
ible changes which take place in chromosomes occur during
mitoses while intermitotic stages are relatively more stable.
Slight chemical, thermal or osmotic changes in the medium may
produce extraordinary modifications of mitoses, whereas during
resting stages changes many times as great may produce no vis-
ible or lasting effects. Almost all of the experimentally pro-
duced changes in chromosomes which are known to persist
occur during mitoses, while those which are produced during
intermitoses are, with one or two exceptions, relatively unim-
portant and temporary. This may be due to the fact that the
chromosomes of mitotic stages are bodies which may be counted
and in some cases individually identified, whereas during inter-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 499

mitoses it is difficult if not impossible to count or identify them.
Since most of the visible modifications of chromosomes are
seen as changes in their size, shape or number it is evident that
these modifications could be seen only during mitosis. Many
of these modifications are due to abnormalities in the division
or separation of chromosomes and such abnormalities are nec-
essarily limited to mitotic stages. Of course the chromosomes
are not absolutely removed from the influence of external
changes at any time but any influences that reach them during
resting stages must come through the cell membrane, the cyto-
plasm and the nuclear membrane, whereas during mitosis the
nuclear membrane is lacking. And in addition to this form of
protection from external influences the chromosomes are more
solid and consequently less easily changed than the surrounding
plasma. But the principal reason why chromosomal changes
occur during mitosis is to be found in the fact that the move-
ments which accompany mitosis are interfered with so that
division or separation of chromosomes does not take place
normally.

Changes in resting nuclei due to the volume or quality of the
cytoplasm or to chemical or physical changes in the medium are
usually of a temporary nature and have no evolutionary sig-
nificance. Variations in the volumes of chromosomes are de-
pendent upon the volume of the resting nucleus and this upon
the volume of fluid cytoplasm. These variations have no hered-
itary or evolutionary value as is evident from a comparison of
the nuclei and chromosomes of ova and spermatozoa which
differ greatly in volume but not in value.

Abnormalities in the conjugation (synapsis), separation
(reduction) and distribution (equational division) of chromo-
somes are much more permanent and important. The two
former occur only during the growth and maturation of the
germ cells; the last named may occur at any stage during the
life cycle and in any cells of the organism, but if any abnormal-
ity is to affect the next generation it must be found in the “ germ
track” (germ-cell lineage). It is not surprising that modifica-
tions in the constitution or number of chromosomes are pecul-
iarly liable to occur in the maturation stages in view of the fact
that during these stages several complex processes occur which
are usually lacking in ordinary mitoses. Among these are (a)
synapsis or the union of homologous chromosomes from the two
parents into pairs, the subsequent splitting of each member of
a pair and the condensation of the four “chromatids” thus
formed into one “tetrad” (Fig. 12, p. 274); (b) reduction or

1 Metz has found that maternal and paternal chromosomes are paired
in every mitosis in Drosophila and some other insects.

500 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the separation of whole chromosomes of each pair and their
movement to either pole of the mitotic figure (Fig. 17, p. 283) ;
(c) the occurrence of two maturation divisions without the in-
tervention of a resting stage by which the four ‘‘ chromatids”
of each tetrad are distributed to four different cells (Fig. 22, p.
389). Asa matter of fact most of the persistent modifications
of chromosomes which have been discovered hitherto appear
during maturation stages.

(a) Changes in Chromosome Number.—The typical chro-
mosome number may be more or less permanently changed and
the developed organism may be greatly modified by non-disjunc-
tion of synapsed chromosomes, as Bridges has demonstrated
(see p. 287). Probably many other cases in which the number
of chromosomes and the characters of the developed organism
are atypical may be caused by non-disjunction. For example
it is known that Ginothera lamarckiana has typically 14 chro-
mosomes in the zygote and 7 in the gametes, but the mutants O.
lata and O. scintillans have 15 chromosomes (Gates, Lutz) ; the
half-mutant, O. semigigas, has 21 chromosomes (Stomps),
while the mutant, O. gigas has 28 (Gates). A likely explana-
tion of the condition found in lata is that non-disjunction oc-
curred in one pair of chromosomes of one gamete, whereas in
semigigas it occurred in all the pairs of one gamete, and in
gigas in all pairs of both gametes, and in this connection it is
significant that lata has appeared many times, semigigas sev-
eral times and gigas but twice.

Similar modifications of the typical number of chromosomes
have been found in a considerable number of plants and ani-
mals. For example in Ascaris megalocephala, var. univalens
there is 1 chromosome in each gamete and 2 in the zygote; in
var. bivalens, which is otherwise indistinguishable from uni-
valens, there are 2 in each gamete and 4 in the zygote. A sim-
ilar case occurs in the sea-urchin Echinus microtuberculatus
where 18 chromosomes are found in some individuals and 36 in
others. The reduced number of chromosomes in a gamete is the
haploid number; the usual number in a zygote is diploid; if an
unreduced gamete and a reduced one conjugate the number is
triploid; if two unreduced gametes unite the number is tetra-
ploid. The triploid and tetraploid numbers are probably due
to non-disjunction of all the chromosome pairs of one or of both
gametes at the reduction division or to the failure of all the
daughter chromosomes to separate in some of the ordinary
divisions of the germ track. Both triploidy and tetraploidy
have been repeatedly seen in many different plants and animals
and in general they lead to gigantism, not only the entire or-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 501

ganism being larger than normal but also the individual cells
and nuclei.

It is well known that unusual chromosome numbers may
result from hybridization of two forms having an unequal num-
ber of chromosomes. Thus Herla found that when the two
varieties of Ascaris megalocephala were crossed, univalens
having one chromosome in each gamete and bivalens two, the
hybrid had three; and in all cases of hybrids the number of
chromosomes in the zygote is the sum of those present in the
two gametes. The same is true when more than one sperma-
tozoon fertilizes an egg. Thus Boveri found that 54 chromo-
somes are present in a doubly fertilized sea-urchin egg, when
each of the gametes contains 18 chromosomes. But since each
spermatozoon brings into the egg a centrosome which quickly
divides into two there is usually formed a four-poled spindle
(tetraster) and the daughter chromosomes are distributed un-
equally to these four poles and to the four cells into which the
egg divides. In general he found that those cells which con-
tained a full haploid set of chromosomes developed normally
while those which received less than a full set developed ab-
normally.

Spindles with three or four poles (triasters, tetrasters) and
with double the normal number of chromosomes may result
from the failure of the cell-body to divide following the mitotic
division of the nucleus, and if centrosomes and chromosomes
continue to divide while the cell-body remains undivided a
great number of centrosomes (polyasters) and of chromosomes
may be found in one cell. Whenever more than two centro-
somes are present the chromosomes are almost certain to be un-
equally distributed to the poles of the mitotic figure, and to the
daughter cells if the cell-body divides. Sometimes chromosomes
are scattered along the mitotic spindle and do not move to its
poles, so that when the daughter nuclei are formed these scat-
tered chromosomes are left out in the cell and are ultimately
lost. In all of these cases irregularities in the number of chro-
mosomes are due to abnormalities of the mitotic apparatus by
which the separation of daughter chromosomes is effected.

On the other hand variations in the number of chromosomes
are not always due to non-disjunction at the reduction division
nor to the failure of daughter chromosomes to separate in ordi-
nary mitoses, as is shown by the fragmentation of the chromo-
somes of somatic cells in Ascaris, the pig and in Gnothera
scintillans (Hance, p. 395), and also by the fusion of chromo-
somes into compound ones called by McClung “ hexads,” “ de-
cads,” etc., as in some insects. In these cases it is certain

502 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

that the unusual numbers are not due to non-disjunction
but rather to a fragmentation or to a fusion of chromosomes.
Metz has found that in different species of Drosophila the num-
ber of chromosomes varies from 6 to 12 depending, apparently,
upon fragmentation or fusion of original chromosomes. In
cases of fragmentation or fusion of chromosomes the quantity
of chromatin and presumably the number of chromomeres re-
mains the same. Consequently changes in the number of chro-
mosomes caused by fragmentation or fusion represent merely
changes in the grouping of chromomeres and not changes in the
constitution of the hereditary material.

Abnormalities in the distribution of chromosomes of a cell
persist in all its daughter cells and are not usually corrected.
On the other hand abnormalities in the distribution of cyto-
plasmic substances to the cleavage cells frequently occur and
usually the cell returns to a normal condition by a process of
regulation. But when once the normal number of chromosomes
has been changed there is no regular means of restoring that
number. Momentary changes in the temperature, density
or chemical composition of the medium may thus produce per-
manent changes in the distribution of chromosomes and of
germplasm. Such changes in the distribution and number of
chromosomes are usually of so gross a character that the de-
velopment is not only very abnormal but also the resulting or-
ganism is incapable of continued life and reproduction. Con-
sequently such changes do not usually give rise to new races or
species; only in the most favorable cases where at least the full
set of haploid chromosomes is present does the new form sur-
vive and reproduce.

Although abnormality in chromosome number is found in
some mutants it is by no means certain that this abnormal] num-
ber is the cause of mutation and there are some good evidences
that it is not. For example, deVries finds that the tetraploid
number in Znothera lamarckiana, mut. gigas is a result rather
than a cause of this mutation. Gigas is not merely a tetraploid
O. lamarckiana but a true mutation in which the tetraploid
number of chromosomes is one of the new characters. Stomps
confirms this conclusion of deVries; he finds in O. lamarckiana
and in Narcissus poeticus that the gigas condition may occur
with or without doubling of the chromosomes; Gregory has
found the same thing in Primula sinensis. Therefore in those
gigas mutants in which the number of chromosomes is doubled
we can not conclude that this is the cause of the mutation.

A similar condition is found in those animals in which the
male has one less chromosome than the female; it has sometimes

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 503

been assumed that the sex is caused by the number of chromo-
somes, and yet in many species the male and female have the
same number, the sex chromosomes in one case being known as
XY and in the other as XX. Morgan and his co-workers have
shown that it is not the number of chromosomes which deter-
mines sex but the kind of chromosomes. This case bears di-
rectly upon the supposed relation between chromosome number
and evolution, for the differences between a male and a female
of the same species are frequently as great. as those between
two different species; indeed males and females might be re-
garded as mutants, were it not for the fact that both forms
recur in every generation because of the recurrence of male and
female chromosome combinations.

(b) Changes in Chromosome Constitution.—But just as sex
differences are not always associated with a difference in the
number of chromosomes, but often with differences in size or
constitution of particular chromosomes, so mutants do not al-
ways nor even usually have different numbers of chromosomes
though particular chromosomes probably differ in quality in
different cases. Janssens discovered that chromosomes of a
synaptic pair may twist around each other and he inferred that
when they separate in the reduction division sections of the two
may have interchanged places. Robertson and Wenrich have
described a more complicated form of “ crossing-over” due to a
longitudinal splitting of each chromosome of a synaptic pair,
the condensation of these four chromosomes into a tetrad and
the subsequent separation of these in such a way that chromo-
somal interchange takes place. Morgan and his associates have
shown that many important changes in the linkage of charac-
ters which are inherited in groups may be explained by this
“crossing-over”? of sections of homologous chromosomes (see
p. 289).

But changes in chromosomal constitution are rarely directly
visible, although they may be inferred from the results of de-
velopment. By the study of Mendelian ratios Shull has shown
that in certain cases a particular gene is duplicated in certain
gametes. He points out that such “duplicate genes” could be
caused by the synapsis of non-homologous chromosomes or by
the transfer of part of one chromosome containing such a gene
to another non-homologous one. In the former case the chro-
mosomal grouping would be changed so that each gamete would
contain two homologous chromosomes; according to his second
hypothesis the constitution of two chromosomes would be modi-
fied, namely the one from which the gene in question was re-
moved and the one to which it became attached. Bridges also

504 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

has shown that there is genetical evidence that sections of one
chromosome may in some cases be joined to another non-
homologous one, and the cytological evidence shows that in cer-
tain cases chromosomes undergo fragmentations, in other
fusions, and that a chromosome is not invariably composed
of the same chromomeres. Bridges has described a phenom-
enon in Drosophila which he calls “deficiency” and which
consists in the elimination (or inactivity) of certain closely
linked genes, probably as the result of the dropping out (or the
inactivation) of a section of a chromosome.

(c) Experimental Modification of Chromosomes.—Exper-
iments on dividing cells show that chromosomes, like all forms
of protoplasm, may be modified, injured or destroyed by various
chemical substances, by increasing or decreasing the density
of the surrounding medium, by increasing the temperature
slightly above the optimum, by an electric current, X-rays,
radium, etc. Such experimental conditions also cause very ab-
normal separation and distribution of the chromosomes in
mitosis.

Such modifications of chromosomes either stop develop-
ment altogether or they produce profound monstrosities which
usually bring development to an end at an early stage. In few
if any cases has it been possible to carry such abnormal forms
to maturity and in no instance has any one been able to study
the effects of such modifications of chromosomes on subsequent
generations. Evidently experimentally produced modifications
of chromosomes which are large enough to be visible with the
microscope are usually too great to allow of their being carried
over to another generation. However Plough has found that
high temperature acting on the early oocyte stage of Drosophila
increases the number of cross-overs and of course such changes
are transmitted to subsequent generations; here is indirect evi-
dence of the fact that the constitution of chromosomes may be
modified and direct evidence that genetical constitution may be
changed by environmental influences acting on the germ cells
at an early stage. Probably many other changes in the consti-
tution of chromosomes may be traced to environmental influ-
ences; if so initial stages in evolution may find their causes in
such influences.

3. Changes in Genes

Although some inherited variations are caused by changes
in whole chromosomes or visible portions of chromosomes, by
far the larger number of such variations show no such visible
causes. Nevertheless there is evidence that such variations
are caused by changes in invisible units or genes which are

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 505

located in the chromosomes. Reasoning from the seen to the
unseen, from chromosomes to genes, we are justified in con-
cluding that the behavior of the two is comparable, except that
in general the simpler a unit is the more stable it is. Chromo-
somes are more stable than cytoplasm but genes are probably
much more stable than chromosomes. We have seen that chro-
mosomal organization may be modified: (1) by changes in
number or combination due to the omission or addition of whole
chromosomes, (2) by changes in constitution due to new com-
binations of the parts of which chromosomes are composed.
It seems probable that genes also may be modified in these
two ways.

(a) New Combinations vs. New Constitution of Genes.—
The genetical evidence proves that entire genes may be trans-
ferred from one chromosome to another as in “ cross-overs” or
“duplicate genes” and that entire genes may be lost or rend-
ered inactive as in “deficiency.” In this way new combina-
tions of genes are formed which lead to important changes
in heredity and development and which may become initial
stages in evolution. Furthermore it is highly probable that
individual genes, in some cases, undergo a change in consti-
tution owing presumably to fragmentation or new combina-
tion of the parts of which they are composed. In this connec-
tion it is interesting to recall that Darwin recognized two kinds
of variations, (a) those caused by changes in the number of
pangenes and (b) those caused by changes in the pangenes
themselves (‘‘ Variations,” Vol. II., p. 390). DeVries also
made this distinction at an early date, in his “ Intracellular
Pangenesis” (pp. 73, 210). In the conception of deVries either
of these changes are mutations; on the other hand Morgan and
his school look upon mutations as changes in the constitution of
individual genes, while new combinations of genes are not re-
garded as mutations in a strict sense.

The most important work on mutations and their causes has
been done by deVries on the evening primrose, Gnothera
lamarckiana, and by Morgan on the pomace fly, Drosophila
melanogaster. In the former more than a score of mutants
have been discovered and studied genetically, since 1900, in the
latter more than 150 since 1910. Several geneticists, notably
Johannsen, Heribert-Nilssen, Lotsy, Davis and Bateson, main-
tain that there is no sufficient evidence that Q’nothera lamarck-
iana is a homozygous or pure form and they hold that the
mutations described by deVries are the results of Mendelian
segregation from this impure stock. This conclusion has now

VOL. x.—34.

506 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

been demonstrated by Shull in the most satisfactory manner.
The fact that such mutations occur only rarely and that they
do not exhibit Mendelian ratios may be explained by the partial
or complete sterility of certain gametes or zygotes, for in this
genus there is much sterile pollen and many seeds fail to germ-
inate. In Drosophila a large number of lethal factors have
been discovered which cause the early death of zygotes in
which they are not balanced by normal factors. In nothera
also such lethals probably cause the death of certain classes of
gametes and, if only those gametes which are different in the
two sexes survive, the species will remain constantly hetero-
zygous. In such a case if certain recessive factors are linked
in the same chromosome with lethal ones they could come to
expression only when by crossing-over this linkage was broken,
and it seems probable, as Muller has said, that many mutants
of Gnothera “are merely the emergence into a state of homo-
zygosis, through crossing-over, of recessive factors constantly
present in the heterozygous stock.” Of the nine mutants of
O. lamarckiana which were first discovered by deVries no less
than five (viz., lxevifolia, albida, oblonga, rubrinervis and
nanella) are probably due to such cross-overs; three are pos-
sibly due to alterations in the usual number of chromosomes
(viz., lata, scintillans and gigas) though the most recent work
indicates that this is not the real cause of these mutations;
while one (brevistylis) is evidently due to a change in a par-
ticular gene. If this interpretation is correct the development
or appearance of all of these mutants depends upon a particu-
lar combination of dominant or recessive genes, though only in
the last named mutant does this follow the rule of simple Men-
delian segregation. But granting all this we explain only the
peculiar manner of segregation of dominant and recessive fac-
tors in Gnothera and we find no explanation of the origin of
such factors; the real problem after all is to explain how a
dominant factor may give rise to a recessive one or vice versa.
Here it seems logically necessary to assume that the individual
factor undergoes some chemical or physical change. Peculiar
combinations of dominant and recessive genes will explain the
development of such mutants but not the origin of peculiar
genes.

(b) The Dogma of Immutable Genes.—It is known that
genes are relatively very stable; they may be carried along un-
changed through hundreds of generations and thousands of
individuals. Morgan calculates that there must be at least
7,500 genes in Drosophila melanogaster and yet in some hun-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 507

dreds of generations and many thousands of individuals he has
found only about 150 mutant types although Drosophila seems
to be mutating more rapidly than most species. The constancy
of some species can be measured not only in years but even in
geological ages and the constancy of some characters must be
greater than that of a species, while the constancy of genes
in general must be even greater than that of characters.

This relative stability has given rise to a dogma that genes
are immutable and that all changes in the material basis of
heredity are caused by new combinations of the same old genes;
Lotsy in particular holds this view. It is interesting from the
historical standpoint to recall that immutability has been
ascribed to (1) species (Linnzus), (2) elementary species
(Jordan), (8) pure lines (Lotsy), (4) unit characters (de-
Vries), (5) germplasm (Weismann’s earlier work), (6) genes
(Lotsy). Immutability, like spontaneous generation, has
sought refuge successively in smaller and smaller units but
there is no reason to suppose that these smallest units of living
matter are changeless. Indeed neither molecules nor atoms
are now supposed to be absolutely changeless. In general the
stability of any unit is proportional to its simplicity; no units
of living matter are absolutely simple and therefore none is
absolutely stable.

We know that species, subspecies, pure lines, persons, cells,
chromosomes are subject to change. Genes are at the least
very complex molecules and it is incredible that they are im-
mutable or absolutely removed from influences of external or
internal environment. The dogma of immutable genes leads
logically to the position taken by Lotsy, namely, that there is no
real variation, no actual evolution, no genuine progress; in
short to a philosophical system of negations which is contrary
to experience both in its assumptions and conclusions.

What are Genes ?—As long as these units are not identified
as material bodies it is possible to invest them with all the
properties we are trying to explain and thus to shift the prob-
lems of heredity and evolution to a more inaccessible field. To
a certain extent this has been done by Weismann and his fol-
lowers. In all cases an “explanation” must be in more gen-
eral terms than the thing to be explained.

Undoubtedly genes are material bodies with chemical and
physical properties. Undoubtedly they are capable of growth
and division like any other living units, though it is possible
that they are not living in a strict sense. Their method of
growth and division indicates that they are more than single

508 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

molecules and are probably colloidal aggregates of molecules,
though their great stability led Morgan at one time (1917) to
suggest that they might be single molecules. The fact that
they have the power of growth and division suggests that they
are autocatalytic substances (p. 276) and their great influence
on development in spite of their very small size, as well as their
specificity, has suggested to several writers that they are en-
zymes or bodies which produce enzymes.

(c) Mutation of Genes.—The fact that genes are relatively
complex bodies would indicate that they can not be absolutely
stable and wholly uninfluenced by environment, for nothing can
be such which is not absolutely simple. Assuming then that
genes are at least very complex molecules of protein-like sub-
stance and that more probably they are colloidal aggregates of
such molecules, we may conclude that they undergo change by
dissociation and recombination of the molecules, radicals or
atoms of which they are composed. With large and complex
molecules enormous numbers of different combinations of the
same atoms are possible; thus Miescher calculates that a mole-
cule of albumin with 40 carbon atoms may have as many as
one billion stereo-isomers, and in protoplasm there are many
kinds of albumin and other proteins, some with more than 700
earbon atoms. Reichert says that serum albumin may theo-
retically exist in as many as a thousand million forms. There-
fore, even if genes are single molecules, it is chemically possible
to have an enormous number of variants of each of them, and
if they are aggregates of such molecules the number of different
kinds which would be chemically possible would be greatly in-
creased. Mutation in genes may therefore be thought of as
due to the loss or addition of certain constituent atoms or mole-
cules or to the rearrangement of some of these. But on the
other hand the fact that genes are relatively very stable indi-
cates that something other than the possibilities of chemical
alteration are involved in their mutations.

It is an interesting fact that many mutations seem to in-
volve the loss of something; very many if not the majority of
the mutations which have occurred among domestic animals
and cultivated plants are of this sort, such as the loss of color
(albinism) in many plants and animals, the loss of glumes or
bristles or hairs, etc. Such mutations deVries calls “ regres-
sive.” On the other hand a few mutations seem to add some-
thing which was not present before and these deVries calls
“progressive” and he thinks that they are of especial signifi-
cance in evolution. We must not however conclude that the
loss or addition of a character means the loss or addition of a

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 509

new gene nor even of molecules or atoms of a gene, for the re-
arrangement of the parts of a gene may lead to the appearance
of new characters just as the rearrangement of the atoms of a
molecule may lead to new qualities in a chemical substance.
The old idea of evolution by addition of new characters, or by
accretion, is out of harmony with what we know of individual
development where differentiation takes place by the trans-
formation of units already present and not by additions of new
units. Nowhere in the entire process of organic evolution is
there any evidence that new genes are “extrinsic additions”
or are created de novo. When Morgan says: “ Evolution con-
sists largely in introducing new factors that influence charac-
ters already present” (1917) he can only mean that new com-
binations of the same old genes are brought about by cross-
overs, non-disjunction or fertilization, or that new kinds of
genes arise by transmutation of old ones through new combina-
tions of the elements of which genes are composed. The whole
mechanism of evolution consists in new combinations of the
units of organization whether those units be characters, cells,
chromosomes, chromomeres, genes, subgenes, molecules or
atoms.

Mutants are in the main recessives when mated with their
normal allelomorphs, but they are not always recessive as is
claimed by Lotsy. Among more than 150 mutants which have
appeared in Morgan’s cultures of Drosophila 12 are dominant
or semi-dominant. Many other dominant mutants are known
such as abnormally short limbs, fingers and toes, supernumer-
ary digits, hereditary cataract and other eye defects in man,
hornlessness in cattle, rumplessness in poultry, red sunflowers,
red buds in Qnothera lamarckiana, mut, rubricalyx, et al.

Morgan and his school have proved by genetical evidence
that a particular gene may change in any one of several differ-
ent ways, probably owing to various changes in its composition.
Thus the gene for the normal red eye color may change so as
to give rise to “blood,” “cherry,” “eosin,” “buff,” “ tinged ”
or “white” eyes. Genes, or allelomorphs, that mutate in vari-
ous directions give rise to what are known as “ multiple allelo-
morphs”; hypothetically these may be explained as due to dif-
ferent changes, probably of a chemical nature, in a particular
gene. Not only may genes mutate in different directions but
some genes apparently mutate more frequently than others, as
Emerson has shown in the case of corn and as Morgan has
found in Drosophila. DeVries especially has long maintained
that some genes are more “labile” than others, although more

510 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

recent work on Gnothera indicates that this so-called lability
may be caused by crossing-over, at least in some instances.

Furthermore the same mutation may occur independently
in different cultures or even in different species. Thus Mor-
gan says that white eyes have appeared independently in his
cultures of Drosophila three different times, vermilion eyes six
times, rudimentary wings five times, etc. In this case it is
known that the mutating gene in each instance named occupies
the same locus in the chromosomes and there can be no doubt
that each of these recurring mutations is due to the same sort
of change in the same gene. DeVries has observed the inde-
pendent recurrence of the same mutation in different cultures
of @nothera, and other investigators have noted a similar phe-
nomenon in other organisms; these are probably caused by
identical changes in particular genes. The independent recur-
rence of a mutation must indicate a tendency for a gene to
change in a particular way just as chemical changes tend to go
in certain directions. A similar cause probably underlies the
tendency of organisms to evolve in definite directions—a phe-
nomenon which has been called ‘‘orthogenesis” (Haacke,
Eimer, Whitman) and which has been especially emphasized
by paleontologists.

Not only do the same mutations recur within the same
species but apparently identical mutations may appear within
different species. Metz has shown that certain mutants of
Drosophila virilis closely resemble corresponding ones in D.
melanogaster and that in both species the mutating genes are
located in corresponding chromosomes; however such cases are
exceptional. Albinism, melanism, gigantism, etc., have ap-
peared repeatedly in many different species, and this raises the
interesting question whether identical genes may occur in dif-
ferent species and undergo identical changes. While this may
be true in some cases it is certainly not true in all. Mutations
which look alike may be genetically different; albinism, for ex-
ample, is recessive in mammals while at iteast two kinds of
albinism occur in poultry, one of which is dominant and the
other recessive. White flowers even within the same species
may be due to mutations in different genes, as in the case of
sweet peas; Morgan has shown that mutants of Drosophila
which look alike may be caused by mutations of different genes,
occupying different loci in the chromosomes. We can not con-
clude, therefore, that mutations which look alike are always
due to similar changes in identical genes.

Mutations of genes may probably occur in any cell, but if

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION oll

they are to be transmitted to the next generation by sexual
reproduction they must take place in the germ-cell lineage at
least as early as the maturation stages in the case of dominant
or sex-linked characters and possibly much earlier, while in the
case of recessive mutations they may occur many generations
back and be carried along without giving any sign of their
presence until they are mated with a similar recessive muta-
iton. In such cases the actual mutation occurs long before it
comes to expression in a developed mutant.

(d) Extrinsic Causes of Mutation.—Various changes in the
chemical and physical environment produce abnormalities in
the number, distribution and constitution of chromosomes, as
was pointed out on a previous page, and it is not antecedently
improbable that such environmental changes may produce sim-
ilar modifications in genes themselves. Nevertheless it must be
admitted that at the present time no single case is known in
which such environmental changes have certainly produced a
mutation in a gene.

Several investigators have described cases in which muta-
tions have been ascribed to the action of external agencies, but
in no one of these cases is it certain that the external change
produced the mutation in question. One of the first instances
of the supposed experimental production of a mutation was
described by MacDougal in 1905. He reported that he had
injected various solutions, particularly zine sulphate in different
concentrations, into the ovaries of: a species of CMnothera
(Raimannia) and had obtained as many as 13 different mu-
tants. A year later he reported that he obtained 3 mutants in
a similar way. These results have not been confirmed by other
workers and the evidence seems to favor the view that Mac-
Dougal was dealing with a naturally mutating stock and that
the mutants were not caused by the experimental conditions.

Tower (1906) carried on extensive and prolonged studies
on the evolution of the potato beetle, Leptinotarsa, and con-
cluded that he had induced mutations in this form by changes
in humidity and temperature acting upon the germ cells at a
sensitive stage in their genesis, presumably by causing muta-
tions in the genes. But in this case also it is not certain that
the mutations observed were actually caused by the experimen-
tal treatment and there are many reasons for concluding that
they were not.

Many other investigators have studied the injurious effects
on development of different experimental conditions acting on
the germ cells. Thus Bardeen and O. Hertwig found that when

p12 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

normal frog’s eggs were fertilized by spermatozoa which had
been exposed to X-rays or radium the resulting development
was very abnormal. Cole found that when lead acetate was
fed to rabbits or fowls their germ cells were so affected that
they produced abnormal offspring. However in none of these
experiments is it known that these abnormalities were herit-
able, since they were not followed to later generations.

Stockard has made an extensive study of the inherited
effects of alcohol upon guinea pigs. He finds that the offspring
of alcoholized animals are frequently weak and abnormal and
that these effects may be traced to the third or fourth fillial
generation. The effects of alcohol on the male germ cells seems
to be greater than on the egg cells, and since the portion of the
spermatozoon which enters and fertilizes the egg is composed
almost entirely of chromosomes it seems reasonable to conclude
that the chromosomes have been injured by the alcohol. On
the other hand there is no evidence here that individual genes
have been caused to mutate and the fact that the injurious
effects wear off after three or four generations seems to indi-
cate that the changes produced by the alcohol are not of the
nature of mutations. It should be said that Pearl’s experi-
ments on the inherited effects of alcohol on chickens do not
support Stockard’s results; he finds that the offspring of alco-
holic parents are fewer in number but stronger than those from
normal parents and he concludes that the effect of the alcohol
is to kill the weaker germ cells and embryos and to permit only
the more hardy ones to survive.

In these experiments with alcohol there is no evidence that
genes have been caused to mutate, and indeed there is no satis-
factory evidence that the defects observed in the offspring of
alcoholic guinea pigs were really inherited. It is known that
many environmental infiuences, such as food, temperature, soil,
ete., may modify the development of the first and even the
second succeeding generation and then disappear, as Whitney
has shown in the case of Rotifers, Woltereck in Daphnia and
Harris in beans. Such temporary modifications are not really
inherited and are known as “induction” phenomena. They do
not represent modifications in heredity but rather in develop-
ment, not mutations in genes but possibly alterations of the
cytoplasm. :

In conclusion it may be said that although it is certain that
mutations of genes take place and although it is highly prob-
able that these mutations, like all chemical and physiological
processes, are affected by environmental conditions, neverthe-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 513

less we do not know what the conditions are which induce mu-
tations and at present we are unable to initiate or control them.

(e) Intrinsic Causes of Mutation.—The failure to find defi-
nite extrinsic causes of mutation has led certain students of
the subject to conclude that all changes in genes are due to
intrinsic causes. The gene has been compared to the radium
atom which undergoes disintegration wholly uninfluenced by
temperature or other physical or chemical conditions. But, as
has been indicated, the gene is not an atom but at the very least
an extremely complex molecule and it is incredible that it should
be wholly removed from environmental influences, since this is
true of no other molecule or group of molecules.

We have no more direct knowledge regarding the intrinsic
causes of mutation than concerning the extrinsic ones and yet
we may safely assume that certain general principles which
apply to visible portions of the organism are true of invisible
genes. As development or any physiological process is the re-
sponse of an organism to various stimuli, so we may assume
that mutations also represent the response of the hereditary
organization to certain stimuli; and just as the nature of any
response is primarily determined by the nature of the organism
while the stimuli serve merely to initiate, hasten or retard the
response, so the nature of a mutation is probably definitely lim-
ited by the organization of the germplasm while its extrinsic
causes serve only to initiate or retard it. With true insight
Charles Darwin wrote many years ago:

Although every variation is either directly or indirectly caused by
some change in the surrounding conditions, we must never forget that
the nature of the organization which is acted on essentially governs the
result.

Some conceivable mutations never become real because of
these intrinsic limitations. ‘“‘ Whales never produce feathers,
nor birds whale bone,” said Huxley; and probably no one ever
really saw a green horse or a purple cow.

Mutations can not therefore take place in all conceivable
directions, owing to the limitations of the organization of the
germplasm and these same limitations may sometimes cause
mutations to follow more or less closely in particular lines, as
for example in the independent recurrence of the same muta-
tion, but on the other hand the organization of a gene is so
complex that it may undergo many different alterations, as is
shown in cases of “‘ multiple allelomorphism.” There is no justi-
fication therefore for extreme views of orthogenesis which re-
gard mutations as taking place only in a single direction.

514 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Another hypothesis which is the result of a too extreme
insistence on the intrinsic factor of mutation is found in the
view that all mutations of genes are in the nature of losses or
disintegrations more or less comparable to the disintegrations
of the radium atom. The “presence and absence” hypothesis
assumed that dominant characters are due to the presence of a
factor and recessive character to its absence, and since regres-
sive mutations, in which some dominant character becomes re-
cessive, are much more numerous than progressive ones, it was
suggested by Shull, Bateson and Davenport that evolution
might be due to the loss or disintegration of factors or genes.
“This conception results,” said Shull (1907), “in an interesting
paradox, namely the production of a new character by the loss
of an old unit,” and he suggests that at least the later stages of
evolution may be a process of analysis due to the disappearance
of one unit after another. Bateson (1914) also proposed the
same thing in his well-known inquiry ‘‘ whether the course of
-evolution can at all reasonably be represented as an unpacking
of an original complex, which contained within itself the whole
range of diversity which living things present”; and in the
same category is the speculation by Davenport that “the foun-
dations of the organic world were laid when a tremendously
complex molecule, capable of splitting up into a vast number of
simpler molecules, was evolved.” But the speculation that a
recessive character is due to the absence of a factor has been
disproved by work on multiple allelemorphs for here although
there may be several kinds of recessives to the same dominant
allelemorph there can be only one kind of absence. Further-
more this hypothesis of evolution by degredation offers no real
explanation of evolution, but like the old doctrine of preforma-
tion it merely puts the mystery back into the supposed causes.

But apart from the fact that this hypothesis of evolution
by disintegration offers no real explanation of evolution, it does
not at all conform with what we know of other natural phe-
nomena. In the inorganic world, as well as in the organic,
changes involve not merely breaking down but also building up,
not merely analysis but also synthesis. Everywhere in the
living as well as in the lifeless world disintegration is balanced
by reintegration. Chemical changes are the results not only of
dissociation but also of recombination. In embryonic differen-
tiation new structures and functions arise not merely by a
process of disintegration of the structures and functions of the
egg and a sorting out of these fragments to different cells, but
also by the transformation of the germinal structures and func-

THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION 515

tions into those of the developed organism by a process of re-
combination or “creative synthesis.” Similarly in phylogeny
new types, new characters, new genes, arise by the transforma-
tion of those already present by a process which may be called
“creative evolution.”

In conclusion we find that it is impossible to avoid the con-
viction that the initial stages in evolution are caused by new
combinations of chromosomes, chromomeres, genes or sub-
genes, and that these new combinations take place in response
to stimuli from the external or internal environment. Prob-
ably experimental cytologists have already made many such
new combinations which might have given rise to new species,
genera or even phyla if they could have survived. Unfor-
tunately almost all of these changes in the germplasm have
been of so gross a character that the new forms were unable to
live beyond the early stages of development, and the more ex-
treme they were the earlier they perished. Germ cells are so
complex and are so delicately adjusted and balanced that they
can not usually be greatly changed without rendering them in-
capable of continued life. Experimentalists have aimed to pro-
duce changes in germ cells or embryos which could be seen with
the microscope, but it will be necessary to produce smaller and
more subtle changes in the germplasm if we are to determine
their effects on succeeding generations. The future may show
us methods of modifying the germplasm, more delicate and
effective than any that have been discovered as yet, and when
that time comes, if it ever comes, a real experimental evolution
will be possible.

The mystery of mysteries in evolution is how germplasm
ever became so complex as it is, so well adapted to give rise to
viable organisms, so filled with the marvellous potencies of
development. The greatest problem which confronts us is no
longer the mechanism of evolution but the evolution of this
mechanism. This problem has been shifted from the developed
organism to the germplasm, but has not been solved.

516 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

STATE PARKS IN IOWA

By Professor L. H. PAMMEL

IOWA STATE COLLEGE

ApRave thirty-seventh general assembly of Iowa passed a
comprehensive state park bill in the following section of
the law:

The State Board of Conservation, by and with the written consent
of the executive council, is hereby authorized to establish public parks in
any county of the state, upon the shores of lakes, streams or other waters
of the state, or at any other places which have by reason of their location
become historic or which are of scientific interest, or by reason of their
natural scenic beauty or location become adapted therefor, and said Board
of Conservation, under the supervision of said executive council, is hereby
authorized to improve and beautify such parks. When so established they
shall be made accessible from the public highways, and in order to estab-
lish such parks said executive council shall have the power to purchase
or condemn lands for such purposes and to purchase and condemn lands
for such highway purposes.

The law also provided that the state executive council desig-
nate three persons, who with the curator of the Historical De-
partment shall constitute a Board of Conservation, who shall
serve without pay. The original bill provided that the sum of
$50,000 be appropriated annually out of fees obtained from
hunters’ license fees. The thirty-eighth general assembly
amended this section by making an annual appropriation of
$100,000 annually. Thus there came into being a constructive
movement for the preservation of regions of historical, scien-
tific and recreational interest.

This movement was of slow growth. More than a quarter
of a century ago Dr. Thomas Macbride, of the State University
of Iowa, in an address before the lowa Academy of Science ad-
vocated a system of county parks distributed throughout the
State; subsequently the Iowa Park and Forestry Association
which later became the Iowa Conservation Association, at re-
peated annual meetings asked the legislature to conserve some
of the natural beauty of Iowa. The state park measure has
found a hearty response in all parts of the state. The hearty
response comes, not only from the cities, but the rural popula-
tion as well. I like to look upon this movement as a rural move-
ment, because Iowa is essentially a great rural agricultural
state. There are no large centers of population. Less than a

STATE PARKS IN IOWA 517

VIEW OF THE MAQuoKrETA RIVER IN BACKBONE PARK, DELAWARE CouNtTY. (Photo-
graphed by I. Bode.)

half dozen cities have a population of over 50,000, and only one
city has a population of over 100,000.

Those who ride over the state on any of the great transcon-
tinental railways think of Iowa as a state of rolling prairies,
devoted to the cultivation of corn and oats, and pastures where
fine herds of cattle and sheep graze on the rich bluegrass.
Here and there, as the trains cross the valley, one may see small
kelts of timber. The timbered area is, however, larger in north-
eastern and southeastern Iowa. Iowa was the center of various
ice invasions: the Kansan, Iowan and Wisconsin and a few
other minor invasions. These ice sheets shaped the topography
of the state, and left the imprints of the floristic features of the
region. Let us for a moment consider the most recent of the ice
invasions; the Wisconsin, entering the state in Worth county
on the east and Osceola county on the west, culminated in Polk
county. In this region occur seventy or more lakes, none large,
and most of them shallow, with the exception of Lake Okoboji,
which is one of the most beautiful lakes in the northern Missis-
Sippi valley. In the same county and to the north occurs Spirit
Lake, covering a good many hundred acres. In a half dozen
counties to the east are many other fine lakes, but all are com-
paratively small. Curiously enough such lakes as exist in the
southern portion of the Wisconsin drift also occur in a tier of
counties, to the north of Story, including Hamilton and Sac
counties. There were formerly a few very shallow lakes in
counties in the same latitude with Story county, one of which,
Goose Lake, is so shallow, that it has been ordered drained.

518 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Two HUNDRED AND FIrry YEAR OLD WHITE PINE ON THE MAQuoKETA River IN BACK-
BONE PARK IN DELAWARE CouNtTy. (Photographed by I. Bode.)

In our park system it is hoped to buy areas on the shores of
all of the lakes to conserve the animal and plant life and give
people generally a chance to make use of these bodies of water.
To-day the public can not have access to the lakes, except as
trespassers. In the prairie region where these lakes occur there
is usually some timber. The state proposes to secure some of
these areas. Parks established at these places will be desig-
nated lake parks.

Woops ALONG THE UPPER DESMOINES RIVER NEAR ESTHERVILLE.

STATE PARKS IN IOWA a19

A second kind of park to be established will be state parks,
such parks to contain large areas along our streams. The first
one of these parks to be established, the Backbone Park in
Delaware county, contains 1,200 acres. It is situated on the
Maquoketa River. The river here has cut through limestone
rock more than 100 feet thick. At a point known as the Back-
bone, or as the old settlers called it, the Devil’s Backbone, is a
narrow ridge in some cases not more than 50 feet across with
the river flowing on each side of it. This park contains some
of the original pine trees, some of which are nearly three feet in
diameter, and one hundred and sixty to one hundred and sev-
enty years old, some at least two hundred and fifty years old.
Growing with the pine are white, chestnut, red, bur and
black oaks.

A second park of 1,123 acres has been established in Van
Buren county in southeastern Iowa, in a region known as the
Horseshoe Bend. This area contains great white oaks 31: feet
in diameter, swamp, white and red oaks. Various forms of
animals found in Iowa occur here, like the native pheasant, or
drumming partridge, now a rare bird in lowa; the opossum,
the fox, and quail which are found in abundance.

A third park of small dimensions has been established in
Henry county on the Skunk River. This park contains some of
the primeval sugar maple (Acer sacchaium), great Sycamores
and hackberries.

LEDGES IN Boone CoUNTY, ALONG THE DESMOINES RIvER, SANDSTONE CLIFFS 125
Freer HicH. (Photographed by C. M. King.)

520 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

There are under consideration projects for reserves in
Boone county in an area known as the “ Ledges.” These sand-
stone ledges contain the carboniferous sandstone common along
the Des Moines from Webster county south in what is known as
the Cedar Bluff region in Mahaska county This area contains
an interesting lot of rare ferns.

A Wooprp SLOPE NEAR KELLERTON, IN RINGGOLD COUNTY, SOUTHWESTERN JOWA,

There is also under consideration an area in Webster county,
known as Woodman’s Holiow and Bone Yard Hollow. In Hardin
county we have another interesting region known as the Steam-
boat Rock, Eldora and Alden region. At Steamboat Rock we
have not only the most westerly distribution of the white pine,
but an abundance of the cherry birch (Betula lenta) and the
paper birch. The large white lady slipper occurs on the steep
slopes of the clay hills.

Two sisters, Misses Clara and Emma Brandt gave to the
State 57 acres on Pine Creek in Muscatine county, known as
Wild Cat Den. Here may be found such ferns as Aspidium
Goldianum, Phegopteris hexagonoptera, Polypodium vulgare,
Pteris aquilina, Pellaea atropurpurea, Camptosorus rhizophyl-
lus, Woodsia obtusa, Osmunda struthiopteris, Onoclea struthi-
opteris and Cystopteris bulbifera. The region has been pro-
tected largely because these two nature-loving women saw the
wisdom of keeping for posterity the beautiful things of nature.

STATE PARKS IN IOWA 521

There is also under consideration an area in Jackson county,
known as Morehead caves, where a natural bridge, which
though not as large as the natural bridge of Virginia, rivals it
in beauty. Hanging from the walls of the limestone rock are
great masses of Sullivantia ohionis, Cystopteris fragilis and C.
bulbifera. The cliff brake Pellaea atropurpurea was abundant
everywhere on the dry limestone rock.

Another area under consideration is the Yellow River area
in Allamakee county. This area contains not only the white
pine and balsam fir, the latter a very rare tree in Iowa, some
two hundred miles out of its range, but many other boreal plants
like the little white violet (Vola blanda), the high bush cran-
berry (Viburnum opulus), Enchanter’s night shade (Circaea
alpina), Phegopteris calcarea, Aconitum noveboracense, paper
birch, sweet birch (Betula lenta) and speckled alder (Alnus in-
cana) and the yew (Taxus canadensis).

Another area under consideration occurs in what is known
as the Palisades in Linn County. Great primeval white oak,
the walking leaf fern (Camptosorus rhizophyllus), yew, leather
wood (Dirca palustris), occur in this region. A lot of fine In-
dian mounds are found here. The state hopes it may place all
of these Indian mounds in state parks and lowa is especially
rich in mounds.

In writing about state parks, I should not forget to men-
tion that it is proposed to have a national park or monument
on the great and majestic Mississippi River at McGregor, whic’
we hope, will contain several thousand acres and be linked up
with our state parks at Waterville, Decorah and the Yellow
River. It is far-sighted wisdom that the state of Iowa estab-
lish these state parks to preserve to future generations the
natural history, geology, and historic features of Iowa.

We also propose to establish highway parks of smaller ex-
tent, one or more of these in each county, to be located near
some stream, which will serve to preserve the woods, wild
flowers, birds and game. We will also consider prairie area3
where the wild prairie flowers and animals will be protected.

VOL X.— 35.

022

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE NORTHUMBERLAND
HOUSE OF JOSEPH
PRIESTLEY

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, born in York-
shire in 1733, was by profession a
dissenting clergyman and carried on
his work in science as an amateur.
He was led in part by association
with Franklin to take up the wri-
ting of a history of electricity and
to make original experiments in con-
rection with this work, in recogni-
tion of which he was elected to the
Royal Society and awarded its Cop-
ley medal. His remarkable work on
gases was carried on while he was
acting as a unitarian clergyman at
Leeds and Birmingham. He not only
discovered oxygen, but also sulphuric
and muriatie acid, and did much to
enlarge knowledge concerning the
properties of oxygen, nitrogen and
other gases.

Priestley was not only a liberal in
religion, opposed to a state church,
but advocated democratic principles

THE PRIESTLEY HOUSE

of government, with freedom of
thought and liberty of discussion.

'At the time of the French revolu-

tion he was made a citizen of France
and a member of the assembiy.
This led to persecution at home, and
on the anniversary of the French
revolution, in 1791, there was a riot
in Birmingham, in which his meet-
ing house and dwelling were burned,
and his manuscripts, library and ap-
paratus destroyed. He was even
obliged to withdraw from the Royal
Society.

Under these conditions Priestley
sought freedom in the United States
where his sons had already preceded
him. Arriving here in 1794, he was
received with distinguished consid-
eration by Jefferson and others, the
American Philosophical Society pre-
sented him with a complimentary
address and the University of Penn-

-sylvania offered him a professorship

of chemistry. It is said, however,
that the alien and sedition law of
the Adams administration was

AT NORTHUMBERLAND.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 523

THE PRIESTLEY HOUSE.

passed with some reference to him,
and Mr. Adams warned him to ab-
stain from saying anything on
politics lest he should get into diffi-
culties.

Priestly retired to Northumber-
land on the Susquehanna river one
hundred and thirty miles from Phil-
adelphia, where the house shown in
the accompanying illustrations, gave
him a library and laboratory. There
he worked until his death in 1801.

This Priestley homestead was pur-
chased recently by graduate students
of the Pennsylvania State College,
who plan to move it to the campus
and make it a lasting memorial.
Upon learning that the house which
was built in 1794-1796, was to be
put up at public auction, the Penn
State chemists sent as their repre-
sentative to the sale Dr. G. G. Pond,
dean of the School of Natural Sci-
ence at the college. He was sucess-
- ful in making the purchase, and the
historic mansion will be preserved.

Architects from the college will
make the necessary surveys ‘prepar-
atory to the work of moving the
Priestley house to the campus at
State College. The house is of
frame, and painting has kept the

woodwork in a remarkable state of
preservation, so that it may be pos-
sible to rebuild the greater part of
the structure from the present lum-
ber. Immense pine timbers used in
the framework are as good as new
and the old-fashioned interior deco-
rations—arched doorways, fireplaces
and stairway—are in such condition
that they can be removed and re-
placed with comparative ease.

While the purchase of the house
has been made for the Penn State
chemistry alumni, who are scattered
to all parts of the country, funds
for its removal and erection on the
college campus will be supplied by
an as yet unnamed donor. Actual
work of removal will probably be
started soon. Northumberland is
about sixty miles from State Col-
lege, at the intersection of the north
and west branches of the Susque-
hanna.

The reconstruction on the college
campus will be along the old archi-
tectural lines, but modernized and
adapted to some suitable use by
the school of Natural Science, ac-
cording to present plans. The house
is an old landmark in Northumber-
land county, and can be seen on the

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

outskirts of the town from trains on
the Pennsylvania Railroad passing
Northumberland. It is a two-story
structure, with capacious attic space.
It is about 45 « 50 feet, with a pro-
jection at each end about 25 feet
square. One of these was the
kitchen and the other the workshop,
ol laboratory, in which Priestley
pursued his scientific study and ex-
periments.

THE WORK IN INDUSTRIAL
CHEMISTRY OF THE AMERI-
CAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

A GROUP of chemists met at North-
umberland in 1874 to celebrate the
one hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of oxygen by Priestley and
from this meeting the American
Chemical Society had its origin.
The society, which now has some
14,000 members and publishes three

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

important journals, held its spring!
meeting at St. Louis in April. From |
a technical point of view the meet- |
ing was one of the most helpful and |
practical ever held by the society. |
Well-known chemists, who had been
active in war work, reported the
first fruits of their researches, made
since their return to the university |
and the commercial laboratories. |
These constitute important contribu- |
tions to industry and also to the)
general welfare of the American,
people.

Several sections of the society
dealt with the reduction of the high |
cost of living in its various phases. |
The search for vegetable substitutes
for meat was shown in papers de-
scribing the proteins found in pecans |
and in Georgia velvet beans. The
growing importance of the American |
beet sugar industry was revealed in
a paper on its chemical control. The |
nature of that invisible and illusive
power represented by the vitamines,
which are so essential to the quality
of food and are destroyed in stale
and over-cooked viands, was dis-|
cussed in papers indicating that the
day is at hand when they may be
isolated and administered.

Suggestions for the hardening of.
vegetable oils with the aid of cata-
lyzers, substances which alter the
nature of liquid fats through chem-
ical reaction, point the way to the
further development of butter sub-
stitutes.

The soft drink industry, which |
has increased greatly in this coun-
try, is making an extensive use of
lactic acid, usually derived from sour
milk and also obtainable from other
sources. The acid is formed by
those benevolent bacteria present in
the Bulgarian sour milk drinks made
famous by Metchnikoff as a means
of prolonging life. The use of edible
lactic acid and in the potations pro-
hibition has popularized, such as
ginger ales and kickless beers, would
thus tend to prolong the span of
life.

' farmer.

525

Many persons have come to an
untimely death through the drink-
ing of wood alcohol served by boot-
leggers and unscrupulous dealers,
and to shield the public from excess
it was proposed before the Pharma-
ceutical Section that the dangerous
liquid be deprived of the name
‘aleohol” entirely and, following a
practise already begun, be known
merely as “ methanol.”

The slogan, ‘“ Use American Pot-
ash” was sounded by a representa-
tive of the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture, which is en-
deavoring to bring this fertilizing
element within the reach of every
Experts reported that the
American industry need have noth-
ing to fear from the German potash
companies which once practically
monopolized the trade. The element
is now being obtained in consider-
able quantities as a by-product of
the making of cement. The an-
nouncement was also made that se
many were the by-products obtained
in the making of potash from kelp,
a giant seaweed plentiful along the
Pacific coast, that the kelp-potash
industry, with which the govern-

ment has been experimenting, can

now be developed on a_ profitable
basis.

Several papers were read on the
feeding of live stock in which sug-
gestions were offered for making the
alfalfa, various grasses, silage, and

also peanuts more available for ani-

mal food.

The extensive experiments made
by the Chemical Warfare Service in
the preparation of a charcoal rend-
ered porous or activated for use as
an absorbent for noxious vapors in
the army gas masks, have borne
fruit in the development of new in-
dustrial uses for this treated mate-
rial. What with the adapting of the
war gas mask for the service of
manufacturing and mining, the
Chemical Warfare Service, as de-
scribed in a public lecture given by

‘its head, Lieutenant-Colonel Amos

526

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

JOHN ALFRED BRASHEAR
Distinguished as a maker of astronomical and physical instruments and an astronomer,
a leader in the scientific, educational and civie life of Pittsburgh, who died
on April 9, in his eightieth year.

A. Fries, has made many important

contributions to the arts of peace.
The newly constituted Leather
Section of the society developed im-
proved processes in the tanning of
hides for shoes and for industrial
purposes which are likely to greatly
increase the efficiency and speed of

tanning processes and possibly con-|

tribute to a decrease in the prices
of footgear.
rubber considered a new method of
testing that elastic substance with
the microscope which is considered
revolutionary.

American dyes are able to hold
their own not only for the tinting
of fabrics but also for scientific and
medical purposes, as demonstrated
by important papers read before the
dye division. A new note appeared

The section devoted to |

in the proposal to derive from corn
cobs furfural, which may be used as
a base from which to draw dyes,
just as certain coal tar products are
employed. Thus, furfural green, a
favorite tint, may eventually be de-
rived from the refuse of native
maize.

MEAT AND MILK IN THE FOOD
SU PPE

THE committee on food and nutri-
tion of the National Research Coun-
cil has issued a report on meat and
milk in the food supply of the na-
tion, which is summarized in a press
bulletin of the council.

Dr. Armsby, probably the leading
American expert on animal nutri-
tion, has estimated that of the en-
ergy of grain used in feeding the

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

animal there is recovered for human

consumption about 18 per cent. in)

milk, and only about 3% per cent. in
beef. In an official Report on the Food
Supply of the United Kingdom, it is
estimated that the production of 100
calories of human food in the form

cf milk from a good cow, requires

the consumption of animal feed by
the cow of 2.9 pounds starch equiv-
alent; 100 calories milk from a poor
cow is estimated to require the con-
sumption of 4.7 pounds; while 100
calories of beef from a steer 2%
years old, is estimated to require
the consumption of 9 pounds of
starch equivalent in food.

Stated in terms comparable with
those used by Dr. Armsby, this
would mean that the good milk cow
returns 20 per cent. of the energy
value of what she consumes, the
poor milk cow 12 per cent., and the
good beef steer only 6 per cent.
Although this estimate is more
favorable to the beef steer than is
that of Dr. Armsby, yet even by
this estimate it will be seen that the
poor cow is twice as efficient, and
the good milk cow more than three
times as efficient as the beef steer in
the conservation of energy in the
food supply.

Considering the whole length of
life of the animal, Professor Wood,
the leading English agricultural ex-
pert, estimates that the cow returns
in milk, veal and beef, 14. as much
as she has consumed, while the beef

steer returns only 1.

the animal is considered.

Similarly it has been estimated by

Cooper and Spillman (Farmers Bul-

letin, No. 877, 1917, U. S. Depart- |

ment of Agriculture) that the crops
grown on a given area may be ex-
pected to yield from four to five

times as much protein and energy |

for human consumption when fed to
dairy cows as when used for beef

In other)
words, the cow is five times as effi-|
cient as the beef steer as a food pro-|
ducer when the whole life cycle of.

527

As Professor Wood has

very strikingly shown, the longer
the time that the beef animals are
fattened on grain, the less econom-
ical the process becomes.

But not only is the milk cow sev-
eral times more efficient than the
beef steer in the conservation of
proteins, fats and carbohydrate for
human consumption, but in the gath-
ering and preparation of mineral
elements and vitamines she con-
'trasts even more favorably with the
beef animal. It is largely because
of its richness in calcium and in fat-
soluble vitamine that milk is the
most efficient nutritional supplement
to bread or other grain products.

| production.

| SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

WE record with regret the death
of George Egbert Fisher, professor
of mathematics in the University of
|Pennsylvania; James Gayley, past
president of the Institute of Mining
Engineers; James Emerson Rey-
nolds, formerly professor of chem-
istry at the University of Dublin;
Charles Lapworth, for many years
professor of geology and physiog-
raphy in the University of Birming-
ham; Pier Andrea Saccardo, emer-
itus professor of botany in the Uni-
versity of Padua, and Woldemar
Voigt, the mathematical physicist of
the University of Gottingen.

AT a meeting held in the rooms
of the Royal Society, to consider the
question of a memorial to the mem-
ory of Lord Rayleigh, it was agreed
that a fund should be raised for the
purpose of placing a memorial, pref-
erably a window, in Westminster
Abbey. A committee was appointed
to consider details and the further
question of raising a fund in mem-
ory of Lord Rayleigh, to be used for
the promotion of research in some
branch of science in which he was
specially interested——Dr. Harvey
| Cushing, Peter Bent Brigham Hos-
pital, Boston, has been requested by

528

Lady Osler to prepare a biography
of Sir William Osler. He will be
grateful to any one who will send
him either letters or copies of let-
ters, or personal reminiscences, or
information concerning others who
might supply such information.
THE University of Pittsburgh has
conferred honorary doctorates upon
Dr. William H. Nichols,
president of the American Chemical

Society, and Dr. William A. Noyes, |

present president.

Sir JAMES DEWAR has been elected

a corresponding member of the

retiring |

French Academy of Sciences in the
section of physics in succession to)

the late Professor P. Blaserna.

Tue National Research Council
has appointed a committee on eugen-
ics, under the division of biology and
agriculture with Dr. C. B. Daven-
port, as chairman, and this commit-
tee has voted to hold the Second
International Eugenics Congress in
New York City, September 22 to Sep-
tember 28, 1921 on the invitation of
the American Museum of Natural
History Dr. Alexander Graham Bell
has been elected honorary president
and Dr. Henry F. Osborn, president.

PROFESSOR ALBERT A. MICHELSON,

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

been elected a foreign associate of
the Paris Academy of Sciences to
succeed the late Lord Rayleigh.—
The Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia has awarded its Hay-
den memorial geological medal to
Professor T. C. Chamberlin, of the
University of Chicago.—The Bruce
Gold Medal of the Astronomical So-
ciety of the Pacific has been awarded
to Professor Ernest W. Brown, of
Yale University.

Str AUCKLAND GEDDES, formerly
professor of anatomy and principal-
elect of McGill University, now a
member of the British cabinet as
president of the board of trade, has
been named as British ambassador to
the United States.

Mr. J. OGDEN ARMOUR has made a
further gift of six million dollars to
the Armour Institute of Chicago. A
new site for the school has been pur-
chased at the cost of one million dol-
lars, and five million dollars will be
expended on buildings.—Yale Uni-
versity has received from Bayard
Dominick, of the class of 1894, Yale

College, gifts amounting to $40,000

of the University of Chicago, has |

for scientific exploration in the
Southern Pacific Ocean. Professor
Herbert E. Gregory, of Yale, is the
active head of the expedition.

THE SCIENTIFIC
MONTHLY

JUNE, 1920

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES '

By Dr. ANDREW H. PALMER

U. S. WEATHER BUREAU

RIOR to 1906, little scientific investigation had been made
; of earthquakes in the United States. The great Cali-
fornia earthquake of April 18, 1906, focused attention upon the
subject, however, and ever since that time seismology has made
steady progress. Following the San Francisco catastrophe,
the Governor of California appointed a commission to investi-
gate the phenomenon which had caused unprecedented damage,
so far as an earthquake in the United States was concerned.
This commission consisted of eminent scientists, and their re-
port was, and still is, the most comprehensive seismological
treatise ever published in this country.

In order that the widespread interest in the study of earth-
quakes which followed the San Francisco disaster might be
crystallized, and productive of research, an organization was
formed called the ‘Seismological Society of America.” This
organization has grown slowly but steadily, and to-day ineludes
in its membership about 400 of the leading seismologists of
the world. It investigates individual earthquakes, encourages
seismological research, and publishes a quarterly journal which
is sent to about 500 addresses.

The number of seismographs in operation in the United
States has grown rapidly during recent years. While there
are a few privately owned instruments, most are maintained by
the United States Government or by educational institutions.
The following is believed to be a complete list of public seis-
mographs in operation in North America at the present time:

1 Published with the permission of the Honorable Secretary of Agri-
culture.

VOL x.—36.

530 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

OUTLINE MAP,

Showing all Places in the United States and Canada where Seismographs were in
Operation in 1919.

Maintained by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey:
Cheltenham, Maryland.
Honolulu, Hawaii.
Sitka, Alaska.
Tucson, Arizona.
Vieques, Porto Rico.
Maintained by the U. S. Weather Bureau:
Chicago, Illinois.
Northfield, Vermont.
Washington, D. C.
Maintained by the Government of the Panama Canal Zone:
Balboa Heights, Canal Zone.
Maintained by the Government of the Dominion of Canada:
Ottawa, Ontario.
Toronto, Ontario.
Victoria, British Columbia.
Maintained by Educational Institutions:
Berkeley, California; University of California.
Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard University.
Denver, Colorado; Sacred Heart College.
Georgetown, District of Columbia; Georgetown Uni-
versity.
Ithaca, N. Y; Cornell University.
Lawrence, Kansas; University of Kansas.

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 531

Lick Observatory; Mount Hamilton, California; Univ.
of California.

Mobile, Alabama; Spring Hill College.

New York, New York; Fordham University.

St. Louis, Missouri; St. Louis University.

San Diego, California; Raja Yoga Academy.

Santa Clara, California; University of Santa Clara.

CARD USED BY CORRESPONDENTS OF THE U. S. WEATHER BUREAU IN REPORTING
EARTHQUAKES,

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WEATHER BUREAU
(SEISMOLOGY).

Cross out words and parts not applicable, and fill in all remaining spaces.
Use other side, if desired, for additional description and information.

Daterotrearthquakeswer ac sane wiaciio: ce cere = LO eee
Time of beginning (use railroad time): Hour .... min., ...., a. m., p. m.
On mountain, hill, plain, in valley.
Outdoors, indoors, Ist, 2d, 3d, ...... floor.
: SEALCRE emer croc aerate PLOW. tear eee eat eee
LOPES SSIS Sitrectwyerertes ete cin hen owes RIN OMe
Liin county, distancel. =a... - Sy GIRCCEION yee
TOM aac) sea cen (nearest P. O. or town).
What doing: Lying down, sitting, standing, walking, ..................
Onset of shocks: Abrupt, rapid, gradual.
Nature of shocks: Bumping, rocking, trembling, twisting..............

Intensity (give number, see scale on other side): ..........

Number of shocks during earthquake: ........

Bara toMy OF CACHE Me rye RCPS a,c SLL We ee PRP Rte Ee nin ligt caked coentd atole ts

Direction of vibration: N.-S.; NE.-SW.; E.-W.; SE.-NW.

Sounds: No, yes. Before, with, after shocks. Faint, loud, rumbling,
rattling.

Felt by: One, several, many.

NAME VOM (ODSCEVEE met Cre bile sabion cn ARE ocd wisi ans 8 sce

(On back)
REMARKS.

EARTHQUAKE INTENSITIES. (Adapted Rossi-Forel.)

1. Felt only by an experienced ob-| 6. Bells rung, pendulum clocks

server, very faint. stopped. Alarm.

2. Felt by a few persons at rest,| 7. Fall of plaster, slight damage.
faint. Scare.

3. Direction or duration apprecia- 8. Fall of chimneys, walls cracked.
able, weak. | Fright.

4, Felt by persons walking. Doors, 9. Some houses partly or wholly
etc., moved. wrecked. Terror.

5. Felt by nearly everyone. Furni- 10. Buildings ruined, ground crack-

ture moved. ed. Panic.

532 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

iG. 1.. A MOoOvING-PictuRE THEATER AT SAN JACINTO, CALIFORNIA, APTER ITS
FRONT WALL HAD FALLEN TO THE STREET DURING A RECENT PARTHQUAKE. The con-
crete-block type of construction is dangerous in a region of high seismicity. (Photo
graph by S. D. Townley.)

In accordance with a law enacted by Congress, the United
States Weather Burean has collected and published reports of
all earthquakes which have occurred in the United States since
July 1, i914. Besides the records obtained from its own seis-
mographs, the Weather Bureau receives monthly reports of
earthquakes recorded on the other instruments referred to
above. Detailed reports are published in the Monthly Weather
Review, an official publication. The seismological work of the
Bureau is in charge of Professor William J. Humphreys.

Besides the work of collecting and publishing the reports of
earthquakes automatically recorded, the Weather Bureau has
inaugurated a novel work in collecting reports of all earth-
quakes strong enough to be felt by persons. Besides its regu-
lar weather stations, now numbering over 200, the Bureau has
about 4,500 cooperative weather observers and special corres-
pondents, most of whom are in the rural districts or in small
towns and cities. Nearly all of these have volunteered to co-
operate in the work of gathering earthquake statistics, a work
which requires but a few minutes of the individual observer’s
time in the course of a whole year. The results in the aggregate
are of great value, however. The system employed is very
simple. Each observer is given a few cards, on each of which
certain questions are printed. When an earthquake occurs in

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 533

his vicinity, he is expected to answer the questions on the card,
so far as that particular earthquake is concerned, and to for-
ward the same immediately to a designated office of the Bureau.
The system has been in successful operation for the past four
years.

Count de Montesus de Ballore, who has perhaps done more
than any other seismologist in the collection of earthquake
statistics, has concluded that of the two classes of earthquakes,
seismologic and seismographic, the former are the more worthy
of consideration. Seismographs sometimes record earthquakes
which are of artificial origin, or are due to the wind or the surf,
and are therefore not earthquakes in the usual sense. More-
over, they frequently record vibrations from distant shocks
which are not directly related to the seismicity of the region
in which the instrument is located. It is thus apparent that
seismographic records are apt to err in excess. Seismologic
records, on the other hand, include sensible earthquakes only,
these alone being the ones with which the public at large is con-
cerned. Records of this nature are more likely to have an
error due to deficiency, since light, though sensible, shocks oc-
curring during the night may pass unobserved.

Few, if any, earthquakes of sensible intensity have passed
unobserved in California during the past five years. This
systematic and complete collection and publication of all earth-

Fie. 2. AN EXAMPLE OF THE DAMAGE SUSTAINED BY BRICK BUILDINGS IN AN
EARTHQUAKE. The reinforced concrete building shown in the right background was
comparatively unharmed. (Photograph by S. D. Townley.)

B34 . [HE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

vow

OEE en eT ne

Fic. 8. A SAG-POND IN A SUNKEN AREA BETWEEN BAUTISTA CANYON AND THE
San JAcinTO River, CALIFORNIA. All California earthquakes occur from the slipping
and sliding of the earth’s crust along fault planes, which are rifts or breaks in the

rocks. Such a fault passes through this region, and the area is subject to frequent
disturbances. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

quakes strong enough to be felt by persons in California has
resulted from the cordial cooperation of all those interested,
principally through the following agencies: (1) The Weather
Bureau has about 300 correspondents, well distributed through-
out the state (see the accompanying figure), who report on
cards all earthquakes felt. (2) The Seismological Society of
America, whose headquarters are at Stanford University, re-
ceives many reports from its members, most of whom reside in
California. (3) Mr. Homer Hamlin, a consulting engineer
with headquarters in Los Angeles, has a large number of
private correspondents in southern California who report to
him all earthquakes observed.

The remainder of this discussion is based upon the reports
of sensible earthquakes received through these various agencies
during the four years, 1915-1918, inclusive. During this
period California experienced 89 earthquakes per year, in the
average. It is therefore readily apparent why California
should be of unusual interest in seismology.

THE OCCURRENCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF EARTHQUAKES,
1915-1918

During the four years, 1915-1918, inclusive, California
had a total of 357 earthquakes. With respect to the months of
occurrence, these were as follows:

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 535

Year Jan. aon | Mar. Apr. moe Tune July Aug. |Sept. oan Nov. ; Dec. Total
ic Qi coM Ins) lark, 8 || ate a tosimeaee Aelaes
ISG... 4| 5 | Dee telenG. | = 4c) 6x). Taeh 8.) tg eerie s6aik 66
17... ... Sy eae 7 1D|900) 18) 951 > 6. | Mazel wala eOg
1S... 2 | 3 | aed | AT | 1S | 32-) <8, |) 40) 153. | ey ean G9
Total....| 17 | 17 | 27 | 45 | 38| 54| 44 | 32 | 22| 26! 20| 15 | 357

Av......14.2 | 4.2 | 68 [11.2] 9.5 |13.5|11.0| 8.0 | 5.5 | 65 | 5.0] 38 | 89.2

It is readily apparent from the table that earthquakes are
far more frequent in California during the summer dry season
than during the winter wet season. The total number does
not seem to vary greatly from year to year, the average being
about 89 shocks. During every month of these four years, at
least one earthquake was felt somewhere in the state.

It has long been recognized that earthquakes are more fre-
quent at night than during the daytime, and the records of the
past four years are no exception to the general rule. A study
of 1405 California earthquakes which occurred from 1769 to
1915, inclusive, showed that on the average, there are two maxi-
mum and two minimum hours of occurrence. The extreme
maximum occurs at 11 P.M., and the extreme minimum at 5
P.M. A secondary maximum occurs at 5 A.M., and a secondary
minimum at1A.M. The double periodicity in the diurnal curve

Fic. 4. A VIEW OF A FLOUR MILL At HPMET, CALIFORNIA, SHORTLY AFTER THE
EARTHQUAKE OF APRIL 21, 1918. Brick and adobe buildings can not withstand severe
earthquakes, whereas reinforced concrete and steel frame buildings will stand through
the strongest shocks. (Photograph by S. D. Townley.)

536_ THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

3 By?
% er

Fig. 5. AN EARTHQUAKE CAUSED THE BOULDER HERE SHOWN TO ROLL DOWN A
MOUNTAIN SIDE IN CALIFORNIA. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

reminds one of the diurnal curves of barometric pressure and
of the tides of the ocean.

A region of high seismicity derives its instability from a
number of causes, among which the following are the most
important: (a) Folds in the earth’s crust, either emerged or
submerged; (b) marked variations of topography; (c) great
ranges between ocean bottoms and adjacent mountain tops, as
found where high mountains are close to a coast where the
ocean bottom slopes precipitously to great depths; and (d)
regions where secular elevation or depression is still in prog-
ress. All of these features are present in California, and col-
lectively explain its high seismicity.

The real and ultimate cause of earthquakes is not under-
stood. However, it is recognized that most earthquakes are
related to movements of the earth’s crust along vertical fault
planes, which are simply breaks or rifts in the rock. These
faults are numerous in California. The positions of those
already recognized are shown in one of the accompanying
figures. It is probable that in the course of time others will be
discovered. There is a conspicuous parallelism in California,
along NW.-SE. lines, of sea-coast, mountain chains, interior
valleys, fault lines and earthquakes. Epicenters are found in
a few places where the fault lines cross each other at right
angles. Examples of these are the Monterey Bay region and

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 537

the region of the Tehachapi Pass. Other epicenters occur
where there are great contrasts of topographic relief within
short distances. Examples of these are the Owens and Im-
perial Valleys. The frequent occurrence of earthquakes along
an E.-W. line passing through the San Francisco Bay region
suggests an action of bending, or faulting, or both, in the
depths of the crust about an axis in this direction. This might
be expected if the southern Sierra Nevada were rising faster
than the northern. The fault-block origin and structure of
the Sierra Nevada contribute largely to the frequency of earth-
quakes in California.

At one time it was believed that volcanoes and earthquakes
were closely related, and that the latter were simply due to
movements of submerged lava in volcanic regions. However,
while this may be true in Italy and in Hawaii, most seismolo-
gists now agree that there is complete independence of seismic-
ity from volcanism, as far as the United States is concerned.
The Milne-Omori investigation of 8,300 Japanese earthquakes
which occurred between 1885 and 1892 showed little relation
between earth shocks and volcanoes. Only about three per
cent. of Japanese earthquakes are of volcanic origin.

Because it has within its borders the only active voleano in

[opoe eee as

Fic. 6. A VIEW OF THE First NATIONAL BANK BUILDING Av. HEMET, CALI-
FORNIA, JUST AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE OF APRIL 21, 1918. (Photograph by S. D.
Townley.)

538 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 7. BUSINESS HOUSES IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LEVELLED TO THE GROUND
IN A SEVERE EARTHQUAKE, WHICH CAUSED A PROPERTY LOSS BSTIMATED AT $800,000.
(Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

the United States, California offered a unique opportunity
during the past few years to test the relation between a volcano
and earthquakes. Lassen Peak (altitude 10,437 feet, Lat. 40°
25’ N., Long. 121° 45’ W.) broke forth in violent eruption in
May, 1914, and has been active sporadically ever since, with
more than 250 observed eruptions. Whether or not there has
been any relation between the eruptions of Lassen Peak and
California earthquakes, has been a much-debated question.
Though the Weather Bureau has numerous seismological ob-
servers within a comparatively short distance of the mountain,
the number of earthquakes reported in that vicinity was not
large, comparatively speaking. It might be inquired whether
the presence of an active volcano would tend to increase or to
decrease the number of earthquakes. Humboldt found a tradi- —
tion among the natives of South America that so long as the
voleanoes in their neighborhood were active, no danger from
earthquakes need be feared, but if these remained quiescent
for a long-continued period severe earthshocks might be antici-
pated. In a manner the volcano acted as a safety-valve, ac-
cording to the tradition. So far as it has been possible to
determine, not a single earthquake occurred in northern Cali-
fornia simultaneously with an eruption of Lassen, several press
dispatches to the contrary, notwithstanding. As a matter of

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 539

fact, that part of the state farthest distant from Lassen Peak
had the heaviest as well as the most numerous earthquakes.

It is probable that most, and perhaps all California earth-
quakes are due to slippings and slidings of the earth’s crust
for short distances along fault planes. The cause may be the
strain imposed by some powerful force from without, or it may
be simply the contraction of the earth itself. A tectonic rather
than a volcanic origin is indicated by (a) the deep foci of the
sensible shocks, (b) the long periods between the short pre-
liminary tremors and the maximum vibrations, and (c) the
vast areas over which the heavier shocks are felt.

California is not homogeneous in its seismicity, a fact which
might be inferred from the distribution of faults, and from its
topography. Earthquakes are frequent along the coast, and in
the narrow Owens and Imperial Valleys. They are infrequent
in the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges of Mountains, and they
are rare in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. The San
Andreas Rift, the longest and most conspicuous fault line in
California, extends from Eureka, in extreme northwestern
California, southeastward along the coast, through San Fran-
cisco, to detached southerly extensions in the Imperial Valley,
and beyond the border of Mexico. The great earthquake of
April 18, 1906, was due to a marked movement along this rift.
As though the strain had been relieved by that movement, only
a few shocks have since occurred along the northern portion of
the fault. Eleven earthquakes occurred in San Francisco during
the past four years. The Monterey Bay region showed marked
seismicity, having had 23 shocks. The southern portion of this
rift has been extremely active recently, and the Imperial Valley
has been the most unstable region in the United States during
the past four years. In fact, all of southern California south
of the Tehachapi has shown marked seismicity, and the dis-
turbances seem to be growing in frequency and in intensity. In
the Imperial Valley a total of 70 earthquakes have been felt
during the past four years, 26 having occurred in 1918 alone.
In the city of Los Angeles, 30 earthquakes were felt in the four
years, 17 of which occurred in 1917 alone. On the other hand,
the Owens Valley, one of the recognized epicenters, has been
comparatively quiescent. In this restricted region, where
more than one thousand earthquakes occurred within a period
of 48 hours on March 26—27, 1872, but 15 feeble shocks were
felt during the past four years.

While the forecasting of earthquakes is as yet out of the

540 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

question, certain principles are recognized. It is thought that
when a great earthquake occurs, the strain in the earth’s crust
is relieved through movements along the fault plane, and that
the region then remains stable for a time. The infrequency of

Fig. 8. A Scenp Fivp MILES SOUTHEAST OF VALLEVISTA, CALIFORNIA, SHOWING A
LANDSLIDE CAUSED BY AN EARTHQUAKE. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

shocks in San Francisco since the great disturbance of April
18, 1906, seems to verify this conclusion. On the other hand,
some seismologists hold a theory that a great earthquake is
preceded for months and years by an increasing number of

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 541

light shocks. The violent shock centering at San Jacinto and
Hemet which occurred April 21, 1918, was preceded by a large
number of minor disturbances, while but few have occurred
since that time. The growing number of earthquakes in the
Imperial Valley would seem to indicate that a great disturbance
may be expected to occur there in the near future. This region
may therefore be watched with interest during the next year
or two.
THE INTENSITY OF HARTHQUAKES

The formula for seismicity involves the factors frequency
and intensity. Of the two, the former carries the greater
weight. It is generally recognized that the regions of most
frequent earthquakes are also the regions having the severest
shocks. Moreover, it is known that the intensity of an earth-
quake is directly proportional to the area shaken—in other
words, the heavier the shocks, so much larger will be the area
over which they will be felt.

An adapted Rossi-Forel scale of earthquake intensities is
used by the Weather Bureau correspondents in reporting. In
this scale of ten, the various intensities are described as
follows:

I. Felt only by an experienced observer; very faint.
II. Felt by a few persons at rest; faint.
III. Direction or duration appreciable; weak.
IV. Felt by persons walking. Doors, etc., moved.
V. Felt by nearly everyone. Furniture moved.
VI. Bells rung; pendulum clocks stopped. Alarm.
VII. Fall of plaster; slight damage. Scare.
VIII. Fall of chimneys; walls cracked. Fright.
IX. Some houses partly or wholly wrecked. Terror.
X. Buildings ruined; ground cracked. Panic.

The late Professor Edward S. Holden, of the University of
California, prepared the first catalogue of earthquakes on the
Pacific coast, and the same was published by the Smithsonian
Institution. From Professor Holden’s study of the earth-
quakes of 129 years, 1769-1897, inclusive, he concluded that
for any particular locality the number of really heavy shocks
was quite small. The international reputation which certain
cities bear as earthquake centers is, to a certain degree, un-
merited. Thus at San Francisco there have been but three
destructive shocks and four exceptionally heavy earthquakes in
a hundred years, although there have been very many slight
shocks and tremors. For the state at large, the most destruc-

542 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fic. 9. Masonic HALL av SAN JACINTO, CALIFORNIA, wrecked in the Earthquake
of April 21, 1918. Note the piano under the roof at the left. Brick buildings
can not withstand severe earthquakes. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

tive earthquakes in modern times have been those of 1800,
1812, 1872 and 1906.

During the past four years, two earthquakes of destructive
intensity have occurred in California. The Imperial Valley
earthquake of June 22, 1915, was accompanied by the loss of
five lives, and the destruction of property in California and in
adjoining portions of Mexico. A severe shock felt throughout
southern California on April 21, 1918, appeared to center at
San Jacinto and Hemet. Because of its fortunate occurrence
at a time when most people in that vicinity were absent from
business districts, and many were out of doors (2:32 P.M., on
a Sunday), no lives were lost, but great destruction of property
resulted, the loss having been estimated at about $300,000.
(See effects in the accompanying photographs.)

Of those earthquake reports of the past four years in which
an estimate of intensity was made by the reporters, the great
majority of shocks were of feeble intensity, just strong enough
to show their occurrence by rattling windows, swinging doors,
or by moving furniture. In only a few cases was actual dam-
age done. In each of two years, 1916 and 1917, the total
property damage resulting from earthquakes in California was
under $1,000. About 80 per cent. of the earthquakes of the
past four years were so light that they were felt at one station

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 543

only, and not at two or more adjacent stations. Classified as
to intensity, the California earthquakes of the past four years,
so far as intensity estimates are available, are as follows:

| II | IIl IV Vv VI VIL VIII | LDS a x
Number... ... sees | 411 | 197 | 172 | 128 | 27 | 9 | 16 | 8 | 2
ermcents.-). = .< aay ELT jn 29k 26 19 Ae 2 1 Less than 1

NUMBER OF SHOCKS IN EACH EARTHQUAKE

The typical earthquake consists of a series of preliminary
tremors, one or more maximum vibrations, and a series of sub-
sequent tremors. Reliable statements concerning the number
of these maxima for any particular earthquake are, for psy-
chological reasons, difficult to obtain. Concerning the attempts
to secure such data in connection with the great earthquake of
1906, the California Earthquake Investigation Commission re-
ported as follows:

Many of these replies are rather questionable scientific evidence,
inasmuch as many of them were in response to a leading and suggestive
question, and very few of them have been subjected to the clarifying
process of cross-examination.

While a seismograph would doubtless record many feeble
vibrations in addition to the one or more strong enough to be

Fic. 10. A FauLtr SCARP IN THE SAN JACINTO MOUNTAINS ABOUT TWO MILES
EAST OF SAN JACINTO, CALIFORNIA, AT Sworopa Sprines, The fault plane here runs
due east-west. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

544 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fig. 11. A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN THE BUSINESS DISTRICT OF SAN JACINTO,
CALIFORNIA, FOLLOWING THE EARTHQUAKE OF APRIL 21, 1918. The center building
was the telephone office. Note the difference in the damage sustained by the brick |
and the frame buildings here shown. (Photograph by S. D. Townley.)

felt by persons, the great majority of California earthquakes
consist of but one sensible shock. An analysis of those re-
ported during the past four years showed that 76 per cent. of
them consisted of but one sensible shock; 17 per cent. of them
consisted of two shocks; 5 per cent. of three shocks; 1 per cent.
of four shocks; and less than one per cent. of five or more
shocks.

DURATION OF EARTHQUAKES

The exact duration of the sensible earthquake can be de-
termined accurately only by an acute observer equipped with
a chronometer. While no such high degree of accuracy is here
presumed, the testimony of the observers regarding duration is
interesting, nevertheless.

Estimates ranged from a fraction of a second to more than
a minute. It has been pointed out that the longer an earth-
quake lasts the greater will be its destructive effects. This is
well borne out by the fact that the heaviest and most damag-
ing earthquakes which have occurred in California during re-
cent years were estimated to have lasted 60 seconds or more,
in each case. On the other hand, most of the lighter shocks,
those felt at one station only, were of but one to three seconds in

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 545

duration. The former are general and ruinous, the latter are
local and harmless.

Some of the observers felt incompetent to estimate the dura-
tion of an observed earthquake in seconds of time, and for this
reason the record for duration of shocks is somewhat incom-
plete. However, a considerable number of estimates of dura-
tion were received. These have been classified as follows:

Seconds! sere 1 or Less 2 3 AO eS 6-10 | 11-20 | 21-30] 31-40 | Over 40
ees Z = Ss =| 2
iNtaimiber 72: 2.1. eel} an 56 | 39 27 53 | 67 44 29 Ss || at)
eG Centiiv. 0)... ae eekly 8 9 Ge) dom ietor P10 Tee 2 Meg

SOUNDS ACCOMPANYING EARTHQUAKES

Ever since the time of Moses, descriptions of earthquakes
refer to sounds accompanying these disturbances. The Scrip-
tures are full of such allusions, and nearly every earthquake is
said to have been accompanied by a great noise.

Psychological considerations play a prominent part in im-
pressions of accompanying sounds. It is a well-recognized
fact that people differ widely as to the range of audibility.
Earthquakes which produce sounds observed by some persons
may be apparently without sound to others. Personal equa-
tion, therefore, is important in this connection. Many persons
are thrown into a peculiar kind of hysteria by experiencing an

Fic. 12. THr ROAD BETWEEN HEMET AND IDYLWILD, CALIFORNIA, BLOCKED BY
LANDSLIDES IN THE BHARTHQUAKEH OF APRIL 21, 1918 (Photograph by Homer
Hamlin.)

VOL. X.—37.

546 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

earthquake. Thunderstorms affect other people in the same
manner. Generally speaking, the first earthquake one experi-
ences does not produce hysteria. But if one passes through a
disastrous earthquake, and suffers physical injury as a result
of it, an earthquake subsequently experienced may easily cause
hysteria through subconscious memory and association. When
the observer is in such a disturbed state of mind, his impres-
sions regarding sound are unreliable.

While it is possible that a few of the reporters were so
influenced, the statements of accompanying sounds are not to
be disregarded on that account. When sounds accompany
earthquakes in California, they are usually of low pitch, that is,
of relatively slow vibrations. The sounds may come from the
ground or from the air, or from both. It was found that of the
357 earthquakes which occurred in California during the four
years here considered, 34 per cent. were reported to have been
accompanied by sounds. Of these, 65 per cent. were described
to have been accompanied by rumbling, 17 per cent. by faint,
indescribable sounds, 9 per cent. by loud sounds, 6 per cent. by
rattling, 3 per cent. by roaring, and a few scattering reports
included such expressions as explosive, tearing and shrieking.
Some of these sounds occurred immediately before the earth-
quake, some were simultaneous with it, while some occurred
immediately afterward.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

Certain facts in connection with California earthquakes are
of peculiar interest. For example, many and varied phe-
nomena were caused by two widely-felt shocks which occurred
at 6:44 and 6:55 P.M. on October 22, 1916. They were the
strongest shocks felt in the state during the vear, and they were
observed throughout central and southern California. Of the
17 different stations from which reports were received, sounds
were noted at but one, and in that instance the sound was
described as faint. Waves 8 to 10 inches high rolled in on the
west side of Buena Vista Lake for at least one hour after these
shocks, and there was no wind blowing at the time. Near
Maricopa, in the Kern County oil-fields southwest of Bakers-
field, an oil-well that had been dormant for more than two years
suddenly resumed its flow. The Edison Company’s power line
between Bakersfield and Los Angeles was broken. At San
Bernardino the patients in the county hospital became so badly
frightened that some time elapsed before they could be calmed.

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 5AT

A certain deep well located in the San Joaquin Valley tempor-
arily became a geyser, and in the water ejected there were
found a number of small fish without eyes, similar to fish which
inhabit subterranean waters.

Temporary geysers are of frequent occurrence in a region
of great seismicity. Preceding the San Diego earthquake of
June 24, 1919, there was a marked disturbance of the Salton
Sea, in Imperial Valley, a body of water formed twelve years
ago when the Colorado River overflowed its banks and coursed
into a part of the valley, most of which is below sea level. This
disturbance, which occurred just before the earthquake felt at
San Diego, 100 miles to the west, consisted of prolonged erup-
tions, for an hour or more, of a number of mud geysers, which
tossed a mixture of mud and water, pearl gray in color, to a
height of 60 feet. Geologists who have studied the valley have
a theory that the geysers, which have erupted before, but never
to such a height or for so long a time, serve as vents for gases
formed far below the silt which forms the soil of the valley
to an estimated depth of 1,800 feet.

Just south of the Mexican boundary line in the Imperial
Valley there is a region comprising 30 to 40 acres where
geysers are very active. This region is locally known as the
“Volcanoes.” On August 21, 1916, these geysers were in a
state of great agitation. Mr. C. R. Rockwood, chief engineer
of the Imperial Irrigation District, happened to be in the vicin-
ity on that day. He described the disturbance as follows:

The eruption occurred about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and was the
most violent I have ever observed during the many years I have been in
this locality. The explosions lasted through a period of 11 minutes, during
which time I presume there must have been 100 distinct explosions cover-
ing a lateral area 1,500 feet wide, each individual explosion being from
20 to 100 feet in width, throwing up columns of mud and steam to a height
of 600 to 700 feet. Previous to this I have never witnessed one of these
explosions that threw mud into the air to a height greater than 200 feet;
while ordinarily the height is but 15 to 50 feet. The active explosions
are in a submerged area, small in extent. This, however, is surrounded
by a wider area of sulphur cones; while the hot sulphur springs extend
for several miles both to the north and south of the more active center.
There was no earthquake at the time.

In an investigation of gas rates conducted by the State Rail-
road Commission, a representative of one of the public service
corporations operating extensively in northern California testi-
fied that earthquakes are a cause of leakage of gas from under-
ground gas mains. As this loss is eventually borne by the
consumer, it appears that the public interest would be served

548 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Fie. 18. 3UILDINGS IN THE BUSINESS District oF SAN JACINTO, CALIFORNIA,
WRECKED IN AN BARTHQUAKPD ON ‘APRIL 21, 1918. (Photograph by Homer
Hamlin.)

by a study of the problem, with a view of preventing the loss,
if possible.

Earthquake insurance is in growing demand. However,
owing to the absence of trustworthy statistics in the past, rates
have been more or less arbitrary, and most of them have had
no scientific basis. In a few years, however, it is hoped that
more reliable data will be available on which to compute rates.

California has numerous astronomical observatories. It
has occasionally happened that astronomers have detected
earthquakes while observing a star through a telescope. Mr.
Wendell P. Hoge, of the staff of the Solar Observatory of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington located on the summit of
Mount Wilson, California, noticed such an earthquake on
March 22, 1916, while watching a star image in a 60-inch tele-
scope. He reported:

Oscillations of the star image in the field rapid and short at first, be-
coming more marked in the middle, and diminishing at the end of the dis-
turbance. Evidently a very faint shock.

The most widely felt earthquake in 1917 occurred at 10:07
P.M. on May 27. In the Imperial Valley some damage resulted
through the cracking of walls, people were much frightened,
and at a school in Brawley where commencement exercises were
in progress several women and children fainted as a result

RECENT CALIFORNIA: EARTHQUAKES 549

of hysteria. Concerning this earthquake Mr. Hoge, of the
Solar Observatory, reported:

This earthquake was observed by Astronomer Dr. Harlow Shapley
while observing with the 60-inch telescope. Star image oscillated rapidly
back and forth in field of view in eyepiece. Two shocks close together
were observed.

Various Japanese investigators have found that the barom-
etric gradient offers a means of discovering unknown seismic
zones or faults, as it was shown that the prevailing gradient
at the time of an earthquake was nearly perpendicular to the
fault. The method was found more feasible and more accurate
than that of constructing the zones statistically by locating a
large number of epicenters. In California, with well-developed
barometric gradients occurring during the winter half-year,
and with frequent earthquakes occurring throughout the year,
this method offers an opportunity for some student of seis-
mology to do useful work in locating fault zones which are
still unrecognized.

San Francisco has learned its lesson in the matter of fire
protection in a region of high seismicity. When that city was
destroyed by fire in April, 1906, it was because the water mains
had been broken by the earthquake, and there was no water
available for fire-fighting purposes. The water system has

Fie. 14. STorRE BUILDINGS IN THE HEART OF SAN JACINTO, CALIFORNIA,
WRECKED BY AN EARTHQUAKE ON ARPIL 21, 1918. Because of the fortunate time of
occurrence, at 2:32 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, the business district was largely

deserted, and no lives were lost. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

550 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

ee

nS ee ee
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cee pp hae rep aS ay
Fi RT mpeg

Fic. 15. A BUILDING ON MAIN Srrepr, SAN JACINTO, CALIFORNIA, WRECKED IN AN
PARTHQUAKE ON APRIL 21, 1918. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

been reconstructed in such a way that an earthquake could not
destroy its efficiency. But in the matter of building construc-
tion, much is still to be learned. Steel-frame and reinforced
concrete buildings will stand through a severe earthquake.
Wooden buildings, too, will remain unharmed in destructive
shocks, since they will yield to strains. Brick and concrete-
block buildings are easily destroyed. But the most dangerous
type of the construction is the primitive adobe, which is still in
use among Mexicans and Indians. The lives lost in the Im-
perial Valley earthquake of June 22, 1915, resulted from the
collapse of adobe buildings. In San Francisco the owners of
certain steel-frame apartment buildings advertise their prop-
erty as being “earthquake-proof.” During the Exposition
year, 1915, many visitors in San Francisco were disappointed
in but one respect. They spent a week or two in that city
without experiencing a single earthquake, whereas they came
expecting to feel one at least every day. In the course of time
laws will doubtless prevent the construction of projecting
cornices in buildings, and the erection of overhead signs and
electric wires in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco,
where a recurrence of severe earthquakes may be expected from
time to time.

At 3:01 A.M. on July 6, 1917, an earthquake occurred in the
Owens Valley which caused a break 160 feet long in the con-

RECENT CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 551

crete flume of the Los Angeles aqueduct. Under the direction
of Mr. William Mulholland, chief engineer of the aqueduct, the
damage was temporarily repaired by bridging the break with
steel pipe. Since that time the flume has been rebuilt and
reinforced. The water supply in Los Angeles was not cut off,
because the break occurred above the Haiwee reservoir, which
has a capacity sufficient for the storage of several weeks’ supply
of water for the city. The city of San Francisco is now con-
structing a similar aqueduct which will eventually be 200 miles
in length, bringing water to the city from the Hetch Hetchy
Valley. As a result of the damage sustained by the Los
Angeles aqueduct in this and in other earthquakes, reinforced
and specially adapted construction is planned for the San Fran-
cisco waterway in those places where it will cross recognized
fault planes.

The term “earthquake weather” is often encountered in
California. Those who use the term are unanimous in refer-
ring to a condition of hot and calm weather, without much
cloud, but usually with more or less haze and diminished
visibility. The condition referred to is similar to that which
precedes a summer afternoon thunderstorm in the Middle West.
While many of the earthquake observers believe that there is an
intimate relation between earthquakes and the weather, meteor-

Fic. 16. A CONCRETE-BLOCK BUILDING WRECKED BY AN HBARTHQUAKE. Experi-
ence has shown that reinforced concrete, steel-frame and wooden buildings will stand
through severe earthquakes, whereas brick, concrete-block and adobe buildings are

easily destroyed. (Photograph by Homer Hamlin.)

552 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

ologists firmly maintain that there is no real relation. Pro-
fessor W. J. Humphreys, of the Weather Bureau, believes that
the apparent relation can be explained in terms of human psy-
chology,—that the observer under the weather conditions de-
scribed above is in a sensitive and expectant mood, with a
feeling of apprehension, and hence feels slight earthquakes
which under other conditions might pass unnoticed.

The attitude of the California newspaper editors toward the
reporting and the publishing of earthquake data is curious.
There seems to be a gentlemen’s agreement among editors to
omit all reference to the occurrence of earthquakes. Frosts,
fleas and earthquakes are tabooed subjects. Such information
does not attract settlers, nor does it aid in selling real estate.
Perhaps it is for these reasons that seismologists receive neither
sympathy nor support from the press. The general public
promptly plunges into a kind of hysteria when a severe earth-
quake occurs, but soon relapses into complacent indifference
when the immediate danger is over. Seismological research is
therefore left largely to a few individuals like Dr. J. C. Bran-
ner, of Stanford University, the real founder of the Seismolog-
ical Society of America, and who remains to-day the most en-
thusiastic student of seismic phenomena in America.

A discussion of California earthquakes would be incomplete
if it did not attempt to correct certain false notions concern-
ing the danger from earthquakes. While the seismicity of the
state is acknowledged to be high, the highest in the United
States, the actual danger to one living in any particular locality
is small indeed. Though written almost 50 years ago, the
following words of General Hardenburg, U. S. Surveyor-Gen-
eral in 1871, are still true:

Reasoning from the foregoing historical facts, I am firmly of the
opinion that the earthquakes of California are not so much to be dreaded
as is generally supposed; in fact, that they are far less dangerous to life

and property than are the hurricanes of the South, or the summer tor-
nadoes of the North.

POLICY FOR U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 553

A POLICY FOR THE U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM

By Professor T. D. A. COCKERELL

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

T is related that a couple of habitual and impecunious pedes-
if trians, sitting by the roadside, engaged in conversation
as follows:

“T wish I had a million dollars.”

“Suppose you had, would you give me a thousand?”

BNOs4

“Would you give me a hundred?”

NOs:

“Well, wouldn’t you even give me a dollar?”

“No, I wouldn’t give a cent to a man too
wish for himself!”

Perhaps this story may throw light on the failure of the
scientific public to get perfectly satisfactory service from the
National Museum. We have been too lazy, or too indifferent
to wish for ourselves. We have expected some one else, vaguely
“the administration,” or Congress, to do the wishing, and as a
result hand out to us our share of the proceeds. We have
rather forgotten that we live in a democracy, and that the will
to do must be ours if we are to be properly served. If recent
events have suggested that another theory obtains in influential
quarters, it is the more necessary for us to be intelligently
articulate. It is indeed true that the National Museum repre-
sents a highly technical branch of the public service. As such,
it must not be subject to the light winds of public fashion or
fancy, and still less to political dictation. It must have an es-
sential stability, a continuity of plan and purpose through the
centuries. It must be administered by experts, who must be
trusted and given the necessary powers. Granting all this, it
must still remain true that the purpose of the institution is
service, and that public support should depend on public ap-
proval. It is surely the duty of the scientific fraternity to state
the functions and express the needs of the museum. Demands
backed by united scientific opinion should have weight with the
public, and hence eventually with Congress. In approaching
the practical problems of such an institution as the National
Museum, it is readily seen that these divide themselves roughly
into two groups. First, there are those matters which have to

lazy to

554 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

do with internal administration, or which primarily involve
rules and customs rather than the expenditure of money. We
find, for example, that the correspondence of the curators is (or
recently was) involved in a system of red tape which is ex-
tremely vexatious and has little relation to practical utility.
Along with this we have found a lack of adequate supervision
in certain quarters, permitting practises detrimental to the col-
lections. There is no large institution, I presume, which is
wholly free from administrative defects. This condition arises
out of the very nature of things, and can only be controlled by
perpetual vigilance. If the institution is governed under a
system of cast-iron rules, regulating every detail of procedure,
it is incapable of changing with the times and meeting with
new requirements. If, on the other hand, it is made as free as
is consistent with order, and every latitude is allowed to indi-
viduals, it will never happen that all will prove ideally wise,
faithful and industrious. The first of these alternatives is in-
tolerable in America, but the second involves greater responsi-
bilities for all concerned. As regards these matters of internal
administration, it must be said to-day that noteworthy progress
has been made. From the days of the foundation of the Smith-
sonian Institution the curators have rendered ever increasing
aid to scientific men all over the country, and have enormously
added to our knowledge of American and even Old World nat-
ural history. There is probably hardly a zoologist, botanist,
geologist or ethnologist in the country who can not recall being
assisted, not once, but many times. This assistance has very
often come when it was most needed—when the man was young
and unknown, striving to get his first hold on some branch of
science. The magnitude and importance of these services can
hardly be exaggerated; they have not been appreciated by the
public because no combined or clear presentation of them has
ever been made. The official reports, while giving many exact
details, are too dry and too little humanized to attract general
attention.

In the department of entomology, with which I have been
especially concerned, a concerted effort is now being made to
put things on a better footing, and develop collections in all re-
spects worthy of such a nation as ours. There are many prac-
tical reasons for this. Enormous losses to crops and health
have resulted from the attacks of insects. Insects have afforded
the material for the elucidation of some of the most important
and far-reaching biological problems. Insects also afford ideal
material for amateur study, as they are present in abundance
everywhere, and their investigation requires little space or ex-

POLICY FOR U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 555

penditure of money. So whether we are concerned with the
production of food, or the public health, or the philosophy of
nature, or the development of some of the finer qualities of the
human mind, we turn to the abundant life of the insect world.
The Entomological Society of America and the Association of
Economic Entomologists have for some years had committees
working on the museum’s entomological problems. In their
efforts they have had the cooperation of the museum curators
and officials, and to-day there is general agreement concerning
the policy to be pursued, as well as renewed interest in the
whole matter. Whatever can be done under existing condi-
tions will be done—is being done.

At this point, however, we come to the second great group
of problems—those which involve the expenditure of money
and hence greater public support. It is useless to criticize offi-
cials for not making bricks without straw. They may perhaps
be criticized for not putting up a better fight ; but those who are
not on the inside have little idea of the continuous and persistent
struggle which has resulted in the gains so far obtained. Here
again we seem to forget that we are a democracy, that Con-
gress is responsible to the people rather than to the officials.
Members of Congress usually know next to nothing of science,
and have no means of estimating the validity of the claims made
upon the national purse. They know that museum officials are
pushing their own interests, and are likely to discount their
statements accordingly. They also fail to perceive any polit-
ical advantage in helping the museum, since their constituents
appear to be absolutely indifferent to the matter. It is surely
for us, who are scattered over the country, to make ourselves
heard, and create a demand to which Congress will eventually
respond. It is for us to make up our minds what we want and
tell the people—in short, to carry on a propaganda. Progress,
in such a country as ours, involves publicity.

Going into details, it would be easy to write a book on the
policies and functions of the museum. It is, however, possible
to state the more salient ones in a few words. In the case of
entomology, for example, the prime needs, following a policy of
necessary expansion, are curators and space. The latter in-
volves a separate building, since the existing one is already
overcrowded. The curators should be sufficient to take care of
all the collections and carry on continuous researches. We are
now starting. a movement to greatly increase the collections,
which are very inadequate in certain directions. It is expected
that great quantities of material will be donated, as entomolo-
gists perceive that the specimens are being taken care of and

996 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

studied. Thus the museum will, through making provision as
indicated, reap large rewards without further expense. It is
in this manner that the British Museum has built up its mag-
nificent series of the insects of the world.

These proposed developments are entirely in line with past
progress. Others involve more novel methods or activities.
Expeditions such as those headed by Mr. Roosevelt have greatly
enriched the museum and added to knowledge. But we now
need a systematic policy of exploration, especially in the West-
ern Hemisphere. The great Biologia Centrali-Americana was
financed and published by Englishmen. In earlier days, the
Germans elucidated the fauna and flora of Brazil. It should
be a pan-American policy to investigate every part of the West-
ern Hemisphere, and describe its products. In this work, so
far as the natural sciences are concerned, the United States
National Museum should take the lead, seeking the cooperation
of every nation concerned. The duty and advantage of such a
policy are so obvious that they hardly require discussion. Here,
at least, is a field for the cultivation of friendly relationships
and civilized intercourse, and an opportunity for the increase
of useful knowledge. Steps have already been taken in this
direction; important and successful expeditions have gone out
from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Michigan, Iowa, In-
diana, the New York Botanical Garden, the Carnegie Museum,
the American Museum of Natural History, not to speak of the
work of the National Museum itself. The results are already
great, and interest in many quarters is keen. It only remains
to develop a concerted plan, and seriously set about it to cover
the entire field. We must do somewhat as the astronomers did,
when they undertook to map the sky and enumerate the stars.
Our undertaking is of even greater magnitude.

A quite different need, but growing out of those already
mentioned, is a National Museum printing establishment. The
American Museum in New York does its own printing, and finds
the policy advantageous in every way. Under the present law,
the National Museum is obliged to print its Proceedings at
the Government Printing Office, which is already more than
crowded with work. The result is great delay, and great diffi-
culty in getting the work done. At the present moment condi-
tions seem worse than ever before. If the museum had its own
establishment, with sufficient funds to carry it on, it might
publish all the research work done under its auspices or on its
collections without difficulty and without delay. The printers
would acquire great skill in the special kind of work required,
so that typographical errors would be reduced to a minimum.

POLICY FOR U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 557

As things are now, even if we had all the facilities referred to
above—plenty of curators, adequate collections and room, the
whole organization would be stultified by the impossibility of
getting more than a small fraction of its results before the pub-
lic. Furthermore, many would be discouraged from writing on
museum materials, as indeed they are to-day. There is little
advantage in accumulating knowledge if it can not be communi-
cated to those concerned. There is still another major policy
which should be defined. The National Museum should become
national in a larger sense. It seems to me that it should estab-
lish branch museums, in cooperation with local authorities, in
a number of different states. Possibly half a dozen such
branches might be created in the near future. In them could
be kept special collections illustrating the natural history of the
regions they represented. They could also receive materials
on loan from the central museum, thus making them accessible
to many who could not visit Washington. The abundant dupli-
cates at present in the National Museum could be distributed
tothem. The various expert curators could spend some months
in them, working on the local collections and arousing local en-
thusiasm. In this way every section of the country would
come to know something of the activities of the National Mu-
seum, and would value its services. The increased expense
would be more than met by increased popular support. I un-
derstand that the museum authorities have for some time had a
plan of this kind in mind, but I do not know any details.

It is quite conceivable that the underlying principle of the
branch museums might even be extended to cover the whole of
North and South America. The museums outside of our boun-
daries would then be affiliated or cooperating museums. But
in essential function there might be little difference, except that
the benefits in the way of loans would be more completely
reciprocal. Such a pan-American museum policy could only
have good results. Underlying all these reforms and develop-
ments should be the policy—lI believe not clearly enunciated in
the existing law—of making the museum primarily a research
organization. Its function should not be static—that of simply
caring for the collections—but intensely dynamic. It should
and must be one of the greater influences for human advance-
ment and human welfare. By making it a greater source of
knowledge we shall at the same time make it a great educa-
tional institution, teaching educated people and experts from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and indirectly fertilizing every field
of educational activity. Could there be a grander function, or
one more worthy of public support?

POWAY GM BD UT RT

GUSTAF RETZIUS 559

GUSTAF RETZIUS, 1842-1919

By Dr. OLOF LARSELL

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

T is given to few men to become outstanding leaders in any
field of science, and positions of eminence simultaneously
in several fields are at the present time almost impossible of
attainment. Such a position was, however, occupied by the
subject of our sketch in each of the sciences of anatomy and
its sister, anthropology. To both of these fields of knowledge
he made contributions of enduring worth in some of their most
difficult branches. As if this were not sufficient to absorb his
energy and zeal, several volumes of poems, both original and
translated, numerous sketches of his extensive travels in other
lands, political writings, and other forms of literary endeavor
emanated from his prolific and resourceful pen.

Magnus Gustaf Retzius was born in Stockholm, October 17,
1842. He came of a family which was distinguished in science
and medicine, not only in his native land, but at least in the
case of his father, throughout Europe and America.

His father, the celebrated anatomist and ethnologist, Anders
Adolf Retzius, was professor of anatomy at the Caroline Med-
ico-Chirurgical Institute of Stockholm. This position he held
from 1824 until his death, which occurred in 1860. Anders
Adolf Retzius was born in Lund on October 13, 1796. He
studied at the University of Lund, and then for a time at Copen-
hagen. On his return to Sweden he gravitated toward the capi-
tal while still a youth, for we learn that in 1818, Anders Johan
Retzius, the father of Anders Adolf, who had been ill for some
time, received a stroke which paralyzed the lower part of his
body. Anders Retzius the younger, therefore, came to Lund
and took his father to Stockholm.

On December 27, 1823, Anders Retzius, the father of Gustaf,
was appointed professor of veterinary science in the veterinary
school of Stockholm and, on September 16 of the following
year, he was made profesor of anatomy at the Caroline Medico-
Chirurgical Institute. He was then 28 years of age. This po-
sition he continued to hold until his death, as previously stated.

560 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

The Caroline Institute had been founded but a few years
previously, in 1815, and it appears due very largely to the or-
ganizing ability and the scientific work of Anders Retzius that
this medical school attained the position of prominence which
it has come to occupy in the Scandinavian countries.

Anders Johan Retzius, the grandfather of Gustaf, was pro-
fessor of natural history at the University of Lund from 1787
until 1812. He appears to have been interested particularly
in rocks and minerals, for he presented a collection of these to
the University in 1815, which is mentioned in the record of the
University celebration in 1897, which marked the quarter cen-
tury of the reign of King Oscar II.

An uncle of Gustaf, Magnus Christian Retzius, from whom
the subject of our sketch apparently received his first name,
which, however, was seldom used in later life, was also born in
Lund. He was two years the senior of Anders Adolf. He
completed the medical course at Lund and received the degree
of Doctor of Medicine in 1815. Soon after this, apparently, he
removed to Stockholm. Before taking his degree he had served
as battalion surgeon with the Swedish army in the campaign
against Norway in 1814. In later life he occupied various posi-
tions of eminence on the medical staff of the army and also
built up an extensive medical practice in Stockholm.

The scholarly traditions of his family showed themselves
by numerous medical and anatomical contributions. Magnus
Christian Retzius died October 1, 1871.

By the removal of the two brothers to Stockholm, and by
the bringing to that city also of their father in his old age, the
Retzius family was now established in the capital city of the
country. Here Anders Adolf married Emilia Wahlberg, also
of a family distinguished for its love of natural history and
scientific pursuits. One brother of the mother of Gustaf was
a botanist, apparently of some note in his own country, and
another brother was an engineer and explorer.

With this background it is not surprising that the young
Gustaf should have developed the remarkable zeal for biological
science which characterized his work for more than half a
century.

Concerning his boyhood and his veneration of his father we
have a glimpse in a letter? which he wrote in 1892 when he was
at the height of his powers, and already famous. This letter
was written to the editor of a series of short sketches and auto-

2 Retzius, Gustaf, “ Sjalfbiografisk skizz. Autografin och portrater af
framstinde personer,” Ser. 3, 1892, Hft. 9 b.

GUSTAF RETZIUS 561

graphs of the leading men of Sweden. Because of the illumina-
tion it sheds on the character of the son himself it is worth
quoting in full in a translation which has attempted to preserve
the spirit of the original, although the phraseology on that ac-
count appears here and there somewhat clumsy in the English.

Mr. Editor:—

When to-day, April 18th, the anniversary of my father’s death, I re-
ceived your letter requesting me to send you my autograph, it appeared
particularly fitting to sketch a few of the pictures from the past which
such an anniversary calls forth for recollection.

It is now 82 years since my father, after a few days’ illness, was sud-
denly sent away from his comprehensive and influential work. He had
recently been greatly pleased that the same Spring I should become a
student and that soon thereafter he should have me as a disciple in the
anatomical lecture room in which for more than thirty-five years with
never-tiring energy, love and wisdom he had fostered generation after
generation of the healing art’s young followers. And I was delighted at
the prospect with all the enthusiasm of youth. His death put an end to
the hopes of us both, and although a couple of weeks later I donned the
white cap in Upsala—after having with my father’s approbation “ hopped
over ” the fourth ring in the gymnasium—yet I felt to the full extent the
irretrievable loss I had suffered.

I had by the exertion of all of my young strength worked myself
through the long hated requirements of the school, with its narrow-minded
coercion, unnecessary grinding, needless and musty lore, in order to be
initiated into the world where all of my desire was: nature’s wonderful
world, under an awake, inspired and learned father’s leading.

And thus the leader went away, just as I stood at the threshold. I felt
myself uncertain, groping. But I cast myself in, however, with other
seekers after knowledge, and so proceeded further on the way, sometimes
with tottering steps. But the way led nevertheless forward.

When I now in retrospect think upon how it came about that I fol-
lowed in my father’s footsteps, that I not only became a naturalist, but
particularly anatomist, histologist and anthropologist, then I see that it
occurred because he, although gone, has yet been my invisible leader. The
seed which he implanted in my mind in my years of childhood have long
afterward sprouted.

In very truth during my youth neither my father nor I had time for
much talk with one another. He was occupied all day in absorbing work,
with his instructing, his scientific researches, his correspondence and with
a thousand other tasks which were foremost for his restless spirit’s in-
dustry. I also had my constant school-going which not seldom led to real
over-exertion. But I met him at meal times, saw and heard him often in
company with others, especially noted naturalists, Swedish as well as for-
eigners, the last named of whom sought him in Stockholm on their summer
trips. I was permitted during my gymnasium years to accompany him on
journeys to Germany, France and Switzerland and was thus, in his com-
pany, guest of the contemporary most outstanding men among naturalists,
such as Johannes Miiller, Ernst Heinrich Weber, Rudolph Wagner, Bischoff,
Justus Liebig and many others. I heard them discuss scientific problems

VOL. x.—38.

562 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

with a zeal, a geniality, a devotion, which must make an impression on
the mind of a youth. I obtained also thus a little insight into what scien-
tific work is and what it requires. I received a glimpse that it is not on
the king’s highway one pursues his calling, that the cross-beam demands
on all sacrificing patience, a perseverance without limits, an unheard-of
spirit of sacrifice. I understood, therefore, even then, better my father’s
industry at home, his giving himself up to science, his “ holy fire.”

But there was also something else which made an impression on my
young mind. My father worked not alone with books and desk. ‘“ Search
first and read afterward” was one of his principles. He opened always
first nature’s book before he turned to the book-shelf. He seized upon
knotty problems (certain knots) knowingly, with lively interest, strove for
progress in all directions, but foremost of all it was Biology which urged
him on, not alone human anatomy and physiology, but all of living nature.
Therefore he always tried to plant in his little garden new and useful
plants. On this account he sent to his home strange living animals. I
long had my trundle-bed in the same room where these animals were gen-
erally kept, my father’s work- and writing room in his dwelling-house at
the Caroline Institute, of which institution he was the inspector and
leader, indeed the creator. I remember even yet so well how a large :
human skeleton stood beside my bed, and how in the window were placed
aquaria and jars with lizards and tree-frogs, indeed one of the bellowing
giant-frogs of Brazil which when it got loose made room-high jumps.
There were casks with young salmon-fry, whose further development my
father studied. And each spring when the ice broke up, he took me with
him to Kungsholmbrun, where we clattered down on the stone piers to the
water’s edge and gathered small water animals, infusoria, bryozoans, and
worms, which we took home to the aquaria. I shall never forget my
father’s enthusiasm when he observed under the microscope the wonderful
life which was unfolded in the water of these aquaria, and of which he
with his spirited descriptive art tried to give me an inkling. I shall never
forget his burning interest, his love of truth and the alert, keen look, con-
cerning which a foreigner one time said that in case there was any proof
needed for immortality, Anders Retzius’ glance was such a proof.

Only a single time was I permitted to hear my father lecture in his
auditorium. He took me, naming I know not what reason, with him to
the anatomical lecture-room and allowed me, gymnasium student, to sit on
a bench in the midst of the large crowd of medicophiles, to whom I looked
up with reverence. The lecture to which I then listened stands out to-day,
after 34 years, in my memory as if I attended it yesterday. Such an orig-
inal presentation have I never seen or heard since.

He lectured on the trachea, its structure and function. With a vivac-
ity, which for a man of 60 years must be thought phenomenal, with a
youthful verve and enthusiasm, of which very few teachers even in their
prime are in possession, he gave an illustrated picture of this organ’s won-
derfully simple, and yet so ingenious structure, and its great importance
for mankind. He entered with all his might into his subject. His mobile
features made clear the shades of meaning with a clever mimicry. His
hearers followed with intense attention the by no means arranged, but all
through, spirited exposition. One immediately caught the contagion of
zeal and laughed heartily at the original fancies which spiced the lesson,
which had quite a different form than that of the ordinary dry lecture. I

GUSTAF RETZIUS 563

have often reflected since then over it and seen that in such manner lec-
tures may have much greater influence than as ordinarily given.

I have here in a few rough sketches tried to delineate the impulses
which my father, notwithstanding his death, gave me during my years of
youth for my journey through life. Much might be said here of the great
example which his outstanding personality gave to all who came into con-
tact with him. Much might also be said of the influence which my mother
with her unceasing, devoted interest, and which her brothers, the botanist
P. F. Wahlberg, and the engineer-naturalist J. A. Wahlberg, had on my
orientation—not least the last named, who daily took his meals at my
parents’ home. He, who dreamed of nature, often took me as a child, with
him on his rambles in the suburbs of Stockholm. He taught me to speak
the flowers’ “language,” and the birds’ song—the only music I even to-day
understand. And it was earnestly debated that I, as a ten-year-old boy,
should go with him to the unknown lands of inner Africa, on his last expe-
dition, where he laid down his life. But if a description of this man’s
noble personality might be of interest here, yet has this autograph already
grown beyond its prescribed limits and it is time to conclude.

The scattered pictures and impressions which I have drawn from my
youth may serve at least to show “ why I became a naturalist.”

But they may serve at the same time to show something which may be
of general interest. They may give to those who have the upbringing of
children on their hands, a glimpse of the important weight of the influ-
ences which in the home and in the environment, affect the child’s future
development. It is not so much the lessons of the school, admonitions and
punishments, which up-foster and give foundations. It is in a much
greater degree living examples.

GUSTAF RETZIUS

STockHOLM, 18 April, 1892

Concerning his studies at Upsala there is little or no infor-
mation at present available. Since he entered in 1860, at the
age of eighteen, and did not receive his medical degree until
1871, he must have spent a number of years at Upsala. He
then attended medical lectures at the Caroline Institute for some
time. It appears likely that his medical degree was received
from the University of Lund, as one of his biographers states,
instead of from the Caroline Institute as several others imply,
since it was not until 1874 that the Caroline Institute attained
the right held by the state universities of Lund and Upsala, to
hold examinations and confer degrees in its special faculty.
Many students from all the Scandinavian institutions took their
examinations and degrees at Lund, after pursuing their studies
at one or another of the other schools.

In these years of his university life, Retzius already began
the productive literary and scientific labors which were soon to
bring him distinction. In 1864, at the early age of twenty-two
years, he collected, edited and published his father’s contribu-

564 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

tions to ethnology, together with some of his father’s letters.
About this time also he began the comprehensive researches
which resulted thirty-six years later in his monumental work,
“Crania Suecica Antiqua,” published in 1900. In 1871, the
year in which he received his medical degree, he published a
58-page volume of sonettes, which must have been the accumu-
lation of a number of years, and the following year, 1872, he
published a small volume of translations into Swedish of some
of the poems of Robert Burns.

This purely literary work, however, was to lapse for a num-
ber of years, for in 1871 he became a docent in anatomy at the
Caroline Institute. He had already, in 1869, begun a series of
researches in collaboration with Axel Key on the anatomy of
the nervous system and the connective tissues which gained
recognition from the French Academy in the bestowal upon
Retzius of the Monthyon prize. In 18738, in company with
Lovén and Nordensson he undertook a journey to Finland and
Russia for the purpose of studying the anthropology of the
Finns. This resulted in the publication in 1878 of his impor-
tant work on “ Finska Kranier.” A monograph on “ Das Ge-
hororgan des Knockenfische” appeared in 1874, and was the
forerunner of important researches on the auditory organ of
vertebrates, the larger results of which were published in 1881
and 1884, comprising two volumes with the title “Das Geho6r-
organ der Wirbelthiere.” The figures of Retzius representing
the inner ear and the organ of Corti are still reproduced in
many modern text-books. These researches on the auditory
organ were continued many years later after the introduction
of the newer methods of nerve staining, and form the basis of
several contributions in his “ Biologisches Untersuchungen.”
They reveal his abiding interest in this difficult subject.

In 1877 Retzius was made “ personligt” professor of his-
tology at the Caroline Institute, and in 1888 was advanced to a
full professorship. This, however, he resigned the following
year in order to devote all his time to his investigations, an ap-
parent ambition to occupy the position so long held by his
father having been satisfied.

During the eleven years of his assistant professorship nu-
merous contributions were made to histology and neurology.
In 1881 and 1882 appeared two volumes of researches by him-
self and younger workers under his direction on purely histo-
logical subjects. These two volumes constitute the first series
of his “‘ Biologisches Untersuchungen.” Because of other duties
as he states in the preface to Volume I. of the new series which

GUSTAF RETZIUS 565

was begun in 1890, and because he found opportunity to publish
a series of researches in the proceedings of the Biological So-
ciety, the “ Biologisches Untersuchungen ” was allowed to lapse
as a distinct publication for a number of years.

Some of these other duties to which he refers were of a
nature usually quite foreign to the laboratory man. From
1884 to 1887 he was chief editor of the Stockholm Aftonbladet,
a daily newspaper of considerable circulation. Retzius became
connected with the Aftonbladet through his marriage with
Anna Elizabeth Hierta, the daughter of the owner and founder
on the paper, Lars Hierta. MHierta was a man of considerable
wealth and of influence in his country. He held various offices,
including a seat in the riksdag at various times. After his
death, which occurred in 1871, his widow gave 100,000 kronor
to the “hogskola” of Stockholm to establish a chair of political
economy, and several years later she established a foundation
of 400,000 kronor in memory of her husband.

It was this marriage, sympathetic as well as fortunate
financially, which placed ample means at the disposal of Retzius
for his later scientific work, and for the publication of this in
the sumptuous form in which most of it is found.

A year after the resignation of Retzius from the chair of
anatomy at the Caroline Institute, that is in 1890, appeared
Volume I. of the New Series of ‘‘ Biologisches Untersuchungen.”
These volumes appeared at intervals of from one to three years,
until by 1914, eighteen volumes had been published. They are
of folio size, illustrated with handsome plates, some 478 in all,
many of which are in colors. The text is usually brief, but
carefully descriptive of the various subjects treated, and in
addition to the description, contains a review of the literature.

These volumes contain only work which he himself had
done, as he states in the preface to the first volume. By far the
greater number of the thousands of figures included in the
numerous plates are indicated as drawn by his own hand. He
employed an artist for such figures as required delicate lines
and shading, but with a few and unimportant exceptions, the
figures which were drawn from microscopic preparations, were
his own work.

Retzius was very generous in his acknowledgment of the
help afforded him by artists and photographers when he em-
ployed them. In the last three volumes of the “ Untersuch-
ungen,” which include much cytological work, he also expresses
great appreciation of the services of his technician for the beau-
tiful preparations on which these studies were based.

566 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

It is impossible in a brief space to present any adequate con-
ception of the content of these eighteen volumes. The first nine
volumes were devoted very largely to the nervous system of
various invertebrate groups, as the crustaceans, the annelids
and others, and to the histology of different types of nerve ter-
minations in both invertebrates and vertebrates. To these in-
vestigations he applied the then new Golgi and methylene-blue
methods of staining. Many of these descriptions and figures
have become an integral part of every general treatise on the
histology of the nervous system.

Beginning with Volume VIII., however, appeared also a
series of studies on the brains of eminent men. The first of
these was a study of the brain of the astronomer, Hugo Gyldéns.
In the preface to this volume, Retzius in a manner apologizes
for the fact that three years had elapsed since the appearance
of the last volume, but states in extenuation that “my time has
been employed in other work—e.g., in 1896 on the monograph
‘Das Menschenhirn.’” This was a two-volume work which did
much to clear up some of the most difficult parts of the morphol-
ogy of the brain, e.g., the structures related to the dentate gyrus
and other parts of the rhinencephalon. This work included
not only a study of the adult brain, but the brains of a large
series of human fetuses of various stages of development were
included.

Another subject which attracted Retzius was the study of
the spermatozoa of various groups of animals, from inverte-
brates to man. The sperms of scores of species were described
and figured, and considerable attention was paid to a com-
parison of these cells in the higher apes and in man.

Volume XV. of the “ Biologisches Untersuchungen” (1910)
contains the first of a series of cytological studies on the ova
of various invertebrates, chiefly Echinoderms. Retzius was
now sixty-eight years old and it is remarkable that at this age
he should still keep sufficiently abreast of the newer develop-
ments of biological science to take up research in a field which
presents so great technical difficulties. The drawings, and ap-
parently the preparations for these first studies were made by
himself, for in Volume XVI. (1911) for’the first time appears
any reference to the work of a technician.

The wide range of his friendship with the scientific men of
Europe is indicated by the dedications of these handsome vol-
umes. The names of Kolliker, Nansen, Cajal, His, von Ebner,
Schwalbe, Waldeyer, Oscar Hertwig, and others, usually with
the inscription, in “friendly veneration” adorn the dedicatory

GUSTAF RETZIUS 567

pages of his volumes. Other volumes are dedicated to various
members of his family. The scientific work of Retzius received
widespread recognition by his election to honorary membership
in the learned societies of the chief cities of Europe and Amer-
ica—indeed, the catalogue of the societies to which he was
elected is very similar to a list of the capitals of Europe, with
Philadelphia and Washington added. Honorary degrees were
conferred upon him by the Universities of Upsala (1893,
Ph.D.), Bologna, Wurzburg, Cambridge, Geneva and others,
and various governmental recognitions were bestowed.

In 1908 he was called upon to deliver the Croonian lecture
before the Royal Society of London. He chose for his topic
“The Principles of the Minute Structure of the Nervous Sys-
tem as Revealed by Recent Investigations.” A perusal of this
lecture, which is contained in the Proceedings of the Royal So-
ciety serves well to reveal the modesty and pleasing address of
the man. In the following year he returned to England to de-
liver the Huxley lecture before the Royal Anthropological Insti-
tute of London. On this occasion he spoke on the “So-called
North European Race of Mankind.” In this lecture he took a
somewhat pessimistic view as to the ability of the Nordic race
whose characteristics the studies of his father and himself had
done so much to differentiate, to meet modern conditions of
industrial life in competition with the smaller bodied, vegetable-
eating races of southern Europe. The Nordic race requires
the open country and flesh for food. It is a race of warriors,
administrators and farmers, not of city dwellers or workers in
factories. Such are the outlines of his thesis.

Professor Keith, the celebrated English anthropologist who
heard him on that occasion writes®

No fellow of the Institute who had the fortune to listen to the Huxley
lecture of 1909 can forget the graciousness, courtesy and modesty of the
lecturer, nor the pleasant memories which his wife and he left with his
audience.

In summing up his scientific work we may again quote Keith
who says

He did more to enrich the literature of physical anthropology, anatomy,
and physiology than any other man of his time. His numerous mono-
graphs deserve to be called princely, whether we consider the finish, the
magnificence of their illustrations, their full and accuraté record of ob-
servation, or the exactness of the methods which were employed in their
production.

3 Keith, A., Gustav Magnus Retzius, Man, Vol. XIX., No. 10, October,
1919.

568 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

No picture of Retzius would be complete without further
reference to his other than strictly scientific activities. In
1884, as already noted, he became head editor of the Afton-
bladet. His early literary work had been excellent prepara-
tion for this position, which he filled for three years. Numer-
ous contributions on politics, sketches of his travels, and
biographical sketches of scientific men, foreigners as well as
his own countrymen, were made by him through the columns
of this daily paper during this period, and also after he relin-
quished his editorial duties.

Retzius made numerous journeys to the various countries of
Europe, and also to other continents. The benefit of these
travels he shared with his countrymen, so far as was possible
through the sketches to which reference has already been made,
and through a volume of 372 pages, which appeared in 1891,
entitled “Pictures from the Nile Country.” Another volume
of 96 pages appeared the following year on “ Pictures from
Sicily.” In 1893 and 1894 appeared a series of 34 letters in the
Aftonbladet, called ‘‘ Pictures from North America.”

Reference has already been made to the early literary work
which through the pressure of his scientific researches was
neglected for a number of years. That Retzius continued his
interest in poetry, however, and in music, despite his expressed
diffidence in understanding the latter, is evident in the publica-
tion in 1911 of a 242-page octavo volume of poems, and in the
preparation by him of two cantatas. The first of these ap-
peared in 1898 on the occasion of the celebration of the memory
of Jacob Berzelius, for many years the Nestor of modern chem-
istry in the early part of the nineteenth century. The second
cantata was produced at the celebration under the auspices of
the Royal Academy of Stockholm, of the 200th anniversary of
the birth of Linnzus, May 25, 1907.

Retzius’s greatest interest, however, aside from his re-
searches, apparently lay in the same direction to which we are
at present turning our thoughts, namely, in the lives and per-
sonal history of the makers of science. Some fifty biographical
sketches of scientific men, for the most part workers in the
biological sciences, were published by him. Most of these were
published in the Aftonbladet, in an effort to make more wide-
spread the gospel of scientific work. In connection with this
phase of his intellectual activities he became interested in the
anatomical and physiological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg,
to which he gave considerable study. For a time, including the
year 1903, he served as president of the Swedenborg committee

GUSTAF RETZIUS } 569

of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, whose purpose was to
bring to light some of the forgotten discoveries of the mystic
genius whose writings they studied.

To give in the briefest form possible a comprehensible glance
at the activities of Retzius, as evidenced by his published work,
we may divide his publications into five groups. Group 1, rep-
resenting his work in natural science, includes 127 titles, many
of which represent one or more large volumes. Group 2, which
represents his studies in biography, includes 50 titles. Group
3, his travel sketches, were published under 24 different titles.
Group 4, poems and literary translations, is represented by 5
titles, and Group 5, which includes his political essays and
miscellaneous contributions, includes some 35 titles. To these,
numbering 244 contributions in all, should be added several vol-
umes which were edited and published by Retzius, such as the
ethnological writings of his father, and two volumes which in-
cluded letters of his father, Anders Retzius, to various men.
These constitute his bibliography to the year 1914.

In addition to membership in the leading scientific societies
of Europe and America, and the bestowal of honorary degrees
by a number of universities, Retzius also received recognition
as the recipient of various prizes from scientific bodies.

He died on July 21, 1919, full of honors and of years, for
he was seventy-seven years of age. He had seen the science
of anthropology established, and had made important contribu-
tions to it. Likewise he had taken an important part in the
development of many phases of histology, and had been one of
the pioneers in the study of the nervous system by modern
methods. It appears likely that in the histology of the nervous
system, especially, the name and contributions of Retzius have
found a permanent place.

570 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

THE PHYSICAL SPENCER
By Dr. JAMES FREDERICK ROGERS
NEW HAVEN, CONN.

Men’s characters must be in part determined by their visceral
structures.

O modern writer has preached the gospel of health more
N earnestly than Herbert Spencer, and no other man has
had so wide a hearing, though his “ Physical Education,” like
many another sermon, has been more heard than heeded. The
pathetic exclamation which it contains—‘ What is the worth
of distinction, if it has brought hypochondria with it? ”—indi-
cates that the author’s own experience is the source of his
eloquence.

What was the experience out of which this great essay
sprang? Fortunately the intimate history of the great thinker
(the worth of his philosophy is again recognized after the usual
reactionary eclipse) was minutely chronicled and analyzed by
the philosopher himself and one has but to cull from his auto-
biography the items bearing on the subject of his bodily
history.

From his pathetically minute investigations of his ancestry,
one learns that back of his parents his fore-bears were physically
commonplace. Of his father he writes, “though not robust in
the full sense, he had a constitution which was well balanced
and capable of considerable endurance, as witness the fact that
he, when a young man, in company with his two brothers,
walked sixty miles in a day. Standing six feet when shod, he
was noteworthy for a well-built figure and a carriage which
invited dignity and grace in a degree rarely equaled.” How-
ever, the father’s health gave way when Herbert was a child
and he suffered from severe headache and extreme irritability
and was compelled to abandon his work of teaching. In phys-
ique, his mother “ was not of so fine a type, and the constitution,
though fairly well balanced, was by no means so vigorous.”

Spencer was the first of nine children and the only one to
survive beyond early infancy. As the only surviving child,
Herbert’s own health was a matter of some concern. He was
not pushed into school at the usual age and he had the inesti-
mable advantage of life in the country. ‘The majority of my

&

THE PHYSICAL SPENCER 571

activities were those of the ordinary school boy who, on Satur-
day afternoons and the like occasions of leisure, is commonly
given to country rambles and the search for hedge-side treas-
ures. During my early years the neighboring regions of
Binaston and Normanton were explored by me in all their
details, every hedge becoming known in the course of expedi-
tions, now in the spring seeking birds’ nests, now gathering
violets or dog-roses, and later in the year collecting sometimes
mushrooms, sometimes blackberries, sometimes hips and haws,
crabapples and other wild products. ... Of all the occupa-
tions, however, to which the holidays were devoted, I delighted
most in fishing. . . . Many happy half-days, and, during the
mid-summer holidays, many whole days, were spent on the
banks of the Derwent.” He became an enthusiastic collector
of insects. “Saturday afternoons and other times were spent
in exploring banks, hedges and trees, in search of larve; and
I made in the course of time a considerable collection of moths,
butterflies, dragon-flies, and beetles.”

That there was a large fund of energy, and very much at
the command of its possessor, is indicated by the incident re-
lated by his father that in his ninth year Herbert took a journey
(without his mother’s knowledge) of seven miles to visit his
father, and, in doing so, ran the greater part of the way.

That the body of the boy was, at the age of twelve, danger-
ously under the thumb of the so-called higher faculties and that
the nervous system was strenuously assertive, are evidenced by
the fact that, having entered the glamorous land of fiction, he
often browsed in it all night, reading in bed “till the birds were
singing in the morning. After a time this transgression was
discovered, and my mother adopted the precaution of coming
to my room to see whether the candle was out. But I was
not thus to be balked of my midnight gratification and soon
out-maneuvered her. Close to my bedside was a fixed corner
cupboard; and habitually, when I heard her step on the stairs,
I leaped out of bed, put the candle still burning into this cup-
board, got into bed again and pretended to be asleep, until she,
thinking all was as it should be, retired. Whereupon I brought
out the candle and resumed my reading.”

“As I had not been injudiciously pressed or considerably
taxed during childhood and afterwards, my health was, or had
become, quite satisfactory. I can recall nothing more than a
few days’ illness from one of the disorders of childhood; and
on the whole my vigour, though not great, was considerable.
There seemed to be then, and continued thereafter, a constitu-

572 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

tion distinguished rather by good balance than by great vital
activity. No spontaneous overflow of energy was exhibited—
no high pressure of steam; and hence a certain reluctance to
exertion in the absence of a strong motive. Nevertheless,
there was a large margin of latent power—a good deal of
‘bottom’ as the sporting people call it. In feats of strength I
do not remember any superiority, except in running I was
more fleet than any of my school fellows. This may have been
associated with an unusual length of limb, by which in boyhood
I was characterized.

“Respecting those emotional characteristics directly asso-
ciated with the physical, I may note that on the whole I was
decidedly peaceful. This may have been in part due to the
trait which I inherited from my father—a great intolerance
of painful feelings, either physical or moral.” . . . However,
“when sufficiently aroused by anger, no considerations of pain
or danger or anything else restrained me.”

Early in his thirteenth year Spencer was taken a hundred
and twenty miles from home to his uncle’s school at Hinton.
Disagreement with a fellow student, homesickness, and rebel-
lion against his exile, were too much for him, and on the
tenth day he arose at six o’clock and set out for home, “ reach-
ing Bath in little more than an hour, and buying a penny
roll just before leaving the city on the other side. I took the
Cheltenham road; and, as I ascended the long hill and for some
time afterwards, kept glancing over my shoulder to see if I was
pursued. Presently, getting on to the high broad back of the
Cotswold Hills and increasing my distance from Hinton, I
ceased to fear that I should see the pony-carriage coming when
I turned my head. But now as I walked on under the hot sun,
I began fully to perceive my forlorn state; far away from any
one I knew, without possibility of going back, with scarcely
any money, and with an immense journey before me. No
wonder I burst into tears from time to time as I trudged on.
However, my speed, judging by the result, was not much
diminished by the occasional fits of grief. Pursuing the mo-
notonous road, varied only by here and there a cottage or a toll
gate, I came in the afternoon to the end of the highlands and
descended into the Strond valley; walking through its pictur-
esque scenes in a widely different mood from that in which I
had seen them a few weeks before. Reaching Strond between
five and six, I remember asking a man on the other side of the
town, which was my way to Cheltenham. He pointed out the
way and said, ‘But you are not going there to-night, are you?’

THE PHYSICAL SPENCER 573

He would have been greatly astonished to hear that I had
already walked from five miles on the other side of Bath.

“T could not sleep a wink at Cheltenham. The physical
excitement produced by walking 48 miles, kept me tossing
about till it was time to rise. Next morning, however, I early
started off again, undismayed by my bad night. I got a ride
out of Cheltenham for some two miles in a cart; and then re-
sumed my weary walk, seeing from time to time the Malvern
Hills, which, when I first caught sight of them the previous
evening, had given me a thrill of pleasure as being old friends.
Mile after mile was traversed during the sultry August day,
along roads thickly covered with dust—through Tewkesbury
and Worcester, on to Droitwich and on to Broomsgrove, which
I reached and passed in the evening. I intended to walk that
night to Birmingham, but an occurrence deterred me. While
resting some miles beyond Broomsgrove, I was accosted by one
of those wandering Italian image sellers, common in my boy-
hood—men who went about carrying on their heads boards cov-
ered with plaster casts, and calling out ‘Finees!’ This man sat
down by me; and when I walked on he joined me. After a time
he pulled out a large pocket knife with a blade of some eight
inches long or so, and spoke of it admiringly. This, as may be
imagined, made me shudder. I do not suppose he meant any-
thing; but still his act suggested the thought that he might
murder me. Presently we arrived at the little inn on the
Lickey called the Rose and Crown, and I asked for a bed.
Luckily they let me have one, and to my great delight they
would not let the Italian have one. He had to go on.”

“That night, like the preceding one, was sleepless. The
exertion of walking about the same distance as before (for I
believe from Cheltenham to the Rose and Crown is 49 miles,
and deducting the 2 in the cart leaves 47) had maintained that
feverish state of body which always keeps me awake. Next
morning after a few miles walking, I came up with one of those
heavy wagons, common in the days before railways, carrying
goods between chief towns—wagons now no longer seen—great
lumbering vehicles with large hoods to them. I made friends
with the wagoner; and he let me ride on the soft straw as far
as Birmingham, where he stopped. Thence I walked on to
Lichfield. At Lichfield I happened to be passing the chief hotel
just as the Derby coach drew up; and, getting hold of the
coachman, told him my story. No doubt he saw in my worn
face and parched lips how much I had been suffering. He took
pity on me, and, the coach having plenty of room, let me ride

574 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

for nothing. I asked to ride as far as Burton. When we
reached Burton I offered him the few coppers I had left to let
me goon. He, good fellow, refused to have them, but allowed
me to keep my seat; and so I reached Derby about 3 o’clock in
the afternoon of Saturday, having left Hinton on Thursday
morning. That day I had walked not more than 20 miles, if
so much.

“Here, before passing to subsequent incidents, I may re-
mark on the physical effects of this escapade. It can, I think,
scarcely be doubted that my system received a detrimental
shock.

“My uncle too, at the same period comments on my dulness
and failure of memory. Certainly this last trait must have
been very marked. Not only have I absolutely forgotten some
books I read at that time, but, until perusal of my letters proved
that I had read them, I did not know that I had ever seen them.
Was not growth the cause? If excess of muscular effort, as in
a pedestrian tour, is apt to leave behind inertness of brain,
which for a time makes mental work difficult, it is reasonable
to suppose that an unusual draft upon the resources of the
system for building up the body, may, in like manner, leave the
brain inadequately supplied, and cause feebleness in its action.

“Tt is worth inquiring whether in such cases there is not
produced a simultaneous moral effect. If there is such an
effect an explanation is yielded of the fact which the corres-
pondence of the time proves, that there occurred a deteriora-
tion in my relations to my uncle and aunt. I got out of favor
with them, and I was dissatisfied with my uncle’s treatment of
me. Is there not reason to think that rapid growth may tem-
porarily affect the emotional nature disadvantageously, in com-
mon with the intellectual nature? As in children failure of
cerebral nutrition, when caused by inactivity of the alimentary
canal, is commonly accompanied by ill-temper; so, it seems not
improbable that when the failure of cerebral nutrition is caused
by the demands made for increase of the bodily structure, a
kindred result may be entailed. Conditions which bring about
a defective supply of blood to the brain, tend to throw the higher
powers out of action while they leave the lower in action; the
later and less evolved faculties feeling the effects of an ebb-
tide of blood, more than the earlier and fully evolved ones.
Such a relation, if proved to exist, should be taken into account
in the treatment of young people.”

He completed his student days at Hinton in his sixteenth
year, and reviewing its results he says: “‘ Certainly it had been

THE PHYSICAL SPENCER 575

physically advantageous. I returned to Derby strong, in good
health, and of good stature; my ultimate height (not then
reached, however), being five feet ten inches. I had doubtless
benefited both by the rural life and by the climate, which is
bracing.”

The tendency to insomnia by which he was later so afflicted
was already present, for of the next year he recalls that, with
a fishing trip in prospect, he “retired to bed somewhat early
with the intention of starting at daybreak. Even in those days
much excitement kept me awake; and the forthcoming grati-
fication so filled my thoughts that for hours I vainly turned
from side to side. All the while the room was partially illumi-
nated by the light of a full moon, which penetrated the wide
curtains. Somewhere about three o’clock the thought occurred
to me, Why lie here tossing about? The thought was forth-
with acted upon. I got up, dressed, sallied out, walked by
moonlight to Swarkstone, five miles off, and began fishing by
moonlight.”

At nineteen he walked from five to ten miles a day, was a
good skater and fond of boating and horseback riding, but
although his health was, on the whole, satisfactory, he was
conscious of the working of the machinery, as is evidenced in a
letter of his nineteenth year:

“T have been quite idle and stupid lately. I expect I am
beginning to fill out a little and that all the energies are directed
to bodily development. I do not recollect that you gave me
your opinion whilst I was in Derby upon one of the questions
I asked you. To what extent is it expedient to force the mind
against the inclination? I should like to hear what my uncle
Thomas says upon this head. It seems to me to be rather im-
portant to be able to distinguish between idleness and mental
debility: ‘iy?

He was evidently making careful, much too careful, note
of the influence of bodily states on mental activity, and, in the
following year, after a time of hard work, he says, “‘ The effect
of the over-exertion showed itself in depression of spirits and
a constant feeling of dissatisfaction with myself, and a more
than usual repetition of the fear (which I have occasionally
felt for the last four or five years) that my mind is not so
vigorous or acute, nor my memory so retentive as it once was.”

He concludes, after noting his increase in weight to 150
pounds, that this, in itself, was the cause of his present
stupidity.

His engineering labors on the Birmingham and Gloucester

576 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Railway would be called extremely strenuous nowadays. ‘We
were at work on Tuesday from 8 A.M. to 3 A.M. next morning
and every other day in the week from the same hour to 12 at
night, and even Sunday was not exempt from its portion.”
It is little wonder that he found his eyes “beginning to be
affected. . . . For the first time in my life they began to ache
when used for several hours in drawing.”

The following year he found it advisable to quit this work
and on his return home “my old schoolmaster expressed his
satisfaction that I had not come back to the paternal roof in-
jured by dissipation, as many young men do.”

As sub-editor of The Economist Spencer found it took him
““a week to become so far inured to the eternal rattle of the
Strand as to be able to sleep. . . . for some time I suffered in
general health from noise” and the close atmosphere of the
office. ‘‘ Having at length caught cold three times within two
months, I thought it was time to make some change.” He re-
moved to better living quarters with a longer walk to work, and
he also made a radical change in diet. He became a vegetarian.

Of this latter move he writes his mother: ‘‘ As I have felt
no inconvenience during these first few weeks, I do not sup-
pose I shall now doso. I think I have felt the cold more keenly
than I should otherwise have done, and I find others who are
trying the experiment make the same complaint. I believe,
however, that this result is merely temporary. Meanwhile
I am in all respects well and strong.”

Commenting in his biography he says: ‘‘ From the phrasing
of these statements it is clear that I was willing to persist in
vegetarianism, had I been encouraged to do so by further
results. My scepticism was first aroused, however, by the
fact that after six months’ abstinence from animal food, our
friend Loch gave evidence of a lowered condition. His voice
had become extremely mild and feeble, and he had partially
lost power over one of his feet in walking. Writing, as it
seems from my father’s dating, towards the close of May (for
I had not dated the letter myself), I said—‘ I have about decided
to give up the vegetarianism, at any rate for the present. [I
think this relaxation under the eyes is due to it.’ The clearest
evidence, however, that I had been suffering, was disclosed
afterwards. I found that I had to re-write what I had written
during the time I was a vegetarian, because it was so wanting
in vigour.”

His work upon “Social Statics” was already resulting in
insomnia.

THE PHYSICAL SPENCER 577

In his thirty-third year Spencer made a pedestrian tour into
Switzerland. Disastrous effects resulted, or developed at this
time.

“Years before I had read Andrew Combe’s work The Prin-
ciples of Physiology applied to the preservation of Health, and
had duly accepted the warning given by him against excessive
exertion on the part of those who, having previously led seden-
tary lives, attempt feats of walking and climbing. Yet, aware
as I was of the possible mischiefs, I transgressed: not, how-
ever, as it seems, without excuse. In the above-named letter
written on the Faulhorn, after urging my uncle to see Switzer-
land, I went on to say—

“*There is however great temptation to do too much. The
difficulty of getting tolerable accommodation save at certain
places, often induces one to go too far, and spite of the feats
which the Swiss air enables every one to do, Lott and I overdid
ourselves a few days ago, in spite of my previously made reso-
lution to avoid any excess of exertion. However we shall be
more resolute in future.’

“Of three excesses in walking which I recall (the last
being subsequent to the date of the above-named letter, not-
withstanding the resolution expressed in it) two were caused
by misleading statements contained in Murray’s Guide. This
led us to arrange for stopping at places which, when we saw
them, we instantly decided to avoid at the cost of two or three
hours’ more walking along rough roads and in partial dark-
ness; previous experience having proved that nights made
sleepless by fleas were the alternatives.

“These details I set down as introductory to the statement
that within a few days of my return to London, there began
signs of enfeebled action of the heart. There was no mental
cause. As said in a letter to my father, while in Switzerland
‘I cultivated stupidity assiduously and successfully ;’ and after
my return it was some weeks before I got seriously to work.”

“Two distinguished physiologists have at different times
assured men that the heart can not be overtaxed; but, authori-
tative though their opinions are, I have found acceptance of
them difficult. Among reasons for scepticism are these:—_
First, the improbability that there are no foundations for the
many assertions that extreme exertion, as in rowing matches,
sometimes leaves behind a long prostration. Second, there is
the unquestionable fact that during states of debility the heart
is easily overtaxed; the implication being that if, during an
abnormal state, its limit of power may be exceeded, it may be

578 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

exceeded during a normal state. Third, the truth that other
organs have limits to their powers which can not be over-passed
without damage—damage sometimes ending in atrophy—
seems scarcely likely to fail in the case of one organ alone.
Fourth, such an exception does not seem reconcilable with the
hypothesis of evolution; for how, by either natural selection or
by direct adaptation, can any organ have acquired a never-used
surplus or strength?

“Be the interpretation what it may, however, here is a
fact, that immediately after my return from Switzerland, there
commenced cardiac disturbances which never afterwards en-
tirely ceased; and which doubtless prepared the way for the
more serious derangements of health subsequently established.”

He tried hydrotherapy and the results are noted in a letter:

“T have nothing very definite to tell you, further than that
on the whole the palpitations seem to be gradually diminishing
and do not generally attract my attention even at night;
although still more or less perceptible then, when I purposely
direct my attention to them. In other respects I am much as
I was. No great effect either one way or other seems to be
produced by the treatment, so far as I can judge by my feel-
ings. But being on the whole very well, I don’t know that I
have any right to expect any very marked results.”

While writing his Psychology at thirty-five, there appeared
increasing storm clouds of ill health.

“T spent something like five hours a day in writing: begin-
ning between nine and ten, continuing till one, pausing for a
few minutes to take some slight refreshment, usually a little
fruit, and resuming till three; then sallying out for a country
walk and returning in time for dinner between five and six.
I had often warned my friends against overwork, and had
never knowingly transgressed. Five hours per day did not
seem too much; and had there been no farther taxing of brain,
no mischief might have been done. But I overlooked the fact
that during these months at Derby, as during all the months
since the preceding August, leisure hours had been chiefly
occupied in thinking. Especially while walking I was think-
ing. The quickened circulation consequent on moderate exer-
cise, produced in me then, as always, a flow of ideas often
difficult, if not impossible, to stop. Moreover the printers were
at my heels, and proofs coming every few days had to be cor-
rected; tasks which must have occupied considerable portions
of my evenings, Practically, therefore, the mental strain went
on with but little intermission.

THE PHYSICAL SPENCER 579

“That mischief was being done ought to have been clear to
me. A broad hint that I was going wrong was this:—One of
Thackeray’s stories—The Newcomes I think it must have been
—was in course of issue in a serial form. When a new part
came out I obtained it from a local library, and, reserving it
till the evening, then read it through. As often as I did this I
got no sleep all night, or, at any rate, no sleep till towards
morning. My appearance too should have made me pause. A
photograph still existing, which was taken during the spring,
has a worn anxious look; showing that waste was in excess
of repair. It seems strange that such knowledge as I had of
physiology, did not force on me the inference that I was injur-
ing myself, and that I should inevitably suffer.

“But giving no heed to these warnings I thoughtlessly went
on without cessation; eager to get the book done, and, I sup-
pose, hoping that rest would soon re-establish my ordinary
health. Towards the end of June there remained but three
chapters to write. These were written elsewhere.

“One morning soon after beginning work, there commenced
a sensation in my head—not pain, nor heat, nor fulness, nor
tension, but simply a sensation, bearable enough but abnormal.
The seriousness of the symptom was at once manifest to me.
I put away my manuscript and sallied out, fishing-rod in hand,
to a mountain tarn in the hills behind the hotel, in pursuance
of a resolve to give myself a week’s rest; thinking that would
suffice.

“Next day came a walk to Beddgelert. That place being
much shut in, proved, as I might have known it would, very
enervating. After two days I left for Carnarvon and after-
wards for Bangor; taking up my abode at Garth Point for a
week. While there I managed to finish everything but the
chapter on ‘The Will’ with which the work ends.

“The close of the month found me back home; where this
last chapter was completed under great difficulties. I alter-
nated between house and garden: writing a few sentences and
then pacing up and down for a time to dissipate head-sensa-
tions—a persistence in physiological wrong-doing which
brought on further serious symptoms.”

And now began that pursuit of health which proved to be
life-long and fruitless. At thirty-six he was “unable to bear
more than a few minutes conversation.” He gave up mental
work, walked ten to twelve hours a day, and went on fishing
excursions with results in better sleep. He noted that his
higher “‘ other-regarding faculties’ were impaired by his nerv-
ous break-down,—that he was lacking in judgment and more
emotional than was natural.

580 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

“Both then and afterwards, my sleeping remained quite
abnormal. A night of sound sleep was, and has ever continued
to be, unknown to me.” He averaged four to five hours un-
consciousness—“‘in bits,” and for twenty-five years had no
sensation of drowsiness. At his best he “‘never got beyond
three hours’ work a day without mischief.”

Better and worse, but with almost constant introspection, .
is the health tale from now on. His comments on his condi-
tion, if tiresome, are often valuable. Speaking of the results
in mental states, he says:

“Speaking generally, each step in mental evolution results
in a faculty by which the simpler pre-existing faculties have
their respective actions so combined that each aids in regulat-
ing or controlling the others, and the actions of all are harmon-
ized. Each higher judgment differs from lower judgments in
that it takes account of more numerous factors, or more cor-
rectly estimates their degrees of relative importance; and is
thus a more complex mental act. And similarly, among the
higher feelings, all relatively complex, the highest are those
which stand related to lower ones as moderators; their moder-
ating function being effected by combining within themselves
representations of these lower feelings, no one of which is
allowed to occupy more than its due share of consciousness,
and therefore is not allowed unduly to sway the conduct.
Manifestly, by their very natures as thus understood, these
highest intellectual and emotional powers, by which well-bal-
anced judgments are reached and well-balanced feelings main-
tained, require more than all others, a full flow of nervous
energy—a flow sufficient to simultaneously supply all the
numerous structures called into action. Consequently, they,
before all others, fail when the tide of nervous energy ebbs.
Defect of coordination is shown intellectually in erroneous
judgments concerning matters where sundry circumstances
have to be taken into account, and emotionally in the ill-con-
trolled feelings which lead to impulsive expressions and deeds.
The primitive and deeply-rooted self-regarding faculties, which
tend ever to initiate antagonisms, are scarcely weakened during
states of prostration; while the other-regarding faculties, rela-
tively modern and superficial, and soon paralyzed by innutri-
tion, fail to check them. And then beyond the direct evils
which the nervous subject brings on himself by such failures,
there are the indirect evils that result from misinterpretation of
his character.”

(To be concluded)

PRESENT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 581

PRESENT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS’

By Dr. DAVID JAYNE HILL

ITH the exception of certain formalities of procedure, the

Great War is an affair of the past. The problems of re-

pairing its ravages and paying its cost still confront us. Al-

though the solution of these problems bears more heavily upon

the European nations than it does upon the people of the United

States, our obligations are not inconsiderable, and we are find-

ing that the war and its results have profoundly affected our
economic and social existence as a nation.

Among the issues that appeal most strongly to our interest
and our intelligence is the question how we may most effectually
contribute to securing in the future international peace; or, to
express it differently, how we may prevent future wars?

There is, I think, no difference of opinion among thought-
ful men anywhere regarding the desirability of avoiding future
sanguinary conflict; which can only determine whose will shall
temporarily prevail, and can therefore never furnish a basis
for permanent peace. War can be prevented only by removing
its causes.

When we examine into the etiology of war, we discover that
not all wars are wrong; from which it follows that the enforce-
ment of peace can not always be right. This results from the
fact that war is resorted to from two opposite motives: on the
one hand, a sense of intolerable injustice or oppression which
should be resisted; and, on the other, a spirit of domination
and lust for conquest which, regardless of principles oi equity,
attempts to subdue and expropriate others.

The remedy for the former cause of conflict is the establish-
ment and maintenance of such institutions of justice as would
prevent oppression. The problem is fundamentally one of
jurisprudence, and its solution is a state of security under just
and equal laws. This could be perfectly attained by voluntary
cooperation, if the will to attain it were universal.

Unfortunately, this will is not universal. There exists
among men, both as individuals and as nations, a predatory
disposition, a desire to despoil and to take possession of

1 Address of the Chairman before the Section of Social and Economic

Science of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, St.
Louis, December 29, 1919.

582 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

another’s property. This predatory disposition is a cause of
war that can never be eradicated except by the creation of a
power of repression strong enough to arrest it by rendering it
dangerous and unprofitable, and eventually to overcome it by
inducing modes of life in which it will be outgrown. Such
means are found in all civilized communities in the form of
a police force, and among nations in the form of military
organization. So long as any considerable residue of the pre-
datory instinct remains in men—and we see few signs of its
extinction—both of these forms of repression will be necessary
if peace is to be maintained and justice enforced. The problem
of peace, therefore, reduces itself to two measures: (1) the
improvement of legislation, municipal and international; and
(2) the enforcement of law.

Methods for the enactment and enforcement of municipal
law have been relatively well worked out in the most civilized
countries, yet with much still to be desired with regard to the
administration and the cost of justice; to the end that all, the
poor equally with the rich, the weak equally with the strong,
may be able, in fact as well as in theory, to obtain the vindica-
tion of their rights. In international relations, for obvious
reasons, since the state has been reluctant to place itself under
the dominion of law, there has been less advance toward the
realization of justice.

The primary obstacle, we have been accustomed to think,
has been the imperialistic spirit, which is essentially a tendency
on the part of the powerful states to exploit and dominate the
weaker nations and peoples. In the Great War we were led to
believe that we were fighting to destroy that spirit. Several
of the great empires, as a result of the war, have been virtually
destroyed, at least so far as monarchical autocracy is con-
cerned. There has been a general toppling of royal thrones.
Two German Kaisers, the Czar of Russia, and the Sultan of
Turkey have been shorn of their power. It remains to be seen,
however, whether the imperialistic spirit has been really
crushed; for this does not inhere in monarchs only. Even
alleged democracies have in the past been imperialistic in their
foreign policies, and some of the small newly constituted or
newly consolidated countries only recently rescued from despot-
ism are already manifesting a spirit of aggressive nationalism
that forebodes if continued inevitable conflict between them,
not to mention the ambition of some of the Great Powers that
were allied with the democracies in prosecuting the war.

PRESENT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 583

The real test of the abandonment of imperialism is a willing-
ness to accept as a basis for international legislation the in-
herent rights of all responsible states, without reference to
their power or magnitude. Although this was one of the alleged
intentions of the Allied and Associated Powers in the Great
War, coupled with the proclamation of the self-determination
of all peoples as one of its purposes, I think it can not be
affirmed that the treaties of peace exhibit any marked progress
in this direction. On the contrary, the keynote of the Treaty
of Versailles is the creation of an imperial syndicate composed
of five Great Powers, with others distinctly secondary and sub-
ordinate to them, and a distinct repudiation of an attempt to re-
establish the Law of Nations on the basis of common consent
and the equal juristic rights of all sovereign states. In the
presence of this fact we can not affirm that the Covenant of the
League of Nations is a final solution of the problem of peace.

In the Treaty of Versailles the emphasis is not laid upon the
principles of jurisprudence as the basis of international rela-
tionship, but upon the enforcement of peace by military power.
The primary problem before the conference at Paris was a
victor’s peace. The Central Powers had to be placed under
penalties and those penalties had to be enforced. The atmos-
phere in which the League of Nations was created made it the
first purpose of its being to punish a conquered enemy. The
League was, therefore, bound to have a military character. It
was, in effect, an alliance against the possible future behavior
of a group of defeated Powers. This, it was asserted, was
necessary, in order to execute the treaty of peace. Its aim was
to maintain by force a status created by force.

Such a compact, however necessary at the conclusion of a
war, is by its nature not only different from a permanent organ-
ization of friendly nations, on equal terms, for the preservation
of peace; it was incompatible with the essential idea of such an
organization, the natural basis of which would be equality and
mutual confidence. The peace imposed by the Treaty of Ver-
sailles was not a peace based on understanding inspired by a
common purpose and a community of interests; but a peace
based on force, inspired by distrust and a conflict of interests.

It is impossible to consider such a compact as the ultimate
solution of the problem of perpetual peace. A peace that has
to be enforced by arms is not a true peace, but only a temporary
appearance of peace. Beneath this appearance there is hidden
the spirit of revolt, only waiting for an opportunity to assert
itself in open conflict. It was, no doubt, necessary that this

584 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

specific settlement should be punitive. When executed it would
constitute a memorable lesson. But true peace is not made by
war. It may issue from it, but it requires a new spirit and a
new process. It must be based on other conceptions. It is
only through some larger apprehension of mutual advantage,
that is, through the acceptance and application of definite and
universal principles of equity, that true peace can be attained.
The effective formula, therefore, is not the enforcement of
peace, but the enforcement of law. In this, and in this only,
is to be found the pathway to peace; which is not an end in
itself, but the concomitant of a mode of existence made toler-
able by the establishment of equitable conditions.

Even under a rule of just and equal laws, war may still be
possible; for, so long as lawbreakers exist, nations may be in-
spired to military action in violation of the law. It is then the
vindication of the law, rather than the military enforcement of
peace, that should be made the object of international asso-
ciation.

The advocates of the Covenant of the League of Nations °
will, no doubt, contend that this is really the purpose of the
League.. Unfortunately, this is not as evident as could be de-
sired. There is in the Covenant a large provision for the
future use of force, and especially a great stress upon the occa-
sions when it is to be employed, but the relation of military
action to any defined principles is obscure in this Covenant.
There is no provision for the further improvement or clear
formulation of international law. There is no strict obligation
to obey it. There is no agreement to enforce it. For the pres-
ervation of territorial boundaries there is great solicitude and
almost excessive provision, regardless of the manner in which
possession has been acquired. For the execution of the penal-
ties imposed upon Germany and other Powers—lI do not raise
the question of their justice—there is in the Treaty of Ver-
sailles elaborate provision. But a proposal to reexamine, re-
vise, and improve the Law of Nations, and then strictly to
obey it, was not only not accepted, it was distinctly disregarded.

In this respect the aims and ideals of the free nations, espe-
cially of the United States of America, were not embodied in
the Covenant of the League. To this extent, therefore, what-
ever may be its merits, the League is, in effect, an alliance of
Great Powers for the international control of others, rather
than a society of free nations for the establishment of peace
through justice.

I do not for a moment question the necessity of a combina-

PRESENT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 585

tion of the Allied and Associated Powers to enforce upon the
nations that were the aggressors in the Great War. The safety
of civilizations demands this. With respect to the past this
was to be expected and desired, but it by no means places the
peace of the world on a secure foundation, for the reason that
it is primarily a compact based on force and not on the inherent
rights of nations. As a combination of force, it is subject to
the vicissitudes of all military combinations. It may disin-
tegrate when its primary object is attained, or even before
that; and it is liable to be confronted with some other combina-
tion of a like character and eventually of greater strength. A
mere preponderance of power can not be expected always to
endure; and in so far as it is merely that, it can not claim any
moral or legal authority which an opponent might not equally
claim. To those who say, “The existing frontiers which we
have established must be consecrated for all time,’ another
group may with equal authority say, if it possesses the power,
“These frontiers are unjustly established, and we propose to
change them as we think right.”

Before the peace of the world can be definitely secured,
there must be such an evolution of national demarcations as
have in themselves the elements of equity. But the most im- .
portant observation to be made regarding a League of Nations
is that its whole value consists in the national unity and effi-
ciency of the nations that compose it. It is to the character of
the component nations, therefore, that we must look in forming
an estimate of the future of such a League. As a people, our
first thought should be for the security of our own national ex-
istence, unity, authority, and independence. Entrance into any
international combination that would destroy or deteriorate
those qualities would be disastrous to ourselves as a people and
the gravest misfortune that could befall the world. We must
not permit ourselves as a nation to be either Prussianized or
Russianized.

It is timely, therefore, that we should look to our founda-
tions as a nation. We must first of all recognize the fact that
our conception of national life is sui generis. Our Constitution
is the outgrowth and expression of a new appreciation of the
value and the possibilities of the human individual. We began
our national existence by solemnly guaranteeing the right of
every citizen to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our
political system was intended to protect him in the exercise and
preservation of those rights. Here is a solid foundation on
which to build our social and economic structure, and one on

586 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

which we may readjust it when it is shaken, as it has been, by
the storms of war.

Men are speaking much just now of “reconstruction,” and
there are those who would tear up all foundations in the process.
They would disintegrate the nation, and merge its energies and
resources in a vague internationalism. Some would reappor-
tion the proceeds of past industry, prudence, and enterprise; if
necessary, even by violence. Others would accomplish the same
result by the destruction of our political institutions. There
are serious advocates of such a contradiction in terms as “ con-
structive anarchy.”

There is at this time more than the usual need of recogniz-
ing the fact, that there can be no sound internationalism that
neglects the quality of nations. It is futile to merge our ener-
gies and resources in a mass of quarrels, uncertainties, and con-
tradictions. The first essential of our usefulness to the re-
mainder of mankind is that we should ourselves be free, strong,
united, and sure of our own future. It would be folly to bind
ourselves by solemn engagements to the performance of un-
known tasks. There is nothing in our freedom that would
prevent our loyalty to any obligations we have assumed by our
participation in the Great War. We shall never stand by in
silence and indifference if any unprovoked attack should be
made by our former enemies upon our allies and associates for
reasons growing out of the strife in which we have been en-
gaged. In many respects their cause is our cause, and their
safety our safety. But with disputes arising from a conflict of
ambitions, with future quarrels engendered through expecta-
tion of our support, with the disposition of some nations to dic-
tate the policies of others, with which we are not concerned, and
with plans for the partition and exploitation of defenceless
peoples, we may wisely declare our intention to have nothing
to do.

There will, however, be a large part for us to play in the
sphere of international relations. We can stand for law, for
justice, and through them for peace, by our own conduct, by
our influence, and by leadership in realizing our inherited ideals.
To do so effectively we must solve some pressing domestic
problems. In this, the members of this association, and espe-
cially of this section, should perform their part.

Your committee has endeavored to state some of those prob-
lems and has sought to induce competent authorities to discuss
them. In this we have been to some degree successful, not-
withstanding difficulties to be overcome, and we take this occa-

PRESENT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 587

sion to express our appreciation of the responses we have
received.

The most urgent economic questions of a domestic character
center about the productivity of American industry and our
financial relations with the rest of the world. The war has
greatly dislocated our industrial processes. 'The diversion of
our energies as a people from the pursuits of peace to the ex-
igencies of military organization and efficiency has created a
shortage in the normal production and distribution of com-
modities, abnormally increased wages in most forms of manu-
facture and food industries, and thereby greatly augmented the
cost of living. This has been further accentuated by our un-
precedented exportation of the necessaries of life, thus further
augmenting prices at home. Finally, in return for these ex-
ports we have thus far either received no remuneration—many
of these commodities having been free gifts or sold on credit—
or we have received in exchange money rather than commodi-
ties, thus affecting the balance of trade and the value of bills of
exchange to a point where, unless some remedy is found, it will
be practically impossible for European countries to make pur-
chases in the United States; for they can not pay our prices
when a pound sterling is worth only $3.75, a franc only 9 cents,
a lira still less, and a mark only a little more than 2 cents.

We must, therefore, on the one hand, increase our produc-
tivity, in order to reduce prices; and, on the other, find some .
method of stabilizing foreign exchange, or we shall still further
heighten the cost of living and lose our trade in Europe.

The question of increased productivity depends largely upon
the harmonious cooperation of the two great factors of produc-
tion, Labor and Capital, and also on the spirit of enterprise
which is necessary to unite them and render them fruitful.
Disagreements regarding the terms of this cooperation have
already menaced the country with a total paralysis of steam-
driven manufacturies as well as the cessation of all means of
transportation, which, if rendered actual, would mean the ruin
of the country. Behind these omens of a possible industrial
paralysis there has seemed at times to be very imperfectly con-
cealed sinister purposes of radical political change, foreboding
the expropriation of private property and control by the red
hand of anarchy.

To meet and counteract these movements and tendencies,
various remedies have been suggested, some of them almost as
dangerous as the evils to be overcome. The time seems, there-
fore, to call for very serious study, from many different angles,

588 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

of two fundamental problems: (1) What is the true basis of the
relation of Labor and Capital? and (2) What is to be done in
the sphere of taxation and finance?

With regard to the first of these problems, it would seem
that little progress can be made without a guarantee of fulfill-
ing a contract; which raises the question, how far reciprocal
responsibility on the part of the contractants is an essential
basis of collective bargaining; and where a third party, the
public, is directly interested in a public service, like transporta-
tion, the question, if the continuity of it should ever be inter-
rupted by a strike to increase wages. It is timely also to con-
sider the effect upon our American standards of living to be
expected from an attempt to internationalize labor; the relation
between the labor supply and immigration; and, finally, the
railway situation as a concrete case involving the application of
all the solutions that may be available.

The financial problem quite naturally presents itself under
two rubrics: (1) What are the duties, responsibilities, and in-
terests of the United States with reference to the financial obli-
gations and conditions created by the war? and (2) What are
the available and as yet unutilized methods and means of rais-
ing revenue for the support of the government in the discharge
of its obligations?

Whatever may be the degree of success or failure of your
committee in formulating these subjects for discussion, it can
hardly be asserted that it has failed to suggest a sufficient
amount of pabulum for the present annual meeting. If the
speakers who have accepted invitations to participate in the
examination of these subjects are not as numerous as we had
desired, we none the less appreciate the willingness of those
who have consented to participate in the exposition of these
pressing themes, and we entertain the hope that they will
awaken a general interest that will promote serious discussion.

; 4

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION 589

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION

By Professor EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN

HE results of evolution as contrasted with its causes may
be considered from three different aspects which may be
characterized briefly as diversity, adaptation and progress.
The first concerns increasing diversification as shown in the
appearance of varieties, species and genera which are no more
complex in organization than the forms from which they have
descended and which may be less complex; such changes which
do not lead to more highly organized forms may be known as
variation, speciation or diversification. A second aspect of evo-
lution deals with increasing adaptation to conditions of life;
this may or may not be associated with progressive organiza-
tion or with speciation and may be called progressive adapta-
tion. A third aspect, and most important as measured by its
results, concerns the advance in organization from the simplest
to the most complex organisms; this may be called progressive
evolution, or more briefly progress. No doubt progressive or-
ganization, by which is meant increasing differentiation and
integration has come about through diversification or speciation
but on the other hand the latter has only rarely led to the
former.
I. DIVERSITY

The most evident phase of evolution and the one which has
been dealt with exclusively by the experimental method is di-
versification. Smaller differences or variations among organ-
isms may be classified, according to their mode of origin as (a)
Fluctuations, (b) New Combinations, (c) Mutations.

1. Fluctuations or Modifications.—Fluctuations are varia-
tions whose differential causes are environmental, they come
and go with changing environment; they are modifications of
the soma rather than of the germplasm, of individual develop-
ment rather than of heredity. They can be distinguished from
heritable variations by the fact that they are not permanent.
They are probably more numerous than all other diversities,
their number and extent being proportional to the number and
degree of the environmental changes which called them forth.
They rarely if ever lead to modifications of the germplasm and
are therefore of little or no evolutionary value.

590 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

2. New Combinations of Mendelian Factors.—The most
common kind of inherited diversity is due to new combinations
of inheritance factors in sexual reproduction. The segregation
of genes in different germ cells and their combination in fertili-
zation are rarely exactly the same in two instances. In the
case of animals and plants where self fertilization does not
occur there are usually several “contrasting characters” or
allelomorphs in the parents, and the number of possible com-
binations of these rises rapidly with each additional pair of
allelomorphs until in species crosses where there are many alle-
lomorphs there may be as many different combinations as there
are individuals in the F, generation. Furthermore the number
of such new combinations is proportional to the number of
germ cells which unite in fertilization and to the number of
chromosomes in those germ cells. ‘Therefore the rate at which
such new combinations are formed must depend upon the rate
of reproduction and the number of chromosomes and allelo-
morphs.

A certain proportion of these combinations are homozygous
and breed true, but most of them are heterozygous and show
Mendelian splitting in subsequent generations. Bateson says
that most of the new varieties of cultivated plants are the
results of deliberate crossing. This is the method which Bur-
bank has employed with such wonderful success in the produc-
tion of his “new creations in plant life.” Linnean species con-
tain many different biotypes and by crossing these many new
combinations are produced, some of which may be economically
valuable. If individuals showing desired combinations are in-
terbred it is usually possible after a few generations to get
homozygotes that breed true and thus a new variety or breed is
established.

Such new combinations may therefore be of evolutionary
value. It is probable that certain species of domestic animals
and plants are of hybrid origin; among these are dogs, cats,
cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, poultry, wheat, oats, rice, plums, cher-
ries, etc. More than one thousand different plant hybrids have
been described as occurring in nature but many of these are
heterozygotes and do not breed true. Lotsy maintains that
hybridization is the most important cause of evolution, but hy-
bridization implies existing diversities such as dominants and
recessives. Where and how did these arise? To attribute
these diversities to still earlier hybridization only puts off the
question of their origin.

3. Mutants or Elementary Species.—Since the publication

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION 591

in 1901 of deVries’ great monograph on the “ Mutation Theory”
the superlative importance of mutations in evolution has been
widely accepted. Genuine mutants, due most probably to sud-
den changes in individual genes, have now been found in so
large a number of plants and animals among both wild and
domesticated species, that it seems probable that all inherited
differences appeared in the first instance in this way.

The evidence is accumulating that mutations are rare only
when contrasted with the relatively large number of individuals
which show no hereditary variations. Wherever there are con-
trasting characters, or allelomorphs, and few things are more
common, a mutation has occurred at some time, though it may
have been long ago, by which these allelomorphs became differ-
ent. Wherever there are breeds, races, or stocks there is evi-
dence, ex hypothese, that their constant differences were estab-
lished by one or many mutations occurring at some time or
times in the past.

The rate at which mutations appear seems to differ greatly
in different species, but it is suggestive that they are found most
abundantly in species which have been studied most thoroughly,
and it is probable that they are of much more frequent occur-
rence than is now known. The largest number of mutants
which have been found in any species under conditions of accur-
ate observation and experiment are in the pomice fly Drosophila
melanogaster, and one of the most frequent types of mutation
in this species is the appearance of lethal factors which cause
the early death of individuals which receive this lethal from
both parents.

Muller and Altenburg find in Drosophila that the ratio of
lethal mutants to the normal condition in the X-chromosome
varies from 1:30 to 1:53 depending on the temperature, and
if mutations occur in other chromosomes at the same rate as in
the X-chromosome, a new lethal mutation in one or another
chromosome occurs in about 1 fly out of 18. They further argue
that since a sex-linked lethal mutation appears in about one
fly in fifty and since there are two X-chromosomes in the female
such a mutation would occur in one X-chromosome in about 100
generations and, since there are about 25 generations a year,
say once in 4 years. It seems probable that there is some con-
fusion in this reasoning since if a mutation occurs in one X-
chromosome in every 100 X-chromosomes it should appear much
more frequently than once in every 100 generations.

If mutations are proportional to the number of genes they
should be much more numerous in very complex organisms than

592 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

in relatively simple ones. It is not evident that this is the case.
It is true that most mutations are positively injurious, or at
least that they are less beneficial than the typical characters of
wild species, and therefore they are eliminated almost as soon
as they appear. Consequently such mutations are rarely seen
unless they are searched for diligently. In all probability mu-
tations are more numerous and occur more frequently than is
now known, but the evidence seems to favor the view that they
are more numerous in some species and phyla than in others.
Whether they are caused by environmental conditions and are
therefore proportional in number to environmental changes is
at present unknown, although Muller and Altenburg indicate
that they occur more frequently at high temperatures than at
lower ones.

4, Species are presumably the result of the heaping up of
viable mutations. The term “species” is an indefinite one and
is not everywhere used in precisely the same sense. Neverthe-
less a very casual survey of the living world shows that some
groups of animals and plants have undergone very much more
extensive diversification than other groups. If we consider
merely the approximate number of known spceies both living
and extinct in different phyla of the animal kingdom we find
very great differences as is shown by the following table of the
approximate number of species in the principal animal phyla:1

MRM AGEL alesse Srcin’ pss = Ja fa eligi Gu sak nib a) eh a 8,000
RSTUISTOM Cesiiat eins’: © uae als eraser aces ote te 2,500
CICHEBPAER it a’ t'c s\e.c feiss oe ea eee ae ei 4,500
PIA VHeIMINtRES | 6. iis Weisel cine aise eee 5,000
Nemathelintnthes: %6 <3 sie uc} tise Seb lemy 1,500
RE PEERED Ret sss iniid Silo seieits Sucks bps bile) saw iodo Mose 500
AERO N enn te 5 vais! ni's' irrel oat ean ininin| & “pista bele 1,700
PRPIENIELD) co ce ase! s'e oe sips, 8 ia» ce ace ws sl slants 4,000
OREN BODOET Lo eo sc c'al alee wig'e © swine oe katane 400,000
TD TIS Ege reolelsie ola) s sie piclaves clialeverae eiske ot 61,000
MBChINOGETMAL & 13.1) <isvens ole Sle vecvetontetatis 4,000
SH ORGATAM eo te s ccte) ei tee os sus. Fis todo iel el reo lPis 86,000
In the different classes of Arthropods there are:
(WPUISCAEE Mee ee ace sible ce eoaic B ahareeate SPEC 16,000
PARACTITIT Gaels aye stale. well lel ote binge siceeenee 16,000
WUE eae ost ds Sie aw lai nie & alte’ ito sh Eis tekette 2,000
BSE ta ile ie aap ate foi issbuahdsoiein-p etlacanee 360,000

In the different classes of Vertebrata the number of known
species is about as follows:

1See Pratt, H. S., “On the Number of Known Species of Animals,”
Science, N. S., Vol. 35, 1912.

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION 593

PASGES I Hee ial tiles cs al elle ar titanate att ee 13,000
Asma pant Ts asic est ay 5s Vinh at olan arcs oly ecko peieg tana eked 1,400
RROD bE arte es Masia a cueve Teck Piss sha euia eee 3,500
IV CSU ene aay Taree eae pepe cere eanel clientes 13,000
Mian anya aceon aia novel toe! sia eleee erat 3,500

These numbers represent merely a crude approximation of
the number of known species, both living and extinct. Un-
doubtedly many more species remain to be discovered and this
number will be larger among the Protozoa, for example, than
among the Chordata and in the Pisces than in the Mammalia.
For our purpose however this crude census of the number of
species in different phyla of the animal kingdom and in differ-
ent classes of the arthropoda and the vertebrata will suffice.

(a) It is at once apparent that the number of species in a
group is not dependent entirely upon its age. Birds which
arose in the Jurassic and are the most recent of vertebrate classes
have more than 3 times as many species as mammals which
first appeared in the Triassic and are therefore older. There
are 100 times as many species of arthropods as of echinoderms
though apparently both phyla are of about the same geological
antiquity ; there are 15 times as many species of mollusks as of
annelids and more than 4 times as many species of chordates
as of protozoa, although the former represents the most recent
and the latter the most ancient phylum of the animal kingdom.

(b) Furthermore the number of species is not wholly de-
pendent upon the number of individuals produced nor upon
their rate of reproduction, as might be inferred from some of
the recent discussions of mutation and natural selection. Pro-
tozoa and protophyta probably include vastly more individuals
than all other groups of organisms put together and their rate
of multiplication is many times greater than in any other group
and yet the number of recognized species is relatively small.
Chordata are probably poorer in individuals and their rate of
reproduction is much slower than echinoderms though they are
9 times as numerous in species. Birds which are relatively few
in number of individuals and of eggs produced have as many
species as the much older class of fishes which lay perhaps a
thousand times as many eggs. If evolution depends upon the
chance production of mutations and the sorting of these by nat-_
ural selection it might be supposed that mutations would be
most abundant where fecundity was highest and that fish or
starfish or oysters which produce approximately a million eggs
a year would evolve much more rapidly than birds which lay
only from two to twenty eggs a year: that frogs which lay pos-

vou. x.—40.

594 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

sibly 200 eggs a year would evolve more rapidly than mammals
which produce only from one to twenty young per year. Even
within the same class and family there is no direct correlation
between the number of young produced and the number of
species, as is shown by a comparison of passerine and gallina-
ceous birds; in the former group the number of eggs laid is
small but there are 5,700 living species, while in the latter where
the number of eggs is perhaps from 5 to 10 times as great,
there are only 400 living species. In the genus Crepidula, a
prosobranch gastropod, there are 60 times as many eggs pro-
duced by an individual of the species fornicata as by one of
convexa yet individuals and mutations are apparently no more
numerous in one species than in the other. In general it seems
that evolution has been more rapid where fewer young are pro-
duced and these are better cared for.

In none of these cases is the smaller number of eggs or of
young produced compensated for by a larger number of indi-
viduals which are reproducing. To a certain extent the num-
ber of individuals in a species is correlated with their size; the
smallest of all animals, the protozoa, are the most numerous
in individuals, the largest, elephants and whales, are the poorest
in individuals, but in comparing the number of species in a
group there is no constant correlation between size of individual
and rate of reproduction, though in general the smaller animals
reproduce more rapidly than the larger ones. On the other
hand there is no satisfactory evidence that smaller animals un-
dergo more rapid evolution than larger ones.

(c) The rate of evolution is not always dependent upon
changes in environment and diversities of habitat. There are
more species of marine organisms in the tropics, where the en-
vironment is relatively uniform than in temperate regions.
Amphibia which inhabit both land and water have only one-
tenth as many species as fish which inhabit water alone, and
echinoderm species are nearly twice as numerous as sponges,
though both are confined entirely or almost entirely to the sea.
Undoubtedly, however, there are more chances for the survival
of mutations among living things which are able to adapt them-
selves to many kinds of environment than among those which
are confined to a limited medium or habitat. Thus the fact
that arthropods are by all odds the most richly diversified phy-
lum in the animal kingdom is probably associated with the fact
that they have extended into all media, namely, sea, fresh water,
land and air. The echinoderms on the other hand have been
confined entirely to the sea probably owing to the fact that be-

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION 595

cause of inherited constitution they were unable to adapt them-
selves to other media; accordingly the number of species of
echinoderms is much less than that of arthropods. Many pale-
ontologists maintain that the rate and direction of evolution
are determined by environmental changes and they describe
“waves of evolution” as caused by intermittent changes of
environment.

(d) If the chances of mutation were equal in all classes of
organisms and if mutations represent chance alterations in the
structure of the germplasm the number of mutations which
appear would be dependent merely upon the number of young
produced; but the number of these mutations which survive
and give rise to species is undoubtedly limited by the environ-
ment, that is by natural selection. Mutations generally are
wiped out almost as soon as they appear because they render
the organism less viable or because they are not capable of
further development, owing either to physico-chemical limita-
tions of the germplasm or to environmental limitations. If
this be granted the question still remains why are mutations
more viable and more promising in some groups than in others?

No satisfactory answer can be given to this question at
present but it seems probable that the rate of mutation depends
primarily upon the particular organization of the germplasm in
different groups of animals and plants. Some types of germ-
plasm may be relatively stable and mutations few in such cases;
other types relatively unstable and here mutations may be more
numerous. Whether mutations wil! lead to the formation of
species or not will depend in part upon the character and num-
ber of the mutations, and in part upon the environment, for
the persistence of a mutation must depend upon its finding a
suitable place in nature.

II, ADAPTATION

All kinds of organisms must be fairly well adapted to their
conditions of life if they are to survive. The very fact of sur-
vival is evidence of adaptation. There is no evidence that pro-
tozoa are not as well adapted to their conditions as fishes and
birds and mammals are to theirs. We cannot therefore assume
that adaptations are less complete in lower forms than in higher
ones, but they are certainly less complex and perfect as will be
at once apparent when one compares the eye of a jelly fish and
that of a fish or bird or man. We have here the same problem
that we meet in individual development; germ cells, developing
eggs and embryos must be adapted to their conditions of life if

596 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

they are to survive, but those conditions and the corresponding
adaptations are not so complex as they are in fully developed
animals. This increasing complexity and perfection of adapta-
tion from the lowest to the highest forms is part of the problem
of progressive evolution and will be considered in the next
section.

If adaptations are the result of chance mutations and the
elimination of the unfit the rate of adaptation should be pro-
portional to the number of such mutations and the severity of
elimination; other things being equal, the number of mutations
and the severity of elimination should be proportional to the
rate of reproduction ; consequently the rate of adaptation should
be proportional to the rate of reproduction. There is no evi-
dence that this is true, and when we consider the complexity
and perfection of adaptations in higher forms it seems that the
reverse is true and that adaptations have gone farther and
faster in organisms in which the rate of reproduction and of
elimination is relatively low.

III. PROGRESSIVE EVOLUTION

Thousands of species appear which do not lead to any in-
crease in differentiation or in complexity of organization; they
appear and if they find a suitable place in the world they may
persist, but most of them do not represent any real progress.
Almost all of the mutations which have been studied hitherto
are retrogressive in that they represent a simplification of germ-
plasm if not of adult structure and while some of them repre-
sent stages in the formation of species few, if any of them, rep-
resent a real increase in differentiation. Indeed progressive
evolution, as distinct from speciation or adaptation, has appar-
ently halted in almost every group of organisms; usually neither
mutations nor real Linnean species lead anywhere except to
mere diversity. There are probably more than a million known
species of animals and plants both living and extinct and yet
there have been relatively few lines of progress.

Whether evolution will lead to increasing complexity of or-
ganization or merely to diversification must also depend upon
the nature of the germplasm; increasing complexity in evolu-
tionary series must have depended upon rare and fortunate
mutations which were not only viable but contained the pos-
sibilities of much further evolution and which were pecu-
liarly suited to a favorable place in nature. On the other hand
every mutant or species does not represent the beginnings of a
new path of evolution probably because it is limited by the con-

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION 597

stitution of its germplasm so that further progress is rarely
possible. The old explanation of the cessation of progressive
evolution among protozoa, for instance, was a purely teleological
one, namely, they remained protozoa in order that they might
occupy a place in nature which would otherwise be unoccupied.
The true explanation is more probably that they are incapable
of further progressive evolution; they have branched off from
the main stem of progress and can not now return. The case
is like that of the differentiation of cells in development; the
only cells which remain capable of indefinite development are
the germ cells; muscle cells and nerve cells can not again be-
come germ cells, and in a similar way the only cells which re-
main capable of progressive evolution are certain kinds of germ
cells in certain groups of organisms. Certain species, like cer-
tain cells, have become so highly differentiated in particular
lines that they cannot progress much beyond the limits already
reached; they are too highly specialized to give origin to new
lines of progress.

Paths of Progress

In general progressive evolution implies an increase in the
differentiation and integration of parts. In unicellular organ-
isms such increase of organization is seen in the multiplication
and differentiation of many minor parts of the cell such as
chromomeres, chromosumes, nuclei and the various units and
organellae of the cytoplasm. The utmost limits of such pro-
gressive organization within the limits of a single cell were
reached relatively early in the history of life upon the earth.
Living protozoa and protophyta are probably no more complex
than those which existed in the Proterozoic Era and certainly
there is no reason to suppose that unicellular forms are now
undergoing progressive evolution; they ceased long ago to ad-
vance in organization and since then they have changed only in
the direction of diversification or speciation.

1. Multicellularity—A new path of progress was found
when unicellular forms gave rise to multicellular ones. When
the protozoan ancestors of the metazoa divided, the daughter
cells no longer moved apart, and at the same time these daugh-
ter cells retained the differentiations which they had at the time
of division and in the course of further evolution added to these
differentiations. In this way individual cells and cell aggre-
gates became new units of differentiation and the entire or-
ganism, composed of multitudes of such cells, was able to reach
a stage of organization which was entirely impossible within a
single cell.

598 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

A similar transition from a unicellular to a multicellular
condition is seen at the present day in the development of an
egg. The single egg cell shows certain differentiations, as does
also the sperm cell, but these differentiations never go farther
than the type of differentiations characteristic of a protozoan.
By repeated divisions of the egg, cells are formed which adhere
together and the initial differences which these cells have at the
time of division are maintained and augmented as the cleavage
of the egg proceeds—that is, there is no regulation following
division by which each cell replaces lost parts and becomes like
the original egg cell as happens in the division of a protozoan.
However if the cells fail to remain united they do undergo a
certain amount of regulation returning more or less to the con-
dition of the egg; and if cell division is stopped differentiations
quickly come to an end. In short it is necessary that the egg
shall divide into many cells and that these cells shall remain in
contact in order that differentiation may proceed; cell division
is necessary to embryonic differentiation and cell union to or-
ganic integration. Multicellularity is thus one of the most im-
portant paths of progress that organisms have ever discovered.

2. Multiplicity of Tisswes, Organs and Parts.—As multi-
cellularity led to the possibility of differentiations between in-
dividual cells, so the grouping of similar cells together with
their products into tissues, of tissues into organs, and of organs
into systems has enormously increased the possibilities of differ-
entiations among these parts. Within one of the higher ani-
mals or plants there are therefore many units of structure of
varying degrees of complexity and among these there are in-
numerable numbers of differentiations while at the same time
all are integrated into a single organism or person.

3. Compound Organisms.—Finally combinations of organ-
isms known as corms, due to incomplete division, are found
very generally in the plant kingdom and among the lowest ani-
mals such as sponges, hydrozoa, and polyzoa. Evidences of
such incomplete division are found also in the segmentation of
tapeworms, and in the metamerism of annelids, arthropods and
vertebrates. In many of these cases this incomplete division
makes possible a differentiation of the various zooids or seg-
ments so that as in the case of the hydrozoa one zooid may be
nutritive in function and structure, another reproductive, an-
other protective, etc. In metameric animals there may be
a notable differentiation of different metameres; indeed in
all the higher animals metameric differentiation is one of the

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION 599

chief methods of bringing about increasing complexity of or-
ganization. Thus by the multiplication of cells, tissues, organs,
systems, and zooids or metameres; by differentiations among
the members of each of these classes; and by the integration
of all of these into a single individual a degree of complexity of
organization, both as to structure and function, is reached which
so far as is known has no parallel elsewhere.

Just as some of the most complex protozoa represent the
highest possible organization within the limits of a single cell
so some of the most complex multicellular animals and plants
represent the highest possible degree of organization within the
limits of a single body. But no single animal or plant, how-
ever complex it may be, can combine within itself all the com-
plexities of all organisms. The very nature of differentiation
signifies limitations in certain directions in order to secure
further development in other directions. If a vertebrate have
wings it cannot also have hands (except in the artistic repre-
sentation of angels) ; if it have limbs differentiated for running,
it can not also have limbs specialized for swimming; if it have
enormous strength it can not also have great delicacy of move-
ment. Thus while certain animals are differentiated in one
direction and others in another no one animal can be differenti-
ated in all directions.

There is good reason to believe that multicellular organisms
have already reached and in many cases passed the highest
stage of organization which is possible within the limits of a
single body. When differentiations in any one direction go so
far that they unfit the organism for any condition of life except
a single and special one the chances for survival are greatly re-
duced and sooner or later this highly differentiated organism
becomes extinct or returns to a more generalized condition.
Such limits to progressive differentiation have been reached in
practically every group of animals and plants. The climax of
the progressive evolution of fishes was reached in the Paleozoic
Era, of amphibians in the Permian, of reptiles in the Mesozoic
and of mammals in the Tertiary. In all these classes the for-
mation of new species and genera has been going on through-
out their entire history, there has been diversification and speci-
ation without cessation, but progressive evolution in the sense
of increasing complexity of organization has reached its limit.

In all existing classes of animals and plants progressive evo-
lution has practically ended. Even in man, one of the latest
products of evolution, there is evidence that physical and intel-
lectual development have gone about as far as is possible; there

600 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

is not much prospect that the hand, the eye or the brain of man
will ever be much more perfect than they are in many persons
at present. It is of course conceivable that further evolution of
the brain for example may occur, just as it is possible to con-
ceive of a further evolution of the neck of the giraffe or of the
trunk of the elephant, but there is a practical limit beyond
which it is not possible to go. Differentiations must not go
farther or faster than integrations and they must not render
their possessor less fit to survive. It is very doubtful whether
the brain of man could undergo much further differentiation
without introducing disharmonies within the organism or with
the environment.

Both in complexity of organization and in perfection of
adaptation progress has always been most rapid at first and
has then gone slower and slower until it stopped. It may be
compared to a curve which rises rapidly at first and then ap-
proaches more and more to a straight line. Or better still it
may be compared to a flow of lava which rushes forward while
it is at a white heat and fresh out of the crater but goes more
and more slowly as it cools until it stops altogether; if the cen-
tral stream remains fluid (or the organism remains labile and
relatively undifferentiated) it may burst out and again flow
rapidly in one direction or another until it again cools and
stops. Probably the farthest possible limits of progressive
evolution have already been reached in all well-tried lines of
progress. Further progress must be made in new lines if at all.

Among animals no new phyla have appeared since the verte-
brates in the Silurian or perhaps even earlier; no new classes
since the mammals in the Triassic and the birds in the Jurassic.
In the evolution of animals only about fourteen times in the
whole history of life have new phyletic paths been found and
several of these were practically blind alleys and led nowhere,
not even to the production of many species, as, for example, the
ctenophores, the rotifers and the chetognaths. Apparently,
therefore, the progressive evolution of multicellular organisms
has come to an end so far as increasing complexity of organiza-
tion of individuals is concerned.

4. Social Evolution.—Just as a great advance was entered
upon when the path of multicellularity was taken, so a still
greater advance was made possible when solitary forms en-
tered upon the path of social organization. There are many
grades of individuality in the living world from the visible and
even the invisible parts of cells to whole cells, cell-aggregates,
tissues, organs, systems, persons, corms, and finally colonies

THE RATE OF EVOLUTION 601

and states. There are many grades of organization from the
bacterium to the vertebrate, from the germ cell to the man.
Animal societies are the last and highest grade of organization
which has yet appeared on earth. In such societies the integra-
tion and cooperation of individuals makes possible a higher de-
gree of differentiation than has ever appeared before, and the
degree of differentiation of individuals which is possible is di-
rectly proportional to the extent of their integration.

The evolution of animal societies may be traced from a con-
dition in which every member is much like every other and the
bond of connection between individuals is a very loose one, up
to societies of ants, bees and termites in which the specializa-
tion of individuals is higher, the mutual dependence more com-
plete, and the work which the colony is able to perform is im-
mensely greater and more perfect than could be accomplished
by any number of individuals working separately. What the
individual cannot do because of weakness, lack of differentia-
tion and short life, the social group can accomplish with the
strength and specialization of all and through long periods of
time.

Whether social evolution, in which instincts alone are the
integrating factors, has reached its highest possible develop-
ment in colonies of ants, bees and termites no one can say, but
it is certain that any further evolution along this line must lead
to greater differentiation and integration of the constituent in-
dividuals, or of entire colonies.

5. Rational Evolution of Human Society.—Finally with the
development of intelligence man has entered upon a new path
of evolution in which progress has been extraordinarily rapid,
namely the path of rational cooperation. All animal societies
are based upon gregarious instincts and these instincts form
the only bond of integration in most of these societies, but in
man they are supplemented by intelligence and upon these gre-
garious instincts as a foundation rational cooperation has
erected that enormous structure which we call civilization.

It is a notable fact that the social evolution of man has been
very much more rapid than his physical evolution. In physical
organization man has changed but little since the beginning of.
recorded history but in social organization the most enormous
advances have been made and changes are still going on at a
rate which is amazing if not alarming. The chief reason for
this difference in the rate of physical and social evolution is to
be found in the fact that experiences are more quickly regis-
tered in the intellect than in bodily structure or even in the in-

602 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

stincts, and that in intelligent social groups all past experi-
ences may be transmitted to future generations, so that each
new generation stands as it were on the shoulders of the pre-
ceding ones. On the other hand so far as bodily structures,
functions and instincts are concerned, each generation begins
life anew as germ cells and if it inherits any characters due to
the experiences of its ancestors they are few and rare.

CONCLUSION

Finally if the rate of divergent evolution depends upon the
number of mutations which appear, it should be proportional,
other things being equal, to the rate of reproduction. But this
as we have seen is not the case. If the rate of adaptative evo-
lution depends upon the rate of mutation and the severity of
elimination it also should be proportional to the rate of repro-
duction. On the other hand, some of the most highly adapted
forms such as birds and mammals have a relatively low rate of
reproduction. If all members of a phylum have evolved from
a common ancestor those which have gone farthest in any line
of adaptation must have gone fastest; but in general the most
highly adapted forms have a low rate of reproduction. If the
rate of progressive evolution depends upon the rate of mutation
and the severity of selection it also should be proportional to
the rate of reproduction, but it is at once apparent that this is
not the case; the most complex and most highly differentiated
of all animals have the lowest rate of reproduction.

These considerations lead one to seriously inquire whether
recent theories as to the causes of evolution are wholly satis-
factory. The rapid rate of evolution in active and highly com-
plex but slow-breeding animals would be readily explained on
Lamarckian principles. It seems highly probable that the rate
of mutation is influenced by environmental conditions, as Plough
has shown in the case of the pomice fly, and it is probable that
environment has played a large part in the rate of evolution.
On the other hand, the evidences against the inheritance of the
effects of use or disuse are so strong that one hesitates to in-
voke their aid. Nevertheless a broad view of the past evolution
of life upon the earth, of evolutionary diversity, adaptation and
progress, and especially considerations of the rate of evolution,
cause one to inquire whether there may not be other important
factors which possibly are not yet “dreamed of in our phi-
losophy.”

POPULATION 603

POPULATION’

By Professor E. M. EAST
BUSSEY INSTITUTION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

HERE is scarcely a subject in whose depths one may escape
the problem of population. It pervades history and sociol-
ogy, it penetrates ethics and philosophy, it influences science
and the arts. This is because it is solely in man’s own interest,
his food and protection, his love and happiness, that he founds
social and political systems, establishes codes of morals, and
otherwise busies himself going to and fro upon the earth. If
there be an unvoiced criticism that these are mere platitudes
founded on man’s domination of the world, and that a diversity
of phases in the problem of population, as usually delimited,
does not necessarily follow, it is not well-founded. The prob-
lem of population takes form when it is realized what a large
number of these vital interests of mankind are antagonistic to
each other, are even mutually exclusive. And as a problem not
one of these numerous ramifications may profitably be excluded.
In spite of the catholicity of the subject, it has had definite
consideration by only two classes of thinkers, theologians and
economists. The theologians have discussed it with their habit-
ual effusiveness, but their examination has been superficial.
For them, mundane happiness has a very low order of magni-
tude. It is a distasteful matter, unworthy of the spiritually
minded. Such progress as has been made, and it should not be
minimized, has resulted from the analysis of the economists.
And I say this mindful that the man who made the greatest
original contribution to the subject was entitled to place the
word Reverend before his name; for he wrote as an economist,
not as a theologist.

I submit, however, that there should be no such monopoly.
Such a momentous and difficult problem should not be the sole
property either of priest or politician, of economist or social
worker. I do not suggest its preemption by the biologist; yet
by its nature the question is fundamentally biological, and if
the biologists do not interest themselves in it, it can not receive
the attention it deserves.

1 Address of the retiring President, delivered at the thirty-seventh

annual meeting of The American Society of Naturalists held at Princeton,
New Jersey, December 30, 1919.

604 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

The problem of population is not new. Like all general
questions it has interested mankind ever since there has been
some modicum of civilization. But, with that scholasticism
characteristic of the majority of publicists of all times, it seldom
has seemed necessary to base their statements, theories, or laws,
upon concrete facts. One obtains little reward other than cyn-
ical amusement in following out its history, from the Lex Papia
et Poppea,? enacted for the purpose of encouraging marriage
and legitimate fecundity, by the efforts of two old bachelor con-
suls in the year 10 A.D., to the analogous contemporary propa-
ganda of our erstwhile bachelor colleague Popenoe,? from the
naive teachings of the early Christian fathers, to the modern
headline that “Mrs. Blindly Helpful warns of birth decline,”—
probably in the same awed tone that Little Orphan Annie whis-
pered, “‘the goblins ’ill git you.” But even as the development
of the doctrine of evolution is comparatively uninteresting until
one reaches Lamarck and Darwin, the theories of population
have little intellectual standing until the time of Franklin‘
(1751) and Malthus® (1798).

Franklin’s chief contribution to the subject was a short
essay entitled ‘‘ Observations concerning the Increase of Man-
kind and the Peopling of Countries.” In it the,dependence of
population increase or decrease on food, commerce, type of gov-
ernment and conditions of labor, were succinctly and accurately
stated. Malthus acknowledged his indebtedness to Franklin;
but the fate of Franklin’s essay as compared to Malthus’s trea-
tise was as those of Wallace and of Darwin on Natural Selec-
tion, the logic was good but the basis of material fact was small.

Malthus, on the other hand, delved successfully for facts and
found their meaning. In spite of bitter criticism his work is
accepted to-day by leading economists with little change. The
only difficulty is that the world is inclined to blunder along with-
out heeding Malthus’s warning. It sits gaily at its present feast
oblivious of the mene tekel on the wall. How many of our lead-
ing biologists, even, have read the “Essay on Population”?
They know it gave to Darwin his long-sought concrete cause of
organic evolution, Natural Selection, but in general can they

2Strangeland, C. E., “Premalthusian Doctrines of Population,”
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 1-356,
1904.

3 Popenoe, P. and Johnson, R. H., “ Applied Eugenics,” New York,
Macmillan, 1918, pp. 459.

4Franklin, B., Miscellany. (1751.)

5 Malthus, J. R., “An Essay on Population,” 3 vol. Georgetown,
Milligan, 1809. First American from third London edition. .

POPULATION 605

do more than speak vaguely of a geometrically increasing popu-
lation pressing upon an arithmetically increasing food supply?
If the scholar thus casually passes by a fundamental cause of
past, present and future social unrest, can one justly call to
court the harebrained Bolshevist for his fallacious doctrines, or
rail against legislators, who, true to their primary principle of
holding firmly to their jobs, pass resolutions to investigate the
high cost of living or the relations of labor and capital, with the
same aplomb as they would undertake to investigate the law of
gravitation could such a procedure further their political
fortunes? .

Malthus’s work went through many editions. In some par-
ticulars the first imprint was more pessimistic than the later
revisions. Perhaps if the author were alive to-day he would
return to his first impressions; but since the purpose of this
paper is to look into the facts as they affect the present and the
immediate future, I shall epitomize his mature conclusions as
given in the third edition.

The object of his inquiry was to examine the causes imped-
ing the happiness of mankind, and to speculate on the probabil-
ity of their removal. The chief cause of distress and misery he
attributed to the constant tendency of man, in common with the
lower animals, to increase beyond the means of subsistence.
Irrational animals, he states, are powerfully impelled to increase
their species freely, deterred by no doubts about providing for
their offspring; and the results of this freedom are afterwards
repressed by want of room and nourishment. Mankind, im-
pelled to increase by the same instinct, is somewhat checked by
reason; but nevertheless the tendency is such that the increase
of mankind actually does press upon the means of subsistence to
such an extent that various forms of misery, or the fear of
misery, are the direct result.

The ultimate check to population is thus a want of food
which necessarily results from the different ratios according to
which population and food increase.

The immediate check may be stated to consist of all those customs,
and all those diseases, which seem to be generated by a scarcity of the
means of subsistence; and all those causes, independent of this scarcity,
whether of a moral or physical nature, which tend prematurely to weaken
and destroy the human frame.

These obstacles to increase, he maintained, were resolvable
into moral restraint,—to which one may to-day add artificial
family limitation,—vice, and misery. To state the matter a
little differently, increase in population is the chief cause of

606 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

misery in so far as that misery is caused by the struggle for
existence. Under this head he named “unwholesome occupa-
tions, severe labor, extreme poverty, undernourishment of chil-
dren, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of com-
mon diseases, wars, plagues and famine.”

One may without exaggeration add materially to this list,
for all of man’s activities are resolvable into a struggle for ex-
istence and a struggle for perpetuation, and it is the antagonism
of these two instincts that leads to all the trouble.

To my mind, the Reverend Doctor proved his case very
neatly in the three volumes of his work. Not only that, but he
discovered two principles as corollaries to this main thesis,’
which are particularly important at the present day. The first
is to the effect that emigration relieves population but tem-
porarily, owing to the increased birth rate of the remaining
population resulting from a release of the economic pressure.
The second is that the lower classes of a population tend to re-
place the upper classes,—a natural conclusion following from
the fact that that part of the population which takes no thought
of the future has the highest birth rate.

Nevertheless, in spite of this thorough and scholarly attempt
to place before the public logical conclusions on this great prob-
lem, induced from concrete facts, in spite of later analysis and
acceptance by every economist of note, there is still a hue and
cry for population. European countries, crowded to the utmost,
appoint commissions to inquire into their declining birth rate,
and to take steps to increase it. Tempestuous people in the
public eye thunder forth dicta about the subject, though blindly
ignorant of the facts and making no pretense of learning them.
Even those who pass for scientists and might be expected to
look into the subject, seem obsessed with the same idea. Wit-
ness a paper® delivered a short time ago by the statistician of
the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at a meeting of the
American Association for Advancement of Science, and after-
wards spread broadcast as a part of The Congressional Record.
It is difficult to account for such narrowness of view, super-
ficiality of logic, and general inability to grasp the broad prob-
lem, as is exhibited in this paper. If these are the reactions of
those from whom some basis of knowledge might reasonably be
demanded, what is to be expected from the man on the street
who is entranced as with a toy by the mere idea of bigness—a

® Dublin, L. I., “ The Significance of the Declining Birth Rate,” Sci-

ence, N. S., 47: 201-210, 1918. See also reply with same title by Ellen
Hayes, Science, N. S., 50: 583-536, 1919.

POPULATION 607

big country, lots of people—let them live as best they may. But
enough of this; let us examine the facts on the subject as we
face them to-day.

In the time of Malthus, the world could still be considered as
a collection of more or less isolated geographical entities. Suc-
ceeding the original development of subraces through real iso-
lation, there had been waves of migration with resulting inter-
mixtures of peoples, it is true; but at that time, a short 100
years ago, there remained a condition of geographical separa-
tion which has now been swept away. The world war brought
home to us the illusiveness of distance. In considering the ques-
tion before us from the broadest point of view, the whole globe
must be treated as a unit.

How fast the population of the earth has increased in the
past is an unknown quantity, and will remain unknown. An
estimate of the present population or of its natural increase is
not accurate by any means, but is more than a random con-
jecture. From the returns of the Registrar General of Eng-
land, the Census reports of the various civilized countries, the
Statemen’s Year Book, and the opinions of several travellers in
Africa and the Orient, I estimate that there are at present 1,700
million people. A careful review of the factors involved leads
me to believe that the probable error is not greater than + 40
million. Again, the annual natural increase estimated country
by country, disregarding the effect of the war, totals not less
than 14 million or more than 16 million. This is an average
rate of about 9 per thousand. To show that this estimate is
conservative, I may say that a letter from the Office of the
United States Census rates the annual increase of population in
the world at approximately 25 million.

Consider a moment what these figures mean. Not long ago
we were asked to speed production, to save, to waste nothing,
that Belgium might be fed and clothed. We did this and more,
and we may well be proud of a difficult task efficiently accom-
plished. But, have we realized, can we realize, that 2 Belgiums
are added to the world’s population each year? And all must
be fed,—though perhaps some need not be clothed.

Segregating this increase by races as accurately as one may,
shows that the white race is increasing much more rapidly than
either the yellow or the black. China’s 300 million population
is practically stationary; India and the South Sea Islands are
increasing spasmodically, but probably not at a greater rate
than 8 per thousand. Japan, on the other hand, has a natural

608 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

increase of over 13 per thousand; and the theoretical curve
fitted to the crude birth rate is rising, though the crude death
rate is stationary. The blacks are increasing rapidly only in
this country, where the natural increase is now about 11 per
thousand, and in the West Indies. In Africa they are increasing
but slowly. In some parts they are actually decreasing, and it
is doubtful if they reach the figure for the United States even
in the richest sections of the continent. The white race is the
race on the road to numerical domination. With the exception
of France, few white peoples are increasing at a less rate than
10 per thousand. The countries of eastern Europe, Russia,
Rumania, Bulgaria and Serbia, with tremendous birth rates,
from 40 to 50 per thousand, are increasing at a rate of from 17
to 19 per thousand, while Australia and New Zealand, with low
birth rates, from 26 to 28 per thousand, are multiplying at
nearly the same speed, due to their low death rates.

It is natural to ask how the Great War affected these esti-
mates. No precise answer to the question can be given, because
it is just possible that the after effects of this war will be unlike
the after effects of previous wars, in that the birth rate will
continue to be depressed below the pre-war figures. Person-
ally, I do not believe this will be the case. I believe we may read
the future in the past, and that the birth rates will take such
upward trends in the war stricken countries that in a very few
years they will readily fit projections of the pre-war curves. In
other words, I believe it to be a fair prediction that so far as
general gross natural increase of population is concerned, the
curve when plotted from 1900 to 1950, if that be some day pos-
sible, will show only a temporary deflection for the years 1914
to 1919. The tide of population is not kept back by the flimsy
barrier of war, it is but baffled for the moment.

Naturally, if one looks at the subject more minutely, he can-
not deny the great influence of the war upon the countries
primarily involved. The reports are conflicting, but various
official estimates place the direct losses at between 10 and 12
million. The indirect losses are hardly more than half as much,
—perhaps much less. Indeed if one could correct for lessened
death rates due to army training, the total would be materially
diminished. It may be doubted, therefore, whether all losses,
direct and indirect, attributable to the war, are over 18 million.
And I may say that this statement is not made haphazard, but
after due consideration of the data from the statistical divisions
of several of our own and other governmental agencies. Com-
pare this, then, with the effects of the pandemic of influenza in

POPULATION 609

which not less than 20 million people are thought to have lost
their lives. Numerically, both of these figures are terrible, stag-
gering, incomprehensible; yet on a percentage basis they are
trifling when compared with the wars and plagues which swept
Europe and Asia in former times, and from which they recov-
ered with astonishing rapidity.

Let us turn for a moment to the potential loss due to the de-
crease in the birth rate. An estimate in 1917,’ based on cities
in Germany comprising about one sixth of the population,
showed that the German birth rate had dropped about 10 per
thousand. If we assume this to be correct for warring Europe
plus Turkey in Asia, three years potential loss is approximately
8,500,000. This figure allows Russia in Europe but one third
the loss of the others, for the very good reason that the Russian
manner of living is such that a loss of 3 or 4 per thousand more
nearly represents the facts, and excludes the United Kingdom
where the depression was slight. This again is a great poten-
tial loss, but is it not small compared with the total population
of the countries involved, and will it not be made up as it has at
the close of all other wars by a temporary supernormal birth
vate? Furthermore, in central Europe it was found that the
war conditions actually made for a lower infant mortality, prob-
ably because of a greater frequency of enforced breast feeding;
and the actuality of the potential loss is not wholly what it
seems to be.

These facts are given for the purpose of showing that in
spite of wars, notwithstanding plagues and pestilences, the
world goes merrily on obeying to the letter the biblical injunc-
tion, “increase and multiply.” But I hear the question, is this
going to continue? Is there not a generally decreasing birth
rate? Yes, this is true. In most of the civilized countries of
the world the birth rate is slowly but steadily decreasing. The
result, however, is not what many would have us believe. The
inter-nation correlation between the birth rate and death rate
is high. In general, where the birth rate is high, the death rate
is likewise high.® Where the birth rate is low, the death rate is

7 Vital Statistics in Germany. Taken from Ver$dffentl. d. k. Gsndhts-
amtes (41: 1917), by War Office. Issued in Medical Supplement, Review
of the Foreign Press.

8 Cf. Mallet, Sir Bernard, “ Vital Statistics as Affected by the War,”
Jour. Roy. Stat. Soc., 81: 1-36, 1918.

9Cf. Drysdale, C. V., “The Small Family System,” New York,
Huebsch, 1917, pp. 196. Also “ The Declining Birth Rate: its Causes and

Effects.” Rpt. National Birth Rate Commission (Great Britain). New
York, Dutton, no date (preface dated 1916), pp. 450.

VOL. x.—41.

610 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

low. Australia, New Zealand and Holland with low birth rates
have tremendous rates of natural increase, rates much higher
than many other countries with very much larger birth rates.
There is but one outstanding exception to this rule—France.
Though France reduced her births, she failed to reduce her
deaths as fast as might reasonably be expected in a country
with her standard of culture. Having reached a point where
there is practically no natural increase, therefore, her death rate
more nearly measures the absolute length of life of her in-
habitants, and for that reason seems abnormally high. Were
the birth rate of France to take a sudden rise, there would be
the apparent paradox of a fall in the death rate due to an in-
creasing population. Nevertheless France stands alone in this.
Other countries from which we have statistics are still increas-
ing, and in them the positive correlation between the birth and
death rate holds; although in saying this we make no claim as
to the relation for intra-nation correlation on a time basis, for
the simple reason that it has not been adequately studied. It is
a fair prediction, however, to say that owing to the steadily in-
creasing development of medicine and of general sanitation, the
decrease in the birth rate will have no great effect on the natural
increase in the world for many years to come. In fact it would
not be surprising if during the next 50 or 100 years the excess
of births over deaths should go up rather than down in many
countries.

What is to become of this flood of people? The international
situation at present is this. China is stationary in population,
—a high birth rate (if we may believe, reports), and a high
death rate. With a permanent system of agriculture she feeds
herself. Northern Asia, Central Asia and even India can sup-
port a few more people. Australia and New Zealand are in-
creasing at a rate which their possibilities in the way of food
production can stand for only a short time. Europe, as a whole,
is already over-populated. England is in the least desirable con-
dition, with the countries of northern Europe running her a
close second. By great efforts Europe can support its present
population without extreme hardship, but the efforts must be
sustained and efficient. There remains then, Africa and South
America, as colonization centers,—the United States we leave
for separate consideration. These places should be able to sup-
port a large number of people. True, large portions are trop-
ical, and the white man has not been a particularly successful
occupant of the tropics; nevertheless one may predict, without
undue optimism, that these difficulties will be conquered, and

POPULATION 611

that these lands will repeat the history of North America.
There will be emigration from Europe, and perhaps from Asia;
there will be a birth release in the new lands; and they will
teem with people. And let us make no mistake here. If science
makes this development possible, the time when Africa and
South America are filled to the practical limits of their food pro-
duction is no dim and distant future. If the rate of increase
actually existent during the nineteenth century in the United
States should obtain, within the span of life of the grandchil-
dren of persons now living, these countries will contain over a
billion inhabitants.

Long before this eventuality, the struggle for existence in
those portions of the world at present more densely populated
will be something beyond the imagination of those of us who
have lived in a time of plenty. Each geographical unit must
then of necessity produce its food. It will be impossible for a
country to maintain a position such as that of England. Excess
population supported by commerce will be a thing of the past.
There will be commerce, of course, but exportation of food in
quantity will not longer be tolerated.

To present this matter in a way which will bring home the
economic and biological consequences of population pressure.
let us consider it in some detail as it affects the United States.
We have taken the census thirteen times,’® 120 years,—not a
long period as even history is measured. In 1790 the popula-
tion was 4 million; in 1910 it was 92 million. In 1920 we may
expect to have somewhere near 110 million people. In 120
years, the country had increased in population 23 times; in 130
years, it presumably will have increased 27 times. More min-
utely, of the 92 million returned by the enumerators in 1910, 82
million were white and 10 million yellow and black,—chiefly
the latter. But of the 82 million white, only 68 million were
native white, over 13 million being foreign born. If we look a
little closer, we find that only about 49 million were native
whites of native parentage,—32 million being either foreign
born or of foreign or mixed parentage. Thus in 1910 only 53.8
per cent. of the population were native whites whose parents
had been born in this country, though from 1820 the total immi-
gration had been less than 28 million.

With this chronicle of the past as a basis, one may visualize
the future, provided the causes of increase remain the same.

10 All U. S. population figures from publications of the U. S. Bureau

Census. Quoted figures on other countries from Reports of the Registrar
General of England.

612 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

In 1891 Pritchett*: found that the population curve of the
United States could be represented by a parabola with the equa-
tion P=A+Bt+Ci?4+ Dt#+.---, where P represents the
population and t the time from an assumed epoch. How well
the projection of this curve has fitted for a short period is shown
by the actual and the computed figures for the last three census
years. In 1890 they were almost identical; in 1900 there was
an excess of nearly a million and a half, and in 1910 an excess
of over two million and a half in favor of the computation.

This is a rather good fit, all things considered; but, the fact
that the actual population is already lagging behind the pre-
dicted population shows that the causes operating in the earlier
history of the country have now been modified. The computa-
tions of 386 million for the year 2000 and 1,113 million for the
year 2100, therefore, are much too high. Nevertheless, these
are short periods, 80 and 180 years, respectively, and the tend-
ency toward an almost unbelievable increase is strikingly
shown. Let us keep in mind the possibility of taking care of
300 million people before all of our children have ceased their
struggle for existence, and of supporting some 700 million who
will compete with our grandchildren, while we turn our atten-
tion to the resources of the country as they exist to-day.

I know I shall be termed a preacher of calamities, but the
facts admit of but one conclusion: the law of diminishing re-
turns is even now in operation in this comparatively new coun-
try thought to be supplied with inexhaustible riches. This is
the result of my own somewhat extensive investigation. It is
the result of the accurate scholarly study of Thompson,?2—the
only economist, as far as I have been able to discover, who has
had the courage to face the subject in a thoroughly scientific
manner.

This age has been called the Age of Steel, an apt trade name
for our present type of civilization. Nevertheless this period,
like all ages past, and all times to come, is one of Agriculture.
Civilization, like an army, marches on its stomach. The present
and potential food supply is what interests us most. It is true
we could show that in spite of the abundant supply of mineral
wealth within our boundaries, all is not as well as might be.

11 Pritchett, H. S., “ A Formula for Predicting the Population of the
United States,” Amer. Stat. Assn. Quar. Pub., N. S. 14, Vol. 2: 278-286,
1891. This formula may not be the most precise one possible, but it
serves our present purpose.

12 Thompson, W. S., “ Population: A Study in Malthusianism.” Pri-
vately printed, Ann Arbor, 1915, pp. 216.

POPULATION 613

Our coal supply is being dissipated. Nearly a sixth’® of our
visible supply of anthracite has been mined within the limits of
one generation. But 15,000 tons per capita of bituminous coal
still remain untouched,—presumably enough for about 5 cen-
turies with the present per capita consumption. Our petroleum
reserve is speeding on its way at a still greater pace. Forty per
cent. of the visible supply is gone, and merely at the present rate
of consumption there is only enough left for some twenty-odd
years.

If, as our mining experts claim, the total supply of these,
our two main sources of energy, has been mapped properly, it
would seem that our Steel Age is on the road to senility. Toa
Babylonian returned to look over the prospects, it would prob-
ably appear as a transient phase unworthy of particular notice.
Perhaps matters are not so bad as they are painted, however.
Our utilization of water power is still very limited, and in the
more distant future we can look to the moon for our energy re-
quirements. We shall harness the tides. In the case of agri-
culture, I am not so sanguine.

The sower, the tiller, the reaper, go their ways with the same
changeless routine they have taken since the dawn of civiliza-
tion. No fairy godmother has appeared to aid our most essen-
tial art; and the story of the past gives us reason to be skeptical
of the future. In a way agriculture has become more efficient.
Chemistry, physics and biology in their applied branches have
given us a more definite knowledge of cause and effect, and
have provided for a greater return per unit of man power. But
he who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew
before must be prepared to pay the price in a lesser number of
blades to come after. Novel methods of culture, more efficient
machinery, new and better yielding varieties, are but means of
exploiting a limited reserve of soil fertility at a higher rate.

It is curious what false ideas in regard to agricultural pos-
sibilities are held by so many people. Not long ago I asked a
well-trained business man how much more land could be brought
into cultivation. His off-hand estimate was between 400 and
600 per cent. Now the whole land area of the Untied States is
only 1,903 million acres ;'* and 47 per cent. is now included in
farms, although only about 55 per cent. of the area of these
farms is improved. There remains 1,023 million acres, as a

13 Gilbert, C. G. and Pogue, J. E., “The Energy Resources of the
United States: a Field for Reconstruction,” U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull., 102:
1-165, 1919.

14 Cf. Thompson, W. &., l. c¢.

614 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

reserve supply. Of this, 468 million acres is arid land having
an annual precipitation of less than 15 inches, 200 million acres
must be preserved as forest lands, 75 million acres is swamp
with perhaps 40 million acres permanently unusable, and 41
million acres is already in cities, roads and railroads. There
is then a grand total of 749 million acres which must be with-
held from agricultural use permanently, without allowing for
urban and transportation increase. When this is subtracted,
the 274 million acres left does not loom so large. There is a
parcel of 40 million acres to be added, however, when all irriga-
tion projects possible under the present system of construction
are made available, making a total of 314 million acres. This
calculation shows that we have been extravagant in our opti-
mism. After the expenditure of vast sums, after the comple-
tion of tremendous tasks of engineering, we can add barely 35
per cent. to our present farm area.

We may catch at the straw in sight, and point out that only
55 per cent. of farm lands are improved, and that therefore
when all available land is improved, 170 per cent. of our present
area will be added. But this straw is loose, as a little consid-
eration shows. The unimproved land of to-day remains uncul-
tivated because the net returns for farm produce are not high
enough to warrant its cultivation. Bluntly, it is too poor to be
farmed until the price of food goes higher. Not only is this
true, but it should also be emphasized that many farms in the
older parts of our country, which once produced a profit, have
so deteriorated after a lone century of cultivation that they are
now either tilled at a loss or are abandoned.

It would be foolish to maintain that this country can not
support a much larger population. This is not the economic
question before us. The population will continue to increase for
years to come, though more and more slowly as discomfort and
want become more prevalent. My point is that the reserve
farm land is less productive than the improved land, that the
fertility of the soils now being tilled is decreasing, that the law
of diminishing returns is now in active operation. If these are
the facts, and the statements are amply supported, a continuous
increase in the food cost of living must go hand-in-hand with an
increase in population, although there may be a temporary
after-war downward trend if production is sustained and the
water forced out of our inflated currency. There will be more
people, but there will be a more strenuous struggle for existence
proportionate to the increase.

POPULATION 615

What is the reason for asserting that diminishing returns
now show in agriculture? There are various ways of throw-
ing light on the question, but data from two sources are
sufficient. Elaborate chemical, physical and plot culture in-
vestigations of various soils*® have been made by the Agricul-
tural Experiment Stations of Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Minnesota, and less extensive experiments have been carried
on in other states. One who takes the trouble to study the
published reports of these researches with care is fully repaid.
They prove beyond question that the farm soils of the United
States are by no means of unlimited fertility. The three essen-
tial elements of fertility, so-called, potassium, phosphorus and
nitrogen are present in such small quantities that the natural
production curve of various types of soil under particular sys-
tems of cropping can be estimated with a fair degree of ac-
curacy. And in most cases it is not centuries but decades
before continuous cropping shows decreasing returns, no matter
what the rotation.

Fortunately there is a comparatively large supply of potash
in most soils, and there is nitrogen to be obtained from the air
by the proper use of legumes or by electrical methods; but the
phosphorus content, generally speaking, is so low that it soon
becomes deficient if not replaced by artificial fertilizers, for
nearly 4,000 million pounds of phosphoric acid‘* are removed
annually by the grain crops alone,—nearly 20 pounds per acre.
Fortunately again, the element commonly limiting the fertility ©
of the soil may be supplied for a time from the large phosphate
beds"? of South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and the North-
west, which contain over half of the world’s supply, estimated
by Hopkins at 500 million tons. The matter of prime impor-
tance, however, is not the possibility of keeping up crop returns
for a considerable period when all available means are utilized.
It is, that natural cropping by the present system is depleting
all soils rapidly, and that millions of acres have already reached
the point where their present productiveness can only be kept
up by increasing amounts of artificial fertilizers. Much of our
natural agricultural wealth has been used, with no charge made
for it in the production costs. This is bad bookkeeping. No
charge for depreciation means bankruptcy in any business.

15 Hopkins, C. G., “ Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture,’ Boston,
Ginn, 1910, pp. 658.

16 Hopkins, C. G., l. ¢.

17Cf. Wyatt, Francis, “The Phosphates of America.” New York,
Sci. Pub. Co., 1892, 4th ed., pp. 187.

616 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Now that the fertilizer industry is increasing by leaps and
bounds, and farming with the use of artificial manures must
compete with new land farming, we can see more clearly what
the ledger sheet of the future must show. Absolute costs per
unit of man power, and per monetary unit, are mounting and
will continue to mount, because of the diminishing returns
which such a system entails. Furthermore, there will come a
time, a time not so very distant, when the current agricultural
system must be replaced. A more efficient system of saving
plant nutrients similar to that of China and certain European
countries must be installed. The elaborate scheme of waste
evolved by our sanitary engineers will have to be discarded.

Perhaps there are those, however, who deny the truth of the
current theories of soil fertility. Such denials have been made,
though without the support of quantitative data. Neverthe-
less, be the theories of soil fertility what they may, the experi-
ments on continuous cropping are facts. There is a decrease
in natural productiveness with all known methods of continu-
ous cropping, which is so rapid it may well alarm those who
look toward the future.

Let us examine data on this subject from a second source.
They are perhaps still more convincing. We see continually in
the various reports of government agencies, how much the
crops of the country for a definite year exceed those of a previ-
ous year or term of years in acreage, production, and value;
yet it is of no particular importance that our production of
crops or of food-animals is increasing. Paper wealth is cold
comfort. What we wish to know is whether with improved
machinery, new methods, and better varieties, our agriculture
is keeping pace with our population.

The per cent. of actual increase in population in the decade
1900 to 1910 was 21. The per cent. of increase in farm lands
during the same period was 4.8. But this does not necessarily
mean a great deal. To obtain more pertinent data I have
plotted the per capita production of meat animals, and of acre-
ages and production of the chief agricultural crops from 1870
to 1916.15 In order to obtain trustworthy figures, the enumera-
tions of animals for the census years only have been used, while
the production figures are the ten-year averages centering on
the census years. The last point is the average for the years
1915, 1916 and 1917. The graphs are very interesting and

18 The figures upon which these calculations are based, have been
taken from the Year books of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

POPULATION 617

illuminating, but this is not the place to consider them in de-
tail. The gross results are as follows. The peak of swine pro-
duction, .951, was reached in 1880. In 1910 it was .633, and in
1916, .667. After various fluctuations sheep production
reached .809 in 1900, but in 1916 was only .480. Milch cows
have remained rather more constant, but the curve shows a
downward trend since 1890. Other beef cattle, perhaps the
chief meat supply, have dropped markedly from a high point of
.666 in 1900 to .899 in 1916.

The vast grazing lands of the early days are gone and with
them low priced meat has passed. Does one need any other
reason for the rise in meat price-rates up to the year 1915?

Let us pass now to the per capita acreage of the great cereals
and potatoes. Corn remained the same from 1880 to 1890,
about 1.16, and has dropped slowly ever since. Wheat reached
a peak of .67 in 1880, and has steadily gone down to .52. Oats
was the same in 1916 as in 1890, but was lower ad interim.
Rye and potatoes have remained rather constant, though the
tendency is downward. The barley acreage has risen through
the demands of the liquor interests, but may be expected to
drop with the incoming of prohibition. Thus in the pre-war
period from 1870, the acreage of three great cereals, corn, wheat
and oats, is not a matter of congratulation, though production
through the increased use of fertilizers, better varieties and
more intense cultivation has been sustained.

The production history for corn in the decades from 1870
taking for the last point the average of the years 1915, 1916 and
1917, is 23.88, 29.43, 27.28, 27.90, 29.72, and 28.61 bushels. As
a whole, then, corn production has just about kept pace with
population. Wheat, the basis of national life, follows nearly
the same course. The figures 6.01, 8.24, 7.24, 7.60, 7.23 and
7.59. Oats have risen sharply. The figures are 6.63, 8.65,
10.41, 10.49, 11.17, 14.39.

These figures, considering them from all angles, are not a
cause for present pessimism. The increased production of
1918 and 1919, due to the stimulation of war prices, shows what
may be done by intensive methods even with our present sys-
tem of agriculture. Nevertheless, I ask you to note that as a
whole our food production per capita from about 1880 or 1890
to the war period has slighly declined. And this is in face of
a tremendous increase in the use of fertilizers, a widespread
propaganda for better methods of cultivation which was not
without its results, a constant influx of improved machinery,

G18); THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

and a continuous production of new and better yielding varie-
ties. There is but one conclusion. Diminishing returns in
agriculture are operating, and with a continuously and rapidly
increasing population they will become more and more in
evidence.

The arguments that have been used concerning diminish-
ing returns in agriculture are not negated by the fact that the
United States is still exporting large quantities of food. Since
the people of the United States do not at present eat all the food
produced, many will say that all is well. This does not follow.
The improvident individual may feast before he wants. The
prodigal heir may have a high time before the reckoning comes.
The business on the verge of bankruptcy may be running at the
peak of production. No one denies that the productivity of
the United States is at present beyond her needs. No one
denies that this production may be increased very considerably.
We do maintain that capital is being dissipated to show these
results, that returns are lessening to such an extent that the
food cost of living—barring the war disturbance—is bound to
rise, and that certain portions of the country actually do feel
the pressure.

It may be replied that decreasing returns in agriculture will
be offset by increasing returns in non-agricultural industry.
But, as Thompson has shown, it is not at all certain that manu-
facture presents increasing returns. It is but recently that
cost accounting has taken into consideration the case of the
workman, and it has not yet included the cost of maintaining
our great city industrial systems with their streets, bridges
and railways, their schools and hospitals, their banks and
libraries, their bonded indebtedness. With these increased
charges, what would be the balance sheet? The very fact of
the immense bond flotations of our political units show that we
are building upon the insecure assumption that the present
social system is sound and permanent. Unless increasing re-
turns for the country as a whole are in sight, our house is built
upon sands. Let us give these matters their proper place when
dealing with panaceas for social unrest. There can be no
value in prescriptions which leave untouched the fundamental
causes.

If pressure upon the means of subsistence is beginning to
be felt in this relatively new country, if misery and suffering
due to overcrowding is approaching—and who can face the
facts and continue to doubt—what a dire prospect exists for

POPULATION 619

the older countries of the world.*® And a sad feature of the
case is the fact that though there be a continuous emigration to
those portions of the world where unexploited natural wealth
still remains, but slight temporary relief will be afforded the
countries from which the emigrants go. Long before the
sparsely populated lands are filled, in the next half century in
such prosperous countries as our own, there must be a shift of
population from the cities to the farms. Coincident with this
industrial change there must be a simplification and probably
a lowering in what we are pleased to call the standard of
living. Technical industry can not take the burden of this
shift and still continue to furnish the whole of the people with
the comforts and luxuries they have come to deem necessary.
Contemplation of this fact is all that is necessary to show that
at the same time there will be a continued lowering of the
birth rate. The relation between these matters is not kept from
the people. Their theories on the subject may be hazy, but
direct pressure on existence is a great teacher. The birth rate
will continue to go down, and immigration will be greatly re-
stricted if not prohibited. Broadly speaking, this is a result
not to be deplored. Why then is so much time, ink and paper
used in decrying the declining birth rate? There is one real
reason, but it is not the one acknowledged by greater popula-
tion propagandists.

Economically the position of the French people in 1914, with
a very slowly increasing population, was extraordinarily good.
Thrift and industry had placed them in the fore-front of the
nations of the world, and there was relatively little pressure
upon the means of subsistence. They feared two things: first,
immigration of peoples with lower standards of living and
greater rates of natural increase, with resulting replacement of
the native French; second, attack from the east. Both fears
had a real basis a8 we know, and Leagues of Nations or of

19One of my colleagues has made the off-hand criticism that these
conclusions do not hold because no allowance has been made for the “ im-
mense possibilities in the way of utilizing sea food.” This criticism well
illustrates the ease of refuting a statistical argument by using a state-
ment which has no basis of fact. In the first place, the sea-food industry
of the world is of little import as a factor in feeding the world’s popula-
tion. Making all due allowance for possible understatement in the sta-
tistical returns, the value of the sea-food production of the world is less
than that of the production of poultry and eggs in the United States. In
the second place, diminishing returns in this industry are indicated by the

fact that the increase in capital employed during the last 20 years is very
much greater than the increase of the returns in product.

620 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY .,

Notions will not abate them. These apprehensions will always
be bogies of small nations. The odd thing is that so many
statesmen should encourage actual misery from over population
to alleviate a fear of possible misery through aggression.

In a country such as the United States the second fear is
groundless. With a proper preparation for war, an attack on
the United States should not be considered seriously. Mere
masses of people are not a menace as they once were, as the
Germans and Russians have demonstrated. And we are big
enough to take care of ourselves. The other fear is something
more definite, but few give it any attention. The unacknowl-
edged reason why the politician wants more people is to satisfy
his longing for greater power, the hidden desire of too many
capitalists is for cheap labor. The real objection to a declin-
ing birth rate is that it is always selective.

The selective birth rate in the United States is a subject on
which much has been written, but on which there is little accu-
rate information. The vital statistics of various states are
meagre and rather untrustworthy. In fact even at the last
report (1916),?° the registration area included only about one
third of the whole population. The crude birth rate for that
year was reported as 24.8 and the crude death rate 14.7, leav-
ing a natural increase of 10.1 per thousand; but the figures
probably do not represent the facts. Neither death rates nor
birth rates are reported in full, but the deficiency in registration
of births is undoubtedly greater than that of deaths. It would
not be a surprising matter if the real natural increase in the
United States as a whole is about 11.5.

The negro birth rate”: is put at 22.8 and the death rate at
24.4. Obviously these figures can not be accepted at their face
value. Not only are the vital statistics registered for negroes
known to be less accurate than those for whites; but no part
of the real “black belt,”’ where the negro is in his best environ-
ment, lies within the registration area. The figures are largely
from cities where there is an extensive negro population, places
in which numerous factors tend to lower the natural increase
from that attained in the “black belt” even though the eco-
nomic condition based on per capita wealth may seem higher.
The census figures for 1910 give some idea of the discrepancy.

°0 Birth statistics for the registration area of the United States
(1916). Second Annual Report. U.S. Bur. Census, 1918, pp. 96.

21 The Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915. U.S. Bur.
Census, 1918, pp. 844.

POPULATION 621

In the previous decade the negroes increased 993,769, 11.2 per
cent., and this may be taken as largely from natural increase,
since there was an increase of only 20,003 foreign born, and this
figure must be diminished by about 45 per cent. to allow for
emigration. During the same period the whites increased by
22.3 per cent. The proportion of negroes in the population as
a whole is decreasing, therefore, yet one can not help but feel
that if all the data were at hand, the natural increase of the
whites and the negroes would be found to be about the same.
If venereal diseases are ever stamped out among them, and a
reasonable degree of sanitation instituted, there is scarcely a
doubt but that they will tend to supplant the whites, for the
whites have kept their numerical superiority largely through
immigration and a better knowledge of hygiene. Thus, since
there were nearly 10 million negroes in continental United
States in 1910, the color problem is not the negligible matter
some of our northern sociologists would have us think.

Another fact which should be regarded seriously is that the
mixed bloods are increasing much more rapidly than the pure
blacks. There were nearly twice as many mixed bloods in 1910
as in 1890. In 1890 the mulattoes formed 15.2 per cent. of the
negro population, in 1910 they represented 20.9 per cent. With
the white blood comes greater intelligence, a lower death rate,
and in all probability a higher birth rate. In time segregation
and recombination of traits will result in a considerable num-
ber of people with negro blood who will pass for white.

It seems hardly necessary to point out the undesirability of
this situation. The negro is a happy-go-lucky child, naturally
expansive under simple conditions; oppressed by the restric-
tions of civilization, and unable to assume the white man’s
burdens. He accepts his limitations; indeed, he is rather glad
to have them. Only when there is white blood in his veins does
he cry out against the supposed injustice of his condition.
White germplasm in a negro complex spurns its hopeless situa-
tion, as Humphrey”? notes. . Yet the result of such a wide racial
intermixture is a mediocrity; which, owing to the numerous
gametic differences linked and coupled in an infinite complexity
of ways, will tend to remain a mediocrity till the end of time. ©

Concerning the potentialities of our white ‘ Melting Pot,”
one is likely to say too much or too little. As a mere matter of
statistics the country seems to be progressing fairly well.
There is a somewhat greater proportion of foreign than of

22 Humphrey, S. K., “ Mankind,” New York, Scribner, 1917, pp. 223.

622 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

native paupers, but that might be expected without great dis-
credit to the former. In 1910 there were .88 per thousand
native and 1.57 per thousand foreign-born prisoners and juve-
nile delinquents,?* but in all probability the sins of the good
American citizen did not find him out as often as might be
desired. At the same period there were 1.69 per thousand
natives and 4.05 per thousand foreigners in institutions for the
insane. No doubt the terrific whirl of American life drove
some of these newcomers mad, for the proportion is rather dif-
ferent in institutions for the feebleminded. The ratio there
per thousand is, native 2.65, native of native parentage 1.70,
native of foreign parentage 2.86, and foreign born, .93.%4

In acquiring some slight knowledge of letters the foreigners
coming to our shores have done well. In our native white
population born of native parents 3.7 per cent. were unable
to read and write in 1910, but although 12.7 per cent. of the
foreign born were in the same predicament, hardly one tenth
as many natives born of foreign or of mixed foreign and native
parents are to be so classified.*®

In spite of this somewhat unexpected showing from our
recent emigrants, however, there are reasons for serious mis-
givings, misgivings sufficient to warrant us advocating such
restrictions as to practically prohibit immigration for a period
of time that will at least permit us to consider the subject in all
its aspects. The examinations in the selective draft, the
radical labor troubles now in full fruit, the Bolshevist propa-
ganda, have shown how refractory are some of the ores in the
melting pot and how poorly our fires have been tended.

We have developed too rapidly, and are experiencing acute
growing pains in various portions of the anatomy of our body
politic. It is troublesome and should be attended to, but it is
not extremely serious. If we continue as in the past, we shall
suffer indeed. We must come to realize that if we make the
most of our grand heritage of democratic ideals left by the
fathers of colonial days, we must change our tactics.

The point, it seems to me, is this. Our political legacy, our
folkways, our Americanism, is North European, Northern
Aryan, Nordic. Whatever one wishes to call it, its origin is

23 Prisoners and juvenile delinquents, 1910. U.S. Bur. Census, Bull.
121, 1914, pp. 180.

24 Insane and feeble-minded in institutions. U. S. Bur. Census, 1914,

pp. 217.
25 Illiteracy in the United States. U.S. Bur. Census, Bull. 26, 1905,
pp. 54. Also 18th Census of U. S.

POPULATION 623

not in doubt. Our great men in all lines—statesmen, warriors,
writers, scientists, inventors—came so largely from this ethnic
mixture that if they are excluded but little is left. Some one
once said: Take from France her hundred great ones, and where
is France? We may paraphrase it thus: Take from Columbia
her Anglo-Saxon sons, she is bereaved indeed. And is she not
being dispossessed of her Anglo-Saxon stock? The birth rate
of our foreign population, coming so largely now from eastern
and southern Europe, is so much greater than that of the
Anglo-Saxons that within a century the latter will be but a
fraction of the whole.

It may be that the various ethnic mixtures recently acquired
will do their full share toward contributing to the progress of
civilization. There are many, however, who feel justified in
maintaining that if immigration had been restricted in the
middle of the nineteenth century, the country would be better
off physically, morally, mentally and economically. There
would be almost as many people within its limits, for the
superior types of the early days would not have been forced to
the wall by the avalanche of progeny begotten by the horde of
aliens. Given the time these matters may right themseives, but
it should not be forgotten that it is just such waves of immigra-
tion that overturn civilizations before there is time for read-
justment.

We are entering such a period. We must fight for time,
or accept an overturn of the present social order. No doubt it
is desirable to have social changes; it is suicidal to allow a
sudden economic chaos. Among biologists a defense of private
property, free enterprise, and a competition which does not
interfere with social order, is unnecessary. These things must
be, in order to bring out the fittest to survive. At the same
time there must be a regulation of the degree of social warfare
or a reversion to savagery will result. People are much alike.
The capitalist takes everything when he has the chance; the
workman hopes to take everything when he is able. Obviously
this natural law promotes progress; but in society even as in
nature, the most rapid progress comes when the selective ac-
tion is directed along certain channels and restricted to par-
ticular ends. The great effort, then, must be to direct it prop-
erly. Denying its existence is of little avail.

What is the answer? As I see it, it is this: First a severe
restriction of immigration; second, education; third, equitable
readjustment in many of our economic customs; last, but by no
means least, rational marriage selection, a somewhat increased

624 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

birth rate in families of high civic value, and among the rank
and file a restriction of births commensurate with the family
resources and the mother’s strength.

Economically we can not afford a high birth rate, but it
should be cut in the proper place. If this be done, it means a
fall in the death rate, in the disease rate, in the proportion of
misery and poverty. It means less child labor and illiteracy,
less prostitution and venereal diseases. It means a healthy
home life, larger production, greater economical freedom and’
therefore happiness. Anything else is merely reducing the fit
to the level of the unfit.

If we have the brains, the energy and the courage to put
through such a program there is some hope of escaping the
whirlpool into which we are drifting. The ingredients in the
melting pot are not all bad by any means, and—one may be
thankful for it—they do not form an amalgam. Each and
every ethnic contribution carries some hereditary factors
making for a good or even a great individual. The result of the
interbreeding of the next century will on the whole be mediocri-
ties, as it has been in the past, but recombination will give here
and there the individual with the characters that make for
genius and progress will be assured. If we do not open our
eyes on this problem of population, however, there will be
troubles in the future which will make those of the present
seem like the tempests of a teapot.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

bo

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

LETHARGIC ENCEPHALITIS

Dr. SIMON FLEXNER, director of
the laboratories of the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, has
presented to the National Academy
vhat is known concerning a disease
iat has recently attracted much at-
tention. In an abstract now pub-
lished in the Proceedings Dr. Flex-
ner states that in 1916 there arose
in Vienna and possibly in other
places in the Austrian Empire,
eases of a peculiar disease a prom-
inent symptom of which is lethargy.
Because of this feature, which
amounts at times to a condition of
profound and prolonged ‘“sleepi-
ness,” the disease receives the popu-
lar name of sleeping sickness. And
yet it was quickly recognized as

being wholly distinct from the well-|

known African sickness, the incit-
ing microorganism of which is a
trypanosome.
tclogic basis of the Austrian disease
is an inflammation, chiefly located
in the gray matter of the base of
the brain, or technically an enceph-
alitis. Because of the _ peculiar
symptoms and of the lesions, von
Economo of Vienna who first de-
scribed the disease gave it the name
of lethargic encephalitis.

About two years later, that is, in
1918, outbreaks of the same disease

were reported from England and)

France. A little later the disease
appeared in the United States, and
published reports now indicate that
it has a wide distribution over the
world. When the disease was first
recognized in Vienna, it was sup-
posed to be a form of food (saus-
age) poisoning; and the early cases
in England were attributed to bo-
tulism. This mistake is quite ex-

VOL, x.—42.

The structural or his- |

plicable: among’ the prominent
Symptoms are paralyses of the ocu-
lar and facial muscles, which arise
also in food poisoning. Because of
war conditions, both the countries
mentioned were using preserved
foods to an unusual degree; hence
the inference.

Because of the accompanying
paralysis and subsequently because
of certain peculiar characteristics of
the histological changes in the brain,
-a discussion arose whether the dis-
ease was not merely a peculiar form
of poliomyelitis or infantile paraly-
sis, which has prevailed epidemically
and fitfully in Europe and America
for a decade or longer.

The Rockefeller Institute has had
wide experience with poliomyelitis
during ten or twelve years; and
'since the winter of 1919 material
from numbers of cases of encepha-
litis have been referred to it. On
the basis of the studies made, it is.
quite safe to say that the diseases
| —lethargic or epidemic encephalitis
and epidemic poliomyelitis—are dis-
tinct. A striking difference relates
to the transmissibility of the one to
lower animals (monkeys) and not of
the other. Moreover, the actual his-
tological changes or lesions in the
two diseases show striking differ-
both of distribution in the

ences,
central nervous organs and in
minute structure. Lethargie en-

cephalitis is surely an infectious dis-
ease, but its inciting microbe is still °
undiscovered.

The question arises whether en-
cephalitis has been observed before,
or is to be considered as being a new
disease, in the sense that it had
never before been recognized and
described. A brief account exists of

626

an outbreak of a so-called ‘“ sleeping
sickness’ in the neighborhood of
Tubingen in Germany in the year
1712; and what appears to be a
similar malady more widely dis-
tributed in Austria, Italy, and
Switzerland in 1890. The first ap-
pearance of the present epidemic

and the location of the 1890 out- |

break coincide territorially. It is
not possible to state absolutely that
the disease originated this time in
Vienna; under war conditions
occurrence in outlying rural dis-
tricts might well have been over-
looked. But there is nevertheless

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the National Research Council.
They have already been presented at
Washington, where they aroused
marked interest.

Dr. King’s lecture traced the his-
tcry of radio telephony as a devel-
opment of scientific theories which,
at the time of their discovery,
seemed wholly removed from the

|every-day life of the world, but

its |

basis for the view proposed tenta-_

tively, namely, that an endemic
fecus of a peculiar and specific form
of encephalitis exists in Southeast-
ern Europe, from which the present
wide occurrence of the disease took
origin.

THE WIRELESS TELEPHONE

THE practical value of research
in the field of pure science was viv-
idly demonstrated in a lecture on
“ Scientific Discovery and the Wire-
less Telephone,” presented at the
American Museum of Natural His-
tory by Dr. Robert W. King, engineer
ot the American Telephone and Tele-
graph Company. Dr. King _ illus-
trated his lecture by demonstrations
and models both of discoveries lead-
ing up to the wireless telephone and
of the wireless telephone itself as
employed during the war for air-
plane communication. The exhibit
of models and apparatus installed
in connection with the lecture will
remain at the museum during May
and June. It was arranged by the
American Telephone and Telegraph
Company and the Western Electric
Company in cooperation with the
American Museum of Natural His-
tory and the New York Academy of
Sciences. The lecture and exhibit
are the first of a series included in

the peace-time program launched by |

which a little later were to revolu-
tionize that life. With the work of
Hertz in the last half of the nine-
teenth century the broad general
principles underlying the new sci-
ence of radio communication were
completely established. It has re-
mained for scientific men of our own
generation to devise the means for
controlling the production of the
electromagnetic waves in such a
manner as to make possible the
sending of intelligible messages over
Icng distances and for the receiving
of such messages. In this connec-
tion there are countless devices, all
of the utmost practical value, yet
almost without exception adapta-
tions of discoveries in the field of
pure science.

Comparing the working of the
wireless telegraph with that of the
wireless telephone, it will be seen
that to send dots and dashes out
through space all that is necessary
is to interrupt the formation of the
electric waves at the proper times,
while in transmitting actual speech
not only must the amplitude of the
electric waves be varied continuously
rather than abruptly, but the elec-
tric waves must be so modulated as
to transmit the particular sound
waves sent out by the voice. Such
an oscillatory electric current upon
its arrival at the receiving station,
is caused to pass through a tele-
phone receiver which accordingly
emits the words of the voice in the
same fashion as in the common tele-
phone. In this way a reproduction
of human speech can be carried

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

627

without wires over an ocean or a! Harry Pratt Judson, E. H. Lewinski-

continent. This remarkable fact
was actually demonstrated in Sep-
~tember, 1915, when the Engineering
Organization of the Bell Telephone
System, after years of silent prepa-
ration successfully sent a wireless
telephone communication from Wash-
ington, D. C., eastward to Paris and
westward to Honolulu, the latter
being a distance of 4,900 miles. On
the same occasion, speech was trans-
mitted over a standard telephone
circuit from New York to Washing-
ton, where it was automatically am-
plified and relayed to the radio ap-
paratus and _ thence projected
through space across the continent
to San Francisco.

It is in such a combination with |

the wireless telegraph that the
greatest usefulness of the wireless

telephone will probably be found to.

lie. Through the happy union of
the two new arts of communication,
spoken messages can be sent from
airplanes, ships, moving trains and
points on land or water where the

installation of wires or cables is im- |

practicable, to a convenient receiv-

ing station, whence they can be re- |

layed by wireless telegraphy to more
distant points. Doubtless, also, if
satisfactory methods are found for

sults of our

eliminating atmospheric disturbances |

and preserving secrecy, the wireless

telephone will to some extent be used |

for the handling of trans-oceanic
messages.

SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS IN
ENGLISH FOR THE NATIONS
OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE

Two movements have been initi-
ated, one in the United States and
one in England, for the supply of
books and journals to European
countries.

Corwin, A. Lawrence Lowell, John
Bassett Moore, Henry Fairfield Os-
born, George Foster Peabody, M. I.
Pupin, Jacob Gould Schurman, El-
lery Sedgwick, F. J. V. Skiff, Mun-
roe Smith, Antonio Stella, Henry
Suzzallo, Harlan F. Stone, William
H. Taft and F. A. Vanderlip.
They say:

Owing to the depreciated currency
of Europe and the financial difficul-
ties in which many European na-
tions find themselves, the publica-
tion of some European serials has
been temporarily discontinued, others
have decreased in size, while the
publication of still others is irregu-
lar. Furthermore, the purchase of
American books at the present rate
of exchange is practically impos-
sible.

Since it is essential for the intel-
lectual life of mankind, that stu-
dents of all countries should be in
close touch, and since it seems of
importance to America that the re-
intellectual activities
should be known, the undersigned
urge all publishers, publishing insti-
tutions and publishing societies to
exchange their publications on the
most liberal terms with libraries,
publishers, journals and publishing
institutions and _ societies of all
European countries, disregarding

‘for the near future the question

whether the amount of printed mat-
ter received in exchange corresponds
with the amount sent.

From England it is proposed to
establish in Central Europe under
British-American auspices libraries

‘of recent English books indispensable

'to university teachers.

The work is
being organized on a broad, non-

political, non-sectarian basis, so as
to enlist the widest possible coopera-

tion. These libraries will supply on
lean books needed by the faculties
of the different universities in Cen-
tral Europe. They will be under the

In this country an ap- charge of British and American rep-

peal is signed by Felix Adler, James resentatives, and committees of the
R. Angell, Franz Boas, Charles W. fcreign universities will be asked to
Eliot, J. Cardinal Gibbons, Arthur superintend the local administration.
T Hadley, David Starr Jordan, A committee of the six most im-

WILHELM PFEFFER,

The distinguished Physiological Botanist of the University of Leipzig who has died
at the age of seventy-five years. The photograph by C. Bellach was taken
when Professor Pfeffer was fifty-four years old.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

629

pertant learned societies in Germany| A. Miers, Oxford; Alex. Hill, Cam-
and Austria has been formed for the bridge; George Paish, London; Rick-
carrying out of the plan which, in| man G. Godlee, London, and Michael
addition to the loan library, will in- | Sadler, Leeds.

clude a system of exchange of publi-
eations and duplicates between any

Kingdom

libraries and institutions willing to.

cooperate. The preliminary state-
ment of the trustees says:

By thus taking the initiative in
extending the hand of fellowship to
colleagues in former enemy coun-
tries, British and American scholars
are seizing a timely opportunity of
helping to heal the wounds of the
war and of exemplifying in a prac-
tical and convincing way the true
“international mind.”

Viscount Bryce, Lord Robert Cecil
and other English public men have
expressed their approval of the plan
and have promised their cooperation
in carrying it out. The supporters
of the plan in Great Britain include:
Gilbert Murray, Oxford; A. E. J.
Rawlinson, Oxford; C. S. Sherring-
ton, Oxford; Walter Raleigh, Ox-
ford; A. E. Shipley, Cambridge; J.
J. Thomson, Cambridge; A. S. Ram-
say, Cambridge; Joseph Larmor,
Cambridge; Horace Darwin, Cam-
bridge; W. B. Hardy, M.A., Cam-
bridge; Alfred Hopkinson, Glasgow;
Col. E. H. Hills, Woolwich; Henry

University teachers in the United
and America are re-
quested to give their approval and
cooperation to the plan by sending

'their names to the secretary, Mr.

B. M. Headicar, librarian of the
London School of Economics (Uni-
versity of London), Clare Market,
London, W.C.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES

WE record with regret the death
of A. J. Chalmers, lately director of
the Wellcome Research Laboratories
aut Khartum; of J. S. MacArthur,
the English industrial chemist; of
Dr. E. Schwalbe, director of the
pathological institute at the Univer-
sity of Rostock, and of Pier Andrea
Saccardo, the distinguished mycol-
ogist and professor emeritus of the
Royal University of Padua.

MEMBERS of the National Academy
of Sciences have been elected as fol-
lows: Dr. James Rowland Angell,
University of Chicago and the Na-
tional Research Council, president-
elect of the Carnegie Corporation,
psychologist; Dr. Henry Prentiss

THE HEBREW

BUILDING OF

MAIN

UNIVERSITY BEING

CONSTRUCTED ON THE MOUNT

OF OLIVES, JERUSALEM.

630

Armsby, Pennsylvania State Col-
lege, physiological chemist; Dr. Wil-
der D. Bancroft, Cornell University
and the National Research Council, |
chemist; Dr. Hans F. Blichfeldt, |
Stanford University, mathematician; |
Dr. A. J. Carlson, University of
Chicago, physiologist; Dr. William
Duane, Harvard University, physi- |
cist; Dr. Lewis R. Jones, Univer-|
sity of Wisconsin, plant pathologist; |
Dr. Elmer Peter Kohler, Harvard
University, chemist; Dr. Charles K.
Leith, University of Wisconsin, ge-
ologist; Dr. Clarence Erwin Mce-
Clung, University of Pennsylvania |
and the National Research Council,
zoologist; Dr. Elmer V. McCollum,
the Johns Hopkins University, phys-
iological chemist; Dr. George Wash-
ington Pierce, Harvard University,
physicist; Harris J. Ryan, Stanford
University, electrical engineer; Dr.
Joel Stebbins, University of Illinois,
astronomer, and Dr. Bailey Willis,
Stanford University, geologist.

THE fourth annual meeting of the

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Pacific Coast Division of the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement
of Science will be held at the Uni-
versity of Washington, Seattle, be-
ginning on June 17. Addresses will
be made by President Henry Suz-
zallo, of the University of Washing-
ten, and Professor John C. Merriam,
dean of faculties of the University
of California, president of the Pa-
cific Coast Division. Morning’ ses-
sions will be devoted to meetings of
the affiliated societies, the Western
Society of Naturalists, Pacific Fish-
eries Society, American Physical So-
ciety, Astronomical Society of the
Pacific, Cordilleran Section of the
Geological Society of America, Pa-
cific Coast branch of the Paleonto-
logical Society, American Phyto-
pathological Society, San Francisco
section of the American Mathemat-
ical Society, Seismological Society,
American Chemical Society, Cooper
Ornithological Club, Ecological So-
ciety of America and the Society of
American Foresters.

INDEX

631

INDEX

NAMES OF CONTRIBUTORS ARE

Academie Unrest and College Con-'

trol, J. J. STEVENSON, 457

American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, The St.
Louis Meeting, 106, 211; Dues of,
and the Salaries of Scientific Men,
213; Grants for Research, 215

ANDERS, JAMES, Growing Plants as
Health Giving Agents, 63

BREASTED, JAMES HENRY, The Ori-
gins of Civilization, 87, 188, 249

CARMICHAEL, R. D., The Measure of

Excellence in Scientific Activity,
347
Civilization, The Origins of, JAMES

HENRY BREASTED, 87, 183, 249; |

and some of its Applications, A
Graphic Method of Measuring,
ROLAND M. HARpmER, 292

COCKERELL, T. D. A., Why does our
Public fail to support Research?,
3868; A Policy for the U. S. Na-
tional Museum, 553

CONKLIN, EDWIN GRANT, Mechanism
of Evolution in the Light of He-

redity and Development, 52, 170,

269, 388, 498; The Rate of Evolu-
tion, 589

CREW, HrENRy, The Problem of the
History of Science in the College
Curriculum, 475

DALY, REGINALD A., Planetesimal
Hypothesis in Relation to the
Earth, 482

DAVENPoRT, C. B.. and ALBERT G.
LovE, Defects found in Drafted
Men, 5, 125

Deflection of Light by Gravitation
and the Einstein Theory of Rela-
tivity, JoSsEPH J. THOMPSON, 79

Disadvantages of being Human, B.
W. KUNKEL, 38

Drafted Men, Defects found in, C.
B. DAVENPORT, ALBERT G. LOVE,
By, BS

Earthquakes, Recent California, AN-
DREW H. PALMER, 529

EAst, E. M., Population, 603

Economie and Social Problems, Da-
vip JAYNE HILL, 581

Education and Science, The Critical
Situation of, 317

PRINTED IN SMALL CAPITALS

Einstein on the Theory of Relatiy-
ity, 422

Evolution, The Mechanism of, in
the Light of Heredity and Devel-
opment, EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN,
52, 170, 269, 388, 498; The Rate
of, EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN, 589

FAIRCHILD, H. L., A Nature Drama,
405

Finis Coronat Opus, FRANK V. Mor-
LEY, 306

F'ood, Supply, Meat and Milk in, 26;
and Nutrition Problems of, 111

Fur Hairs, The Microscopic Identi-
fication of Commercial, LEoN Avu-
GUSTUS HAUSMAN, 70

GROVES, ERNEST R., Science and So-
cial Unrest, 157

HALL, T. Proctor, Tone Color, 142

HARPER, ROLAND. M., A Graphic
Method of Measuring Civilization
and some of its Applications, 292

Harris, D. FRASER, On Rhythm, 309

HAUSMAN, LEON AuGustuUS, The Mi-
croscopic Identification of Com-
mercial Fur Hairs, 70

Health, The Haven of, GrorGE ERIC
SIMPSON, 27

HILL, Davip JAYNE, Present Eco-
nomic and Social Problems, 581

History of Science in the College
Curriculum, HENRY CREW, 475

Human History read from the Geo-
logical Record, the Emergence of
Man, JOHN C. MErRRIAM, 321, 425

Industrial Chemistry, Work on, 524
Inertia, OLIvER J. LopGr, 378

KUNKEL, B. W., The Disadvantages
of Being Human, 38

LARSELL, OLor, Gustaf Retzius, 559

Luoyp, A. H., Philosophy in the Sery-
ice of Science, 466

LODGE, OLIVER J., Inertia, 378

Love, ALBERT G., and G. B. DAVEN-
PORT, Defects found in Drafted
Men, 5, 125

Meat and Milk in the Food Supply,
26
MERRIAM, JOHN C., Beginnings of

652

Human History read from the
Geological Record, the Emergence
of Man, 321, 425

Milton’s Ideas of Science as shown

in Paradise Lost, KATHERINE
Morsg, 150

MorLEY, FRANK V., Finis Coronat
Opus, 306

Morsk, KATHERINE, Milton’s Ideas

of Science as shown in Paradise

Lost, 150

Museum, U. S. National, A Policy |

for, T. D. A. COCKERELL, 553

Natural History, Popular Miscon-
ceptions concerning, ROGER Ge
SMITH, 163

Nature, The Need for a More Seri-

ous Effort to rescue a Few Frag- |
ments of Vanishing Nature, FRAN- |

cis B. SUMNER, 236; Drama, H. L.
FAIRCHILD, 405

PALMER, ANDREW H., Recent Cali-
fornia Earthquakes, 529

PAMMEL, L. H., State Parks
Iowa, 516

Philosophy, and the Sciences, the Re-
lation of, G. R. WELLS, 360; in
the Service of Science, A. ;
Luoyp, 466

Planetesimal Hypothesis in Relation
to the Earth, REGINALD A. DALY,
482

Plants Growing, as Health Giving
Agents, JAMES ANDERS, 63

Population, E. M. East, 603

Priestley, Joseph, The Northumber-
land House of, 522

Progress of Science, 106, 211, 317,
419, 522, 625

in

Research, Why does our Public fail
to support?, T. D. A. COCKERELL,
368

Retzius, Gustaf, OLOF LARSELL, 559

Rhythm, D. FRASER Harris, 309

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re-
search, 110

ROGERS, JAMES FREDERICK,
Physical Spencer, 570

The) WiLson, EDWIN BIDWELL,

|

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

SALANT, WILLIAM, Science and the
State, 372

Salaries of Experts in the Federal
Service, 318

Science and Social Unrest, ERNEST
R. Groves, 157; and the State,
WILLIAM SALANT, 372; History of,
in the College Curriculum, HENRY
CREW, 475

Scientific Items, 112, 216, 320, 424,
527, 630; Activity, the Measure of
Excellence in, R. D. CARMICHAEL,
343

SIMPSON, GEORGE ERIC, The Haven
of Health, 27

SMITH, ROGER C., Popular Miscon-
ceptions concerning Natural His-
tory, 163

Societies, National Scientific, Meet-
ing at St. Louis, 108

Solar Eclipse of May 29, 1919, and
the Einstein Effect, 419

Space, Time and Gravitation, EDWIN
BIDWELL WILSON, 217

Spencer, The Physical, JAMES FRED-
ERICK ROGERS, 570

STEVENSON, J. J., Academic Unrest
and College Control, 457

SUMNER, FRANCIS B., The Need for
a More Serious Effort to resc te a
Few Fragments of Vanishine Na-
ture, 236

Teaching Positions of the United
States, 120

Termitodoxa, or Biology and Society,
WILLIAM MorTON WHEELER, 113

THOMSON, JOSEPH J., The Deflection
of Light by Gravitation and the
Einstein Theory of Relativity, 73

Tone Color, T. Procror HALL, 142

Tuberculosis, Occupational Therapy
in, FRANK A. WAUGH, 438

WauGH, FRANK A., Occupational
Therapy in Tuberculosis, 438
WELLS, G. R., The Relation of Phi-
losophy and the Sciences, 360
WHEELER, WILLIAM Morton, Termi-
todoxa, or Biology and Society, 113
Space,
Time and Gravitation, 217

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