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ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF
THE SMITHSONIAN
INSTITUTION
SHOWING THE OPERATIONS, EXPENDITURES
AND CONDITION OF THE INSTITUTION
FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30
1909
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1910
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FROM THE
SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
ACCOMPANYING
The Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Institution for the
year ending June 30, 1909.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
Washington, June 2, 1910.
To the Congress of the United States:
In accordance with section 5593 of the Revised Statutes of the
United States, I have the honor, in behalf of the Board of Regents,
to submit to Congress the Annual Report of the operations, expendi-
tures, and condition of the Smithsonian Institution for the year
ending June 30, 1909.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Cuartes D, Watcortt,
Secretary.
IIL
10427
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FOR THE
YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1909.
SUBJECTS.
1. Annual report of the secretary, giving an account of the opera-
tions and condition of the Institution for the year ending June 30,
1909, with statistics of exchanges, etc.
2. Report of the executive committee, exhibiting the financial
affairs of the Institution, including a statement of the Smithsonian
fund, and receipts and expenditures for the year ending June 30,
1909.
3. Proceedings of the Board of Regents for the sessions of Decem-
ber 15, 1908, and February 10, 1909.
4, General appendix, comprising a selection of miscellaneous mem-
oirs of interest to collaborators and correspondents of the Institution,
teachers, and others engaged in the promotion of knowledge. These
memoirs relate chiefly to the calendar year 1909.
IV
CON PEN rs |
Letter from the Secretary submitting the Annual Report of the Regents to
MAROON Se amis oo oro tes sae a see eo dave ciate se cec tiles st os saccineeadse se
ienoralsubjects of the annual report... .- 2-2-2 <0 s- ls - 25. sco sence onesie eis
Olen sfOrerneTOPORb!— -- «esas oo cab eae dees cease ctec coos cosasascaees
MAIO MIACR eS oto ae nose css oss aso sa 2 ass So asc swale ace se sess ae
Oficials of the Institution and its branehes.....-5..........-..-..-.--------
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.
SRM CHSOMIAT ANSLOUtION jor Sci- emcee = Here ais see ee cia tan ane ae emcee
(jhe) aHS(RE LOUIS Loin VSS 0) Ai 9a a a OR a eer ee ere eee
IME PS OArOOMRCOCMtS as ene es meme ne ate a enn mars Ie nay ee ayo arate
SENEERMCOMSO CRALIOUS Soi) 4e ee see a ea se Bee ea eee ecnins Sess saeco
EMCI LEA ROMS Benet site cae Sis ei cle ero be aa Same aecalaiela rele Se el ale
Buia CO GBs Saye ayn te eras oo Sain hee cise oie sisieisersinisieeaciecs\ semen cic
Explorations and researches—
Smithsonian Airican Expedition 2. 22. 2585530225... 5205255225. 52-
Studies in Cambrian geology and paleontology ......-.-.-----------
Geological investigations in the Far East............-..------------
Boramcnitegleciausee imei e scans oo ccna ee ers ae oat em aes Seem etis
Inivestications under the Hodgkins Fund. /.--.-2.--.-.-.0-c-.------<2-
Researches on-atmospherie aires... 5.2526. 2c--5--cgasche- acces ccee
International standard pyrheliometers_..........--.---------------
Publications under Hodgkins Fund... .o2.22 <2... =<epeas-cno-- 5 2c
Smithsonian table at Naples Zoological Station..........---------------
PMUCHONSe ah cece ome eee aes e ose a = eee eng ae ani oases Selassie crs
Advisory committee on printing and publication......-----..-.----
Ri eweWranyr ss oe sae nas soca nc Sea See mene bate sane anew es ene s
iInneservatron Of American antiquitles.---..22-s0--2scle< conceals
Congresses, celebrations, and expositions............------------------
ikaneleyv-medal.ang memorial: tablets... 22. os2s25-+ 5. 2m sssasesce sos se
Nittseell neous sss me meee as oe ce eee oem eee een eras ciacmice caiancinae
NeationalgiViuseulnr ess ates cares sane saan = eee ee ceca sean sms ciate
WakrondleGallery OlATL N22) sane eae neine seem eae Soca sues sana see
RorcaulorAmerican Nhimology 2+ o2— ossens tea es Sewoces = asic ce once <> coceme
POE Ona KC NAN PCRs sane Se ce a na eh ec ccriacineitcsmece ones. on
Penna OGlOrlent PAN Ki: ota s cere cele o aceasta asec nie <n aca eee
Peeunopliy sical OMSERVALOny sano s ose seme eee anes Tae emeana oe ane cn ee sae
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature............-.---------------
“LIE LGC oc ge eee gabe I a Pe Soy SC eR ee
Appendix I. Report on the United States National Museum.......-.--.------
II. Report on the Bureau of American Ethnology -.....-----------.
III. Report on the International Exchanges.-........--.---.-------
IV. Report on the National Zoological Park........--.------------
V. Report on the Astrophysical Observatory .......---------------
Wa ere ponb onthe tiilotary Cores stan co en ae cee. ances = aeos So
VII. Report on the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature. - -
Whe deport Om the Eubhcabons. -o2- 4-255. <50s ssc nese —se- pana ae an
IX. Report on Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.-....-.--.---------
X. Report on Pan-American Scientific Congress......-------------
58
VI CONTENTS.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Condition:ef the fund July 1, 1909. c22. 52-2 - tooo: Soe oases sete sos .cces
Receipts and disbursements July 1, 1908, to June 30, 1909 -...-.....-.------
Summary of appropriations. by. Congress... ---.--55-0-s222css2-ccc 22 secu
PROCEEDINGS OF BOARD OF REGENTS.
Meetings of December 15, 1908, and February 10, 1909--........-------.-----
ACTS AND RESOLUTIONS OF CONGRESS.
Acts of Sixtieth Congress, second session, relative to the Smithsonian Institu-
fion and-its branches. -. ..5 22-2355. = sac6 se 5 seen esa aos see oeseseeeee
GENERAL APPENDIX.
The future of mathematics; by Henri Poincaré 2.22 s550------ 5-4-4202 s5 eee
What constitutes superiority in an airship, by Paul Renard ...-....-...-----
Researches in radiotelegraphy, by J. A. Fleming.-.-..----.-.--------.-----
Recent progress in physics, by Sir J. J. Thomson.............-.------------
Production of low temperatures, and refrigeration, by L. Marchis------ - Beas
The nitrogen question from the military standpoint, by Charles E. Munroe. - -
Simon Newcomb; by Ormond Stone <22.<25.ccs22s0scecnce aces sco =-se5seee
Solar-radiation researches by Jules César Janssen, by H. de la Baume Plu-
NE) | a Seg a ee ee ee hale Ol mene es IS ce ee ema ee aS
The return of Halley’s Comet, by W.W. Campbell...............=...--.---
Ehewpper air by HE: Gold and W:-A. Harwood ..:5. 23.5.2) 2-445. 522 2-2 aee
The formation, growth, and habit of crystals, by Paul Gaubert........------
The distribution of the elements in igneous rocks, by Henry 8. Washington. -
The mechanism of volcanic action, by H. J. Johnston-Lavis---...--....---.-
Conservation of natural resources, by James Douglas........-.-.-.----------
The antarctic land of Victoria, by Maurice Zimmermann...-........-.--...--
Some results of the British antarctic expedition, 1907-9, by E. H. Shackleton. -
The oceanography of the Sea of Greenland, by D. Damas.......-..----.-..--
From the Niger, by Lake Chad, to the Nile, by Lieut. Boyd Alexander... --.-
Mesopotamia: Past, present, and future, by Sir William Willcocks. -....---..-
Albert Gaudry and the evolution of the animal kingdom, by Ph. Glangeaud..
Charles; Darwin} by Aucust Weismann. 2> 22... Soc 222 lees eee
Present problems in plant ecology: Problems of local distribution in arid
ReSIONG wove Olney oN. Spalding. a5-0s6ece8 Asch baie sce catsaameae omer
The instinct of self-concealment and the choice of colors in the crustacea, by
ROHL OB NETIC WACZ amis sere eee Sse aie eee a aie eas areca ees 8 eee
The origin and development of parasitical habits in the Cuculide, by C. L.
ETE CLG 1S om aes Pao ne rn fege hor eee aig ea Yt I Se ey
Lo GITISTY = AAAs gee Sk hee crane tte evar cm toes neo ne Shan ae Pneme ey!
An inquiry into the history of the current English names of North American
landuomosmoy. Spencer Erotter's. 2222.0 occ. ceccs wu cde saces S228 eck 2. eee
Condition of wild life in Alaska, by Madison Grant............-..---.------
Recent discoveries bearing on the antiquity of man in Europe, by George
CRIME ECO TAY ss Pa A he ce AAA rep NR ad cng Ses nase alata ere ans oe
European population of the United States, by W. Z. Ripley.......-.-...-.--
The Republic of Panama and its people, by Eleanor Yorke Bell...--....-_--
Ceramic decoration: Its evolution and its applications, by Louis Franchet..-.
Some notes on Roman architecture, by F. T. Baggallay .............--.--.. :
The relation of science to human life, by Adam Sedgwick.._........-..-----
Intellectual work among the blind, by Pierre Villey............-.....---.--
The relation of mosquitoes, flies, ticks, fleas, and other arthropods to pathol-
Opspa OY Acum NEAROLO Ie me A eee Meo et or carats oes c eg ae eae, Stee
Natural resistance to infectious disease and its reinforcement, by Simon Flexner.
LIST OF PLATES.
SECRETARY’S REPORT:
TBA W ney fa LRA cae
RIDGeSH OO e Se
RADIOTELEGRAPHY (Fleming) :
Tate melee: See ae ee ee
SotarR RESEARCHES (Pluvinel) :
I SiG all fas = Ap et oes ee =
HALLEY’s CoMeET (Campbell) :
lates) ala oe a ee ee
VoLcANIC ACTION (Johnston-
Lavis) :
ACS) 1B) a! ee een 2
ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION (Shack-
leton) :
ate Sple she ee ee
ACSA ec AS
Platespo Gree. ee
WIEN OFS} = 0 0 AE ee See
OCEANOGRAPHY OF GREENLAND
SEA (Damas) :
I Bte Sis 2 Pa Se
Nicer TO NILE (Alexander) :
Plater ees eo Sn ae oe Se
MESOPOTAMIA (Willcocks) :
ote epee Ae See ae Bo
316
HABITS IN CUCULID (Barrett) :
Plater: se seek eso
Pl atere tae eee ee eee eee
PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE ( Haag-
ner):
Platesel Oe ee Sie rhe
WILD LIFE IN ALASKA (Grant) :
1 ea ret ga Meee ces ceo St cei eee
ANTIQUITY OF MAN (MacCurdy) :
] E211 ed Lae tae sp ae
latest 2-4 eee Se ee
Plater 22- 2 eee ees
IAtCSiO ii eer
Plates Sal 222
Plated eee ee
Plate: die eee eee
124 CT i ea, hs hee ear Se
Pate fas et = Bee ae
2) Ea eye if eae oe Vien ee
PINES AGHA i 2. Se ee
Plater) 2. = act 2 Lee es
PEOPLES OF PANAMA (Bell) :
Plate plip: Siete 2S eS ae
Plate yes See ee
IPIAteSiSH A tenes aes
Plates b=)? 22 eke ee
RPilatesalS a4 p ee
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE (Baggal-
lay):
| 2a E21 e981 lp RRO Peas a rea ee cul «Oe
Page.
488
a poe
4 } 7 ,
Hai
AS / ¥
Venu Wis :
cn yt
t
' i
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
JUNE 30, 1909.
Presiding officer ex officio —WILLIAM H. Tart, President of the United States.
Chancellor.—MELVILLE W. FULLER, Chief Justice of the United States.
Members of the Institution:
WILLIAM H. Tart, President of the United States.
JAMES S. SHERMAN, Vice-President of the United States.
MELVILLE W. FULLER, Chief Justice of the United States.
PHILANDER C. KNnox, Secretary of State.
FRANKLIN MAcVeEaGuH, Secretary of the Treasury.
JAcoB M. DickINsSoN, Secretary of War.
GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM, Attorney-General.
FRANK H. HircHcock, Postmaster-General.
GEORGE VON L. Meyer, Secretary of the Navy.
RicHarD A. BALLINGER, Secretary of the Interior.
JAMES WILSON, Secretary of Agriculture.
CHARLES NAGEL, Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
Regents of the Institution:
MELVILLE W. Fuuuer, Chief Justice of the United States, Chancellor.
JAMES S. SHERMAN, Vice-President of the United States.
SHELBY M. CuLLom, Member of the Senate.
Henry Casot Loper, Member of the Senate.
A. O. Bacon, Member of the Senate.
JOHN DaLzELL, Member of the House of Representatives.
JAMES R. MANN, Member of the House of Representatives.
Witt1aAM M. Howarp, Member of the House of Representatives.
JAMES B. ANGELL, citizen of Michigan.
ANDREW D. WHITE, citizen of New York.
JOHN B. HENDERSON, citizen of Washington, D. C.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, citizen of Washington, D. C.
GEORGE GRAY, citizen of Delaware.
CHARLES FE, CHOATE, Jr., citizen of Massachusetts.
Executive Committee —J. B. HENDERSON, ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, JOHN
DALZELL.
Secretary of the Institution.—CHARLES D. WALCOTT.
Assistant Secretary.—RIcHARD RATHBUN.
Chief Clerk.—Harry W. Dorsey.
Accountant and Disbursing Agent.—W. I. ADAMS.
Editor.—A. HowarpD CLARK.
-
x THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM.
Assistant Secretary in charge.—RicHARD RATHBUN.
Administrative Assistant.—W. DE C. RAVENEL.
Head Curators.—F. W. TRur, G. P. MERRILL, WALTER HovueH (acting).
Curators.—R. S. BASSLER, A. HowarpD CLARK, F. W. CLARKE, F. V. CoviILte,
W. H. Datt, B. W. EverMANN, J. M. Fuint, U. S. N. (retired), W. H.
HouMEs, L. O. Howarp, RicHARD RATHBUN, ROBERT RIDGWAY, LEONHARD
STEJNEGER, CHARLES D. WALCOTT.
Associate Curators.—J. N. Rosr, DAvID WHITE.
Curator, National Gallery of Art.—W. H. HoitmMEs.
Chief of Correspondence and Documents.—RANDOLPH I. GEARE.
Superintendent of Construction and Labor.—J. S. GoLDSMITH.
Editor..—Marcus BENJAMIN.
Photographer.—T. W. SMILLIE.
Registrar.—_S. C. Brown.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY.
‘ Chief.—W. H. Hormes.
Ethnologists.—J. WALTER FEWKES, J. N. B. Hewitt, F. W. Hover, JAMES
Mooney, MATILDA CoxE STEVENSON, JOHN R. SWANTON, Cyrus THOMAS.
Philologist.—FRANZ BOAS.
Illustrator. —DrE LANCEY W. GILL.
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES.
Chief Clerk.—F. V. Berry.
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK.
Superintendent.—F RANK BAKER.
Assistant Superintendent.—A. B. BAKER.
ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY.
Director.—C. G. ABBOT.
Aid.—F. HE. Fow te, Jr.
BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC
LITERATURE.
Chief Assistant.—L. C. GUNNELL.
REPORT
OF THE
SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1909.
To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution:
GENTLEMEN: I have the honor to submit a report showing the oper-
ations of the Institution during the year ending June 30, 1909,
including the work placed under its direction by Congress in the
United States National Museum, the Bureau of American Ethnology,
the International Exchanges, the National Zoological Park, the
Astrophysical Observatory, and the regional bureau of the Inter-
national Catalogue of Scientific Literature.
In the body of this report there is given a general account of the
affairs of the Institution, while the appendix presents more detailed
statements by those in direct charge of the different branches of the
work. Independently of this the operations of the National Museum
and of the Bureau of American Ethnology are fully treated in
separate volumes.
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
THE ESTABLISHMENT.
By act of Congress approved August 10, 1846, the Smithsonian
Institution was created an establishment. Its statutory members are
“the President, the Vice-President, the Chief Justice, and the heads
of the executive departments.”
THE BOARD OF REGENTS.
The Board of Regents consists of the Vice-President and the Chief
Justice of the United States as ex officio members, three members of
the Senate, three Members of the House of Representatives, and six
citizens, “two of whom shall be resident in the city of Washington,
and the other four shall be inhabitants of some State, but no two
of them of the same State.”
1
2 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
There has been no change in the personnel of the Board since my
last report.
Meetings of the Regents were held on December 15, 1908, and on
February 10, 1909, the proceedings of which will be printed as cus-
tomary in the annual report of the Board to Congress.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
I deem it proper here to point out the fact that the activities of the
Institution are greatly restricted by the very limited annual income
at its disposal.
The influence of the Institution in the development of science in
this country is too well known to require comment. Its advice is
daily sought on scientific matters, not only by other establishments of
learning but by individuals all over the land, and that its usefulness
has been by no means restricted to this country is evidenced by the
- fact that the name of the Smithsonian Institution is equally as well
known and respected abroad as at home.
But the means derived from the interest on the Smithson fund
and other private funds for keeping up the work of the Institution
proper have not kept pace with the growth of the country and the
constantly increasing demands upon them. The original amount of
the Smithson fund of about half a million dollars meant many
times over in 1846 what it does to-day, even with the half million
which has been gradually added since then. Its income has been
economically administered, but it is too limited to carry on any ex-
tensive investigations. There are many researches and explorations
which the Institution is peculiarly well fitted to organize and super-
vise, on which the income from an endowment of twenty millions
could be wisely and effectively expended.
The Institution has in the past few years received a number of
noteworthy gifts in the Harriet Lane Johnston, Freer, and Evans
art collections, and an endowment for the fine arts would give a great
return for centuries to come by making possible the fostering and
stimulating of the fine arts in all its branches.
Under the general plan of organization adopted by thé Board
of Regents in 1847, the work of the Institution in the “ increase of
knowledge” is not limited to investigations in the field of science
and art, but historical and ethnological researches, and statistical
inquiries with reference to physical, moral, and political subjects, are
enumerated as objects for which appropriations should be made. ©
In the humanities there is need of a fearless, thorough, scientific
study of the elements entering into the great race problems of the
Americas. Until the fundamental tendencies of the differing races
now within these areas are intelligently understood, not only by the
few, but by the many, a practical understanding of threatening social
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 3
conditions is impossible. The uplift of the physical, mental, and
moral nature of the peoples of the Americas will come only through
the increase and diffusion of such knowledge as will stimulate sound
reasoning on existing conditions and racial limitations. Ethnology,
anthropology, psychology, preventive medicine, education, are some
of the tools that must be used in the shaping of the national, com-
munity, and individual life of the future. In this great work the
Smithsonian Institution will take such active part as opportunity
and means permit.
An article on “The Smithsonian Institution,” published in the
North American Review, summarizes the history and work of the
Institution, and concludes as follows:
Such has been the result of a single benefaction of half a million of dollars,
and perhaps no such result has ever been accomplished by so limited an en-
dowment. Were the great sums given to swell the almost infinite endowments
of some of our universities diverted to this unostentatious establishment, its
power for good would be immeasurably increased, but, as it is, the bounty of a
stranger and an alien has given the American people an agency for good whose
influence is incalculable. It presents an opportunity to those who wish to
bestow money for some beneficent purpose such as is given by no other on
earth, and its scant means and petty endowment are a reproach to our rich
and generous nation.?
ADMINISTRATION.
The affairs of the Institution proper have progressed in a satis-
factory manner during the year. All communications have received
prompt administrative consideration, and everything possible has
been done to carry out the fundamental purposes of the Institution,
“the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
In the administrative work of the various branches of the govern-
ment service placed under the direction of the Institution, it has
been the custom to fully avail myself of the assistance of the officers
in charge of those branches, and I am glad to say that the business
of the year has been carried on vigorously. The extended and com-
plicated operations of the National Museum, including the National
Gallery of Art and the erection of the new building, have been effect-
ively managed by the assistant secretary in charge, Mr. Richard
Rathbun. The International Exchanges, the brary, and the Inter-
national Catalogue of Scientific Literature continued under the effi-
cient charge of Dr. Cyrus Adler, until his resignation on October 1,
1908, when he removed to Philadelphia to assume the presidency of
the “Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning.” Doctor
Adler entered the service of the Institution in 1888 as an assistant
@The Smithsonian Institution, by Charles Minor Blackford, jr., M. D., North
American Review, January, 1909. Reprinted as Senate Document No. 717,
Sixtieth Congress, second session.
4 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
curator in the National Museum. In 1892 he was appointed libra-
rian of the Institution, and in 1905 became assistant secretary. His
service of twenty years was marked by a remarkable grasp of the
affairs of the Institution, in the administration of which his advice
has been of great assistance to the secretaries.
The affairs of the Bureau of American Ethnology have continued
in charge of Mr. W. H. Holmes, as chief, who has also acted as
curator of the National Gallery of Art. Mr. C. G. Abbot, director of
the Astrophysical Observatory, has carried forward the work of this
branch both in Washington and on Mount Wilson, California, where
duplicate observations have been carried on at a branch station, and
the care of the National Zoological Park has continued under the
management of Dr. Frank Baker, its superintendent. Although
greatly hampered for adequate funds the Park has proved a great
attraction to the people of Washington, over 125,000 persons having
visited it in a single month.
The advisory committee on printing and publication, appointed in
pursuance of executive order of January 20, 1906, is composed of rep-
resentatives from the Institution and its branches, and has rendered
valuable assistance in examining manuscripts proposed for publica-
tion, and in the consideration of various matters connected with
printing and publication.
The current business of the Institution has been conducted with
promptness, and it is gratifying to note that no arrearages in the
work of the government branches under its direction were reported
in the quarterly statements to the President and in the annual state-
ment which, in accordance with law, accompanied the estimates
transmitted to Congress.
FINANCES.
The permanent fund of the Institution and the sources from which
it was derived are as follows:
Deposited in the Treasury of the United States.
Resnesteor Smithson, 1846522229. * soe ee Pees 2S ela $515, 169. 00
Residuary lezacy, of Smithson, 18672 =-- = +S. he 26, 210. 63
Deposit tromesavines OL incomes 1 SG(lo === ae eee 108, 620. 37
JexeoRNSE Gre dew) Ish horhnon, ake viaje ee $1, 000. 00
Accumulated interest on Hamilton fund, 1895_________ 1, 000. 00
eo 2, 000. 00
Bequest of wsimeon. Habel, 18802. 22.2222 Het ee ee 500. 00
Deposit from proceeds of sale of bonds, 1881_______________-___- 51, 500. 00
Gifttzot Lhomas Gs Hodgkins) 1S9lss2s2 ee 200, 000. 00
Part of residuary legacy of Thomas G. Hodgkins, 1894____________ 8, 000. 00
Deposit trommsavines Olsincomes (O03 Se= ea ee 25, 000. 00
Residuary legacy of Thomas G. Hodgkins__-___.._________------- 7, 918. 69
Total amount of fund in the United States Treasury___---~~ 944, 918. 69
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 5
Held at the Smithsonian Institution.
Registered and guaranteed bonds of the West Shore Railroad Com-
pany (par value), part of legacy of Thomas G. Hodgkins_______ $42, 000. 00
Rotalepermanent, cungs =o - Seas = ee Skee eee ee 986, 918. 69
In addition to the above there are four pieces of real estate bequeathed to
the Institution by the late R. S. Avery, some of which yield a nominal rental
and all are free from taxation.
That part of the fund deposited in the Treasury of the United
States bears interest at 6 per cent per annum, under the provisions
of the act organizing the Institution and an act of Congress approved
March 12, 1894. The rate of interest on the West Shore Railroad
bonds is 4 per cent per annum.
The income of the Institution during the year, amounting to
$84,769.82, was derived as follows: Interest on the permanent fund,
$58,375.12; contributions from various sources for specific purposes,
$20,250, and from other miscellaneous sources, $6,144.70; all of which
was deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of
the current account of the Institution.
With the balance of $18,766.41 on July 1, 1908, the total resources
for the fiscal year amounted to $103,536.23. The disbursements,
which are given in detail in the annual report of the executive com-
mittee, amounted to $71,359.53, leaving a balance of $32,176.70 on
deposit June 30, 1909, in the United States Treasury.
The Institution was charged by Congress with the disbursement
of the following appropriations for the year ending June 30, 1909:
MATA TN AT OLY eA Mea S CL EVI CS ee ea eee oe ee Lp ee wee LP Te ee $32, 000
PATHVCIL Campy CTO LO Siyp eke eee eo eR TE ae ee ee 42, 000
AS LLODMYSI Cals ObServatOry=—os= = sa ee oe ee ee ee 13, 000
National Museum:
MUCH iURe Ran Gah tunes === = slat se ea a oe ee ee ee 50, 000
Leave iin Sepa Get on Ginn oe see aE a ae ers as ee 22, 000
ErescnyatlonnoLicollectionS2 === == =e seksi eee See 190, 000
OOS Be eae 6 Rice eS SE SN eR ye Pe A A a ae 2, 000
POS EAS ep tetees aes eae eer eee Pipe le Se Se 500
RET GO lee WiO TEST) © [0S eer a ae ce ee ee eal et ee ee ee ee 4, 580
USOT Lapses SEE oz ef A a re a a 15, 000
Nationals ZA00lOg ical Parks: Ss eee) eee ee ee 95, 000
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature______________________ 5, 000
Rranster or Greenough statue of Washing tone 22222222.) ee 5, 000
Temporary occupancy of government buildings for tuberculosis con-
SECS Se wee ee ee Se a ee te ee a ee 40, 000
6 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Estimates.—The estimates forwarded to Congress in behalf of the
government branches of the Institution and the appropriations based
thereon for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, are as follows:
Estimates. MppTeGE
International MXCHAN Sess. =. cascade c cea clewelol a =e sees one seine sin sm ~nee mins $32, 000 $32, 000
/Nsti@ru(Omay, 10)A 0800) fora ogee a pacosas BS OOOO bea oe C060 DOBOO SUB ESECdEES Joecouseneessc. 52, 000 43, 000
Reimbursement) of Belli Coss enone ae eta wala ale lwee een inlalele == bys Foooaadecc
Astrophysical Observatory... ..-.-.-.------- 2-0-0 - 2 ee eee ee eee eee eee eee eee eens 17,000 13, 000
National Museum:
Tyibian tiyebrs\Ehov bitb-yvbNs sjonooeeon aco cn caoDNc OOOH Do cenc Q00dO. codon sODEoseDCnS 200, 000 200, 000
TSIGHY Huayee hale Mhv=d ek nbey ee Soo cgsoseconoSheos Ss oobobuSHSSHSnooousnopSonaocenass 62, 000 60, 000
Preservation of collections. ........--.2.-------- 202-20 ee ee essen ee en no --- == 400, 000 250, 000
BOG sao seeccosmaconcooEsece Spots so cod ae sece Se SO RS Se Fs 22 Sb OOS SeSciae 5, 000 2,000
IHOSGr 2 Sapp cceo GORD OUOE BOgU OE a doen Sa se EbU So CNOOd soe nos OsEoCooncODDScacasa7 500 500
Rent of workshops. ~~. <- 22-2 = wee w ene ccc vinnie ne enna eine aman ninn === GA O80) senate
Bail ine POPAirs soe ape ocala ate te a mite mle lm elem Welw in niall abel alelclatnlelele -bimteleiel=fals === =i=16 = = 15, 000 15, 000
Moving collections << << <icc < ameisteoe nein ~ om wtiwielait ee » sae eae se om on nee nin 10, 000 4,000
Inorneyavenl En Mera Ot ee Se sc ocoosscoos seecouobds sees 7 sod Sboe Se ooeoseoSssstce GOAT esonscncec
INI ALOE | Yayo) Oy LEP eo So pec essseccess son soon secoossessoseesessssaso5scossc 110, 000 95, 000
ReadjuUshmentof POUNGAIIES: <--)- 22 22m4- - ers bebe om aint ae eee elena 40000! |s53 detae
J spine [Out ebhers = sone sonsoeoceosode seaondese co JocesocHeansesdasaoonesgs2sbscC 80,000 |....00 caee
TRG GaMe chal Ale oe (oo sag pea gal one CouCO Daa nu CoOnDEaSCane sogudeaeae= 125000 Iie cterncaete
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature-..........-..-.--.--.----------- 7, 500 6, 000
ARS Ns al ee ee a ae eet eee See emp BEpaeecraremeaacaack 1,108,105 | 720,500
«The request was made to the Appropriations Committee that this item be eliminated, as
rented buildings would be vacated by June 30, 1909.
The Institution is required each year to submit to Congress,
through the Secretary of the Treasury, estimates for the support of
the several branches placed by the Congress under its administrative
charge. The estimates for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, were
submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury on May 1, 1909, instead
of in the fall of the year as heretofore, it being the desire of the
President, expressed through the Treasury Department, that more
time be given to their examination.
In preparing these estimates I found it imperative that consider-
able increases should be made in several directions, as follows:
For the Bureau of American Ethnology I have asked an increase
of $10,000, to be allotted for the exploration and preservation of
antiquities, researches among the tribes of the Middle West, and for
researches in Hawaii and Samoa.
To properly carry on the work of the Astrophysical Observatory
likewise requires a greater appropriation. The furnishing and main-
tenance of the new building for the National Museum necessitates, in
general, a large increase in annual appropriations. For the National
Zoological Park I have asked a considerable increase, in order that
it may be properly maintained and become in greater measure what its
name would lead the public to expect and demand in a national park.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 7
Hstimates for the year ending June 30, 1911.
fnterna tionally six Changes ss koe esse ee ee ee ee ee $32, 000
AMeTI CAN EANOLO Sys. soos ae et eee SER ee ee Se 52, 000
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature____________________ 7, 500
ASELOD My SiCala ODSCL YAO y= = es ee eens oe ee ee 18, 000
National Museum:
UE CHneS ands fi ctuneSe o-oo ee nee Ee oe $125, 000
eating and lie htine= 22 a aaa ee ee ee ee 60, 000
Preservation of collections==—— 22-2 22522256 —2 2a 2 ae 400, 000
BOOKS ies Soe oe oe ee eee ea ne ee eee 5, 000
ES ed Chama gee AN Gee ee eS ee ee ee 15, 000
IR OStAS Cpe ee eek ee ae 2s oe 500
————___ 605, 500
National Zoological Park:
NiaviMmben am Cel CCl sae ss ae ey ee ee $110, 000
AVIA GY SDULLOIN S22 eS os Se eke ee 80, 000
RRO ACW ay Shan de WalicS esa e es ee ee ee 14, 000
ReVaIstment OL VOUNGATICSS =] = oes eee eee 40, 000
————__ 244, 000
Printing and binding for the Institution and its branches___________ 72, 700
HN) Getler res ee eae ee ees ec A ee ee 1, 031, 700
EXPLORATIONS AND RESEARCHES.
The resources of the Smithsonian Institution are at present too
limited to permit of large grants for extensive explorations or inves-
tigations, but as far as the income allows aid is given in various lines
of research work, and it is sometimes found possible to engage in ex-
peditions likely to accomplish important results. If funds could be
obtained to be administered under the Institution, the scientific work
of the Government might often be supplemented by original re-
searches of a character that would hardly be undertaken by the Gov-
ernment, and which would be of great service to humanity and to
science.
Through the National Museum, the Bureau of American Ethnology,
and the Astrophysical Observatory the Institution has been enabled
to carry on various important biological, ethnological, and astrophys-
ical researches, which are mentioned elsewhere in this report.
SMITHSONIAN AFRICAN EXPEDITION.
Through the generosity of friends of the Smithsonian Institution,
there was provided during the past year a special fund to pay for the
outfitting and to meet the expenses of the naturalists on a hunting
and collecting expedition to Africa under the direction of Col. Theo-
dore Roosevelt. No part of the fund was derived from any govern-
ment appropriation or from the income of the Institution. The spe-
cial interest of the Institution in the expedition is the collection of
biological material for the United States National Museum,
45745°—sm 1909——2
8 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
In June, 1908, the following letter was received from President
Roosevelt:
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON.
OystTER Bay, N. Y., June 20, 1908.
My Dear Doctor Watcotr: About the 1st of April next I intend to start for
Africa. My plans are of course indefinite, but at present I hope they will be
something on the following order:
By May 1 I shall land at Mombasa and spend the next few months hunting
and traveling in British and German Hast Africa; probably going thence to or
toward Uganda, with the expectation of striking the Nile about the beginning
of the new year, and then working down it, with side trips after animals and
birds, so as to come out at tide water, say, about March 1. This would give
me ten months in Africa. As you know, I am not in the least a game butcher.
I like to do a certain amount of hunting, but my real and main interest is the
interest of a faunal naturalist. Now, it seems to me that this opens the best
chance for the National Museum to get a fine collection not only of the big
game beasts, but of the smaller mammals and birds of Africa; and looking at it
dispassionately, I believe that the chance ought not to be neglected. I will
make arrangements to pay for the expenses of myself and my son. But what I
would like to do would be to get one or two professional field taxidermists, field
naturalists, to go with me, who should prepare and send back the specimens we
collect. The collection which would thus go to the National Museum would be
of unique value. It would, I hope, include specimens of big game, together with
the rare smaller animals and birds. I have not the means that would enable
me to pay for the field naturalists or taxidermists and their kit, and the cur-
ing and transport of the specimens for the National Museum. Of course the
actual hunting of the big game I would want to do myself, or have my son do;
but the specimens will all go to the National Museum, save a very few personal
trophies of little scientific value which for some reason I might like to keep.
Now, can you, in view of getting these specimens for the National Museum,
arrange for the services of the field taxidermists, and for the care and trans-
port of the specimens? As ex-President, I should feel that the National Mu-
seum is the museum to which my collection should go.
With high regard, sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Hon. CHartes D. WALcorT,
Secretary Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D. C.
To which I replied from camp in Montana, where I was carrying
on geological investigations for the Institution :
Betton, Monvt., June 27, 1908.
To the PRESIDENT,
Oyster Bay, N. Y.
DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT: Your letter of June 20, with a copy of a letter Dr. Cyrus
Adler wrote you in reply, just received.
I am immensely pleased at the thought of your collections coming to the
National Museum, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to provide two
taxidermists and their kit, and to arrange for the curing and transport of the
specimens.
I leave in the morning for the Kintla Lake region and the Continental Divide,
as most of the geological work has to be done above timber line.
Thanking you most heartily and sincerely for the opportunity of securing the
African material, I remain,
Sincerely yours, CHARLES D, WALCOTT.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 9
At the next meeting of the Board of Regents on December 15, 1908,
the following resolutions were adopted, formally recording the ac-
ceptance of the President’s generous offer and expressing the Board’s
appreciation of the contributions of the friends of the Institution
which made this expedition possible:
Resolved, That the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution express
to Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, its appreciation of his
very generous offer contained in his letter of the 20th of June, 1908, to the Sec-
retary of the Institution, with respect to his expedition to Africa; and that it
accept the same.
Resolved, That the thanks of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian In-
stitution be conveyed by the Secretary of the Institution to the donors who have
so generously contributed funds to meet the expenses of the naturalists who will
accompany Mr. Theodore Roosevelt upon his expedition to Africa, the results
of which will be presented by the President to the Smithsonian Institution for
the National Museum,
The party sailed on March 23, 1909, from New York on the steamer
Hamburg for Naples, whence steamer was taken to Mombasa, British
East Africa. Those accompanying Mr. Roosevelt were his son Ker-
mit and three naturalists—Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, surgeon,
U. S. Army; Mr. Edmund Heller; and Mr. J. Alden Loring. The
expedition arrived in Africa on April 21.
A letter from Mr. Heller, dated at Nairobi May 31, announced the
shipment of 20 barrels of large mammal skins in brine, comprising
Colonel Roosevelt’s first month’s collection. The shipment consists
of 82 specimens, as follows: Lion, 7; leopard, 1; cheetah, 1; spotted
hyena, 1; Cape hartebeest, 14; white-bearded wildebeest, 5; Neumann
steinbuck, 5; Kirk dik-dik, 1; common waterbuck, 3; Chanler reed-
buck, 4; Grant gazelle, 9; Thomson gazelle, 5, impalla, 2; eland, 1;
Cape buffalo, 4; giraffe, 3; hippopotamus, 1; wart hog, 6; Burchell
zebra, 7; black rhinoceros, 2. While no new species, so far as is
known, is included in this first shipment, the collection will supple-
ment materially the specimens already in the National Museum.
Together with this shipment are expected a large number of speci-
mens of small mammals, and also of birds gathered by Lieut. Col.
Mearns and J. Alden Loring, of the expedition party.
Through the Smithsonian African expedition the National
Zoological Park has been presented by Mr. W. W. McMillan, of
Juja farm, near Nairobi, British East Africa, with an exceptional
collection of live African animals. A letter from Lieut. Col. Edgar
A. Mearns, dated May 20, states that the collection includes 11 large
mammals and 3 large birds, all in fine condition and for the most
part well broken to captivity, as follows: A male and female lion,
2 years old; a male and two female lions, 17 months old; a female
leopard, a pet of Mrs. McMillan; two cheetahs; a wart hog, 2 years
old; one Thomson and one Grant gazelle, well grown; a large
10 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
eagle of unusual species; a small vulture; and a large buteo. Speci-
mens of none of these, except the lions and leopard, are at present
contained in the park.
STUDIES IN CAMBRIAN GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.
In my reports for the past two years reference has been made to
studies of the older sedimentary rocks of the North American Conti-
nent, which I have been carrying on as opportunity offered for more
than twenty years. This work was continued in Montana and the
Canadian Rockies during the field season of 1908.
Outfitting at Belton, Mont., the last of June, 1908, the party pro-
ceeded with saddle horses and pack mules north past Lake McDonald
and on up the valley of the North Fork of the Flathead River to the
Kintla lakes. From the Continental Divide northeast of Upper
Kintla Lake beautiful views were obtained of the higher peaks, deep
canyons, and snow fields north and south of the international bound-
ary. Numerous photographs and notes on the geology were taken.
The party crossed the forty-ninth parallel and moved north up the
valley of the Flathead, in British Columbia, making several side
excursions into the mountains. The farthest point reached toward
the northeast was about 20 miles south of Crows Nest Pass. From
there the route led along a trapper’s trail up Johnson Creek to the
Continental Divide, thence to the town of Pincher Creek and south
to Waterton Lake. An examination was made of the oil fields west
of Waterton Lake on Cumberland Creek, which is about 15 miles
north of the international boundary. From this point the party
followed a trail along the western side of Waterton Lake and thence
up Little Kootna Creek to the Continental Divide at the head of
Mineral Creek, a tributary of McDonald Creek. A few days were
spent in taking photographs and examining the geological structure
in this vicinity before returning to Belton, on August 1, for supplies.
A trip was next made by the way of Lake McDonald to Gunsight
Pass on the Continental Divide, above Upper St. Mary Lake. But
smoke from forest fires became so dense that the party returned to
Belton and proceeded southward up the South Fork of the Flat-
head River for about 100 miles. Examinations were made of Gordon
Mountain and vicinity and during the return journey several geo-
logical sections were examined along the western side of the Conti-
nental Divide. Belton was again reached early in September and a
trip was made to Marias Pass, which afforded a very fine view of
the main range of the Rocky Mountains along the line of the Great
Northern Railway.
The scientific results of the 950-mile trip through the forests and
on mountain trails will aid materially in the solution of several prob-
lems connected with the stratigraphy and structure of the main ranges
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 11
of the eastern Rocky Mountains and of the geological position and
age of many thousands of feet of the sandstones, shales, and lme-
stones forming the mountains in northern Montana, British Colum-:
bia, and Alberta.
On the return an examination was made of the geological forma-
tions in the vicinity of Helena, Mont., and of the Wasatch Range,
southeast of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Three additional papers giving a summary of the results of my
studies in Cambrian Geology and Paleontology were published dur-
ing the year: No. 3, Cambrian Brachiopoda: Descriptions of new
genera and species; No. 4, Classification and terminology of the
Cambrian Brachiopoda; and No. 5, Cambrian sections of the Cordil-
leran area.?
GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE FAR EAST.
In May, 1909, a Smithsonian grant was made to Prof. Joseph P.
Iddings, of the United States Geological Survey and the University
of Chicago, for geological investigations in Japan, eastern China,
and Java. Professor Iddings, who was graduated in the Columbia
School of Mines in 1878-79, and in microscopic petrography by the
University of Heidelberg in 1879-80, is well fitted for a research of
this kind. His connection with and acquaintance in various foreign
scientific societies will be of assistance in prosecuting this remote
investigation, which will be reported fully as it progresses.
BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS.
Work under a small grant to Miss Alice Eastwood, for re-collect-
ing the botanical species secured by the botanist Thomas Nuttall in
1836 in the region of Santa Barbara, Cal., has been successfully prose-
cuted, as mentioned in the last report. Asa result, Miss Eastman has
sent to the National Museum two sets of plants, one of 341 desirable
specimens, which have been mounted for the National Herbarium.
The second, and by a few specimens the smaller set, will be used for
exchange purposes, many valuable additions to the Herbarium being
frequently secured in this manner.
INVESTIGATIONS UNDER THE HODGKINS FUND.
As stated in the last report, I have given consideration to the use
of the portion of the Hodgkins fund devoted to the increase and
diffusion of more exact knowledge of the atmospheric air in rela-
tion to the welfare of man. While much valuable work has been
done under this fund, it appeared to me that it would be more in
consonance with the ideas of the founder, if at least a portion of it
might be employed in some way to aid in the knowledge of the
h2_ 99
@ Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. LIII, pp. 55-250.
12 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
prevention of disease and its cure. In following out this sphere of
work the Institution issued a circular, under date of February 3,
1908, offering a prize of $1,500 for the best treatise on “ The relation
of atmospheric air to tuberculosis” that should be presented at the
international congress on tuberculosis, which was held in Washington
from September 21 to October 12, 1908. This prize aroused wide-
spread interest among the students on this subject and resulted in
the receipt by the Institution of 81 papers submitted in competition.
All of these have been referred to the committee on awards, whose
report is expected in a short time.
Grants from the Hodgkins fund, although not numerous during
the past year, have been the means of furthering important investiga-
tions which are still in progress.
RESEARCHES ON ATMOSPHERIC AIR.
A Hodgkins grant was approved in October, 1908, for the erection
of a small stone shelter on the summit of Mount Whitney, California,
for the use of investigators during the prosecution of researches on
atmospheric air, or on subjects closely related thereto.
The pioneer trip to the summit of Mount Whitney in the summer
of 1881 by the late Secretary Langley, at that time director of the
Allegheny Observatory, will be recalled in this connection as well
as his earnestly expressed conviction that in no country is there a
finer site for meteorological and atmospheric observations than the
United States possesses in Mount Whitney and its neighboring peaks.
As emphasized in the report of the Langley expedition, a per-
manent shelter on the peak is an absolute necessity for the prose-
cution of continued observations there, and the erection of such a
shelter has now been made possible by the extension of railway
facilities toward the base of the mountain and the improvement
of the trails to the summit.
Mr. C. G. Abbot, who succeeded Secretary Langley as director of
the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution, and
to whose immediate suggestion and earnest personal efforts the prep-
aration for and the establishment of this important post on Mount
Whitney are largely due, began his observations there in the summer
of 1909, and obtained important data in the determination of the
solar constant.
The cooperation of Prof. W. W. Campbell, the director of Lick
Observatory, University of California, at Mount Hamilton, has been
most helpful during the erection of the shelter, and the interest of
many of the citizens of Lone Pine, near the border line of the govern-
ment reservation, has been heartily and patriotically expressed. It
is easily seen that the local feeling in favor of the station will make
its occupation more readily and comfortably available by members
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 13
of the research parties who will from time to time desire to work
there.
The class of researches to be prosecuted at this exceptionably fa-
vorable station are not only of great scientific interest, but are ex-
pected also to prove of value in determining questions having a direct,
practical influence on the preservation and progress of human life on
our globe.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD PYRHELIOMETERS.
A limited grant from the Hodgkins fund was approved in Feb-
ruary, 1909, for the construction of several silver disk pyrheliometers.
These instruments are to be placed in charge of scientific investi-
gators in widely separated localities for the purpose of establishing
an international scale for the comparison of observations on solar
radiation. The varying results published by observers have made
the need of international cooperation in this connection apparent,
and the matter has received considerable attention at conferences of
the Solar Union.
These simple and comparatively inexpensive instruments are to be
constructed after a design by Mr. Abbot. Similar pyrheliometers
have been employed in the researches of the Astrophysical Observa-
tory for several years and have proved entirely satisfactory.
PUBLICATIONS UNDER THE HODGKINS FUND.
Bibliography of aeronautical literature——An exhaustive bibliog-
raphy of aeronautical literature, compiled by Mr. Paul Brockett,
assistant librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, has been com-
pleted to July 1, 1909, and is now in course of publication. This
work contains references to about 13,500 published articles and is
designed to render available the voluminous literature in all lan-
guages, on aviation.
Mechanics of the earth’s atmosphere.—In 1891 the Institution pub-
lished a volume of translations of important foreign memoirs on the
“ Mechanics of the earth’s atmosphere,” which was prepared by Prof.
Cleveland Abbe. There was put to press during the past year a sec-
ond collection of papers on this subject.
SMITHSONIAN TABLE AT NAPLES ZOOLOGICAL STATION.
The occupants of the Smithsonian table at Naples during the past
year were Dr. C. A. Kofoid, of the University of California and the
San Diego Marine Biological Station, and Dr. F. M. Guyer, of the
University of Cincinnati. Dr. Kofoid is studying the question of
sexual reproduction among Dinoflagellata and carrying on experi-
mental work on autotomy in Ceratium, with reference to temperature
and vertical distribution in the sea. Their investigations covered a
period of seven months.
14 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The present lease of the table expires December 31, 1909, but its
renewal for another term of three years has been decided on, so that
applications for the seat may now be submitted at any time.
As in former years, the cooperation of the members of the advisory
committee has been of great value in the examination of applications
for the seat, and is always thoroughly appreciated.
PUBLICATIONS.
The publication work of the Smithsonian Institution has from its
beginning been one of its most important functions. It has been
the principal medium for the “ diffusion of knowledge ” throughout
the world. The Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, the
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, and the Smithsonian Annual
Reports are publications widely known, and the demand for copies
of these works has constantly been much in excess of the possible
supply. The editions of the “ Contributions ” and the “ Collections ”
are necessarily restricted by the limited income of the Institution,
and their distribution is almost entirely to public institutions rather
than to individuals. The Annual Reports, however, are public docu-
ments, issued at the expense of a congressional appropriation.
Although this permits of editions of several thousand copies, yet the
entire number is each year exhausted soon after the date of
publication.
Besides the publications of the Institution proper there are issued
under its direction the Bulletins and Annual Reports of the United
States National Museum and of the Bureau of American Ethnology,
and the Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory. The details
relating to these various series during the year will be found in the
appendix to this report.
In the series of “ Contributions” no new volume was published,
although there was issued a new edition of Professor Langley’s
memoir on “ The internal work of the wind,” originally printed in
1893. To this new edition was added, as an appendix, a translation
of the “Solution of a special case of the general problem,” by Réné
de Saussure, which appeared in 1893 in Revue de l’Aéronautique
Théorique et Appliqué, Paris, in connection with a French reproduc-
tion of the above memoir by Professor Langley.
The quarterly issue of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections
has now reached its fifth volume. Twenty papers were published in
this series during the year. One of these papers, “Some recent con-
tributions to our knowledge of the sun,” was a lecture delivered at
Washington April 22, 1908, under the auspices of the Hamilton fund
of the Srithsonian Institution. Another paper, by Dr. Cyrus Adler,
tells of the relation of Richard Rush to the Smithsonian Institution.
Mr. Rush was agent of the United States to secure the bequest of
’
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 15
James Smithson. He successfully completed the legal steps neces-
sary to establish the claim of the United States in the English courts,
and in August, 1838, arrived in New York with half a million dollars
in gold sovereigns which were formally transferred to the Treasurer
of the United States. Mr. Rush later rendered important service in
the organization of the Institution and was one of its first Regents,
serving on the Board from 1846 until his death in 1859.
The continued demand for the Smithsonian Physical Tables, pre-
pared by the late Prof. Thomas Gray, necessitated the reprinting of
a fourth edition from the stereotype plates. A thorough revision
of these Tables is in preparation to bring the work within the range
of the important advance made in the science of physics during the
last decade.
The volume of “Smithsonian Mathematical Tables: Hyperbolic
Functions,” prepared by Dr. George F. Becker and Mr. C. E. Van
Orstrand, which was in press at the close of the last fiscal year, has
been completed as a “ special publication.”
Three papers descriptive of my researches in Cambrian Geology
and Paleontology have been added to those mentioned in my last
report. These are: No. 3, Cambrian Brachiopoda: Description of
New Genera and Species; No. 4, Classification and Terminology of
the Cambrian Brachiopoda; and No. 5, Cambrian Sections of the
Cordilleran Area. The last-named paper is accompanied by a num-
ber of illustrations of various parts of the Rocky Mountains showing
the Cambrian Cordilleran sections which had been examined to a
total thickness of more than 12,000 feet.
Among the works in press at the close of the year was a paper on
“Landmarks of Botanical History,” by Dr. Edward L. Greene, and
a work on the “ Mechanics of the Earth’s Atmosphere,” comprising a
selection of important French and German papers translated and
edited by Prof. Cleveland Abbe.
There was practically completed, ready for press, at the ciose of
the year a Bibliography of Aeronautics containing references to
about 13,500 books and papers on that subject, dating from the earli-
est days of printing down to the publications of the present year.
The greater part of the Annual Report for 1908 was in type at
the close of the year, but press work could not be completed. The
volume contains 27 papers showing progress made in astronomy,
physics, biology, geology, and other branches of knowledge.
To meet the demand for copies of papers by Secretary Langley on
aerial navigation, there was reprinted a special edition, under one
cover, of four articles that had appeared in the Smithsonian Reports
from 1897 to 1904, as follows: “ Story of experiments in mechanical
flight ” (1897); “The Langley aerodrome” (1900); “The greatest
flying creature ” (1901) ; and “ Experiments with the Langley aero-
16 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
drome” (1904). The introduction to this reprint, written by As-
sistant Secretary Adler, reads as follows:
The international fame of Samuel Pierpont Langley rests primarily upon his
epoch-making researches in solar physics, but during the last ten years of his
life his name was best known to the world at large by his experiments in
mechanical flight.
Mr. Langley was the first to produce a machine heavier than air which, sup-
ported and propelled by its own engine and possessing no extraneous lifting
or sustaining power, actually made an independent flight for a considerable
distance, this being accomplished for the first time on May 6, 1896. He after-
wards constructed other models driven by both steam and gasoline engines,
which made frequent successful flights, and was thus the first to demonstrate
by actual experiment the possibility of mechanical flight.
In addition to building various models and machines, most of which are now
on exhibition in the United States National Museum, Mr. Langley recorded his
studies and experiments in two technical works—“ Experiments in Aero-
dynamics,” published originally by the Smithsonian Institution in 1891, and
“The Internal Work of the Wind,’ the original edition of which was issued
by the Institution in 1893. The copious and painstaking notes made by Mr.
Langley in connection with his latest experiments in mechanical flight are
now in course of preparation for publication and will be issued by the Institu-
tion on completion, thus forming the third volume of this more technical series.
Mr. Langley also wrote a few occasional popular papers relating to this same
class of experiments, which were published in the Smithsonian reports and else-
where, the editions of which are now quite exhausted. In order to meet the
ever-increasing demand for information on a subject which is now claiming uni-
versal attention, and in which Mr. Langley was the pioneer, some of these less
technical articles are here brought together and reprinted under a single cover.
The publications of the National Museum during the year included
a large number of papers in the Proceedings, and several Bulletins,
the general contents of which are enumerated in the appendix.
The Bureau of American Ethnology published its Twenty-sixth
Annual Report and a number of Bulletins. One of the Bulletins,
No. 42, by Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, gives the results of his study of tuber-
culosis among certain Indian tribes.
The Annual Reports of the American Historical Association and
of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolu-
tion were received from those organizations and were communicated
to Congress in accordance with their national charters.
The allotments to the Institution and its branches, under the head
of public printing and binding during the past fiscal year, aggrega-
ting $72,700, were, as far as practicable, expended prior to June 30.
The allotments for the year ending June 30, 1910, are as follows:
For the Smithsonian Institution for printing and binding annual re-
ports of the Board of Regents, with general appendixes___________ $10, 000
For the annual reports of the National Museum, with general appen-
dixes, and for printing labels and blanks for the Bulletins and Pro-
ceedings of the National Museum, the editions of which shall not ex-
ceed 4,000 copies, and binding, in half turkey or material not more
expensive, scientific books and pamphlets presented to and acquired
byethe National Museum) ibtary== 22) oa = se eee ee 34, 000
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. aby)
For the annual reports and bulletins of the Bureau of American Eth-
nology and for miscellaneous printing and binding for the bureau___ $21, 000
For miscellaneous printing and binding:
Antena On AlebINCRAN GCS) 2a ae Ne ee ee 200
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature___.____.__________ 100
Nai onuale ZOOlog Cals Parkes 2 SS a See ea 200
ASCrODHY SICAL ODSCLVATORY: 22 == = a ee eS ee ee 200
For the annual report of the American Historical Association_________ 7, 000
BTS (21) oem ene ee ete ee Se ee ee he ee ee 72, 700
The practice of sending out abstracts of the publications of the
Institution and its branches to newspapers throughout the country
has been continued, and in this way many millions of readers, who
would not have ready access to the scientific information in the
papers themselves, have been reached.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON PRINTING AND PUBLICATION.
The committee on printing and publication has continued to ex-
amine manuscripts proposed for publication by the branches of the
Institution and has considered various questions concerning public
printing and binding. ‘Twenty-seven meetings of the committee were
held during the year and more than a hundred manuscripts were
passed upon. Upon the resignation of Dr. Cyrus Adler, chairman
of the committee, as assistant secretary of the Institution, the com-
mittee was reorganized as follows: Dr. Frederick W. True, head
curator of biology, United States National Museum, chairman; Mr.
C. G. Abbot, director of the Astrophysical Observatory; Mr. W. I.
Adams, of the International Exchanges; Dr. Frank Baker, superin-
tendent of the National Zoological Park; Mr. A. Howard Clark,
editor of the Smithsonian Institution; Mr. F. W. Hodge, ethnologist,
the Bureau of American Ethnology; Prof. O. T. Mason, head curator
of anthropology, United States National Museum; Dr. George P.
Merrill, head curator of geology, United States National Museum;
and Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, curator of reptiles and batrachians,
United States National Museum.
In order to prevent duplication of work in the examination of
papers, the Museum advisory committee on publications was discon-
tinued and its duties transferred to this committee.
THE LIBRARY.
The additions to the Smithsonian Library during the year aggre-
gated 29,729 complete volumes and parts of volumes, besides over
34,000 parts of periodical publications. Of the accessions more than
20,000 were placed in the Smithsonian deposit in the Library of Con-
egress, and the remainder were divided among the libraries of the
Secretary’s office, the Astrophysical Observatory, the National Zoo-
18 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
logical Park, the International Exchanges, and the National Museum
library. The library of the Bureau of American Ethnology, which
is administered separately from the general library, has also had
numerous additions. The Institution has continued the policy of send-
ing to the Library of Congress public documents received in exchange
for its publications.
During the last two years special efforts have been made to com-
plete the sets of the publications of scientific societies and learned
institutions in the Smithsonian deposit, including serial publications
in the main collection, resulting in the receipt of nearly 4,000 parts,
an increase of more than 2,000 over the previous year.
The reference books in the Institution and the general library,
together with the sectional libraries in the National Museum and the
library of the Bureau of American Ethnology, have been very freely
consulted.
The importance of the collection of scientific works in the hbrary
of the Institution is becoming more and more appreciated each year
by the scientific investigator, as 1s evidenced by the increase in the
number of publications withdrawn for consultation, especially the
proceedings and transactions of the scientific societies and learned
institutions.
The assistant librarian has been engaged in preparing a bibliog-
raphy of aeronautical literature, which includes the indexing of about
13,500 papers in periodicals and proceedings of aeronautical socie-
ties, books and separate pamphlets on the subject, and comprises
all available titles, domestic and foreign, published before July 1,
1909. At the close of the year the manuscript was ready for the
printer.
PRESERVATION OF AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.
Under the terms of the act of Congress approved June 8, 1906,
uniform regulations for the preservation of archeological and other
objects on the public domain were prepared by the Secretaries of the
Interior, War, and Agriculture, with the cooperation of the Smith-
sonian Institution. Under rule 8 of these regulations applications
for permits to carry on explorations or researches are referred to
the Smithsonian Institution for recommendation, and during the
year a number of such applications were acted on by the Institution.
CONGRESSES, CELEBRATIONS, AND EXPOSITIONS.
International Congress of Orientalists—At the Fifteenth Inter-
national Congress of Orientalists, held in Copenhagen, Denmark,
August 14 to 20, 1908, the Smithsonian Institution and the National
Museum were represented by Dr. Paul Haupt, professor of semitic
philology in Johns Hopkins University, and associate of the National
Museum in historic archeology. At the suggestion of the Institution,
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 19
Doctor Haupt, Dr. C. R. Lanman, of Harvard University, Prof.
Morris Jastrow, jr., of the University of Pennsylvania, and Prof.
A. V. W. Jackson, of Columbia University, were designated by the
Department of State as delegates of the United States Government
to this congress.
Congress of Americanists—Dr. Franz Boas, of Columbia Univer-
sity, was representative of the Institution at the Sixteenth Inter-
national Congress of Americanists, held at Vienna September 8 to
14, 1908, and the Department of State, at the suggestion of the Insti-
tution, designated, besides Doctor Boas, the following delegates on
the part of the United States Government: Prof. Marshall H. Saville,
of Columbia; Dr. George Grant McCurdy, of Yale; Dr. Charles
Peabody, of Harvard; and Dr. Paul Haupt, of Johns Hopkins.
Fisheries Congress.—The International Fisheries Congress was held
in Washington September 22 to 26, 1908, delegates being present from
a large number of countries and from various societies and clubs
interested in fisheries. The Institution was represented by Dr. T. N.
Gill and Dr. F. W. True; the National Museum by Mr. W. de C.
Ravenel and Dr. Leonhard Stejneger. Dr. Richard Rathbun, Assist-
ant Secretary of the Institution, served as delegate at large from the
Government. In connection with this congress the Smithsonian
Institution had offered a prize of $200 for the best essay or treatise
“ On international regulation of the fisheries on the high seas: Their
history, objects, and results.” This prize was awarded to Mr. Charles
H. Stevenson, of the United States Bureau of Fisheries.
Tuberculosis Congress—In compliance with the direction of the
President, the new building for the National Museum was selected
for the meetings of the International Congress on Tuberculosis,
$40,000 being placed at the disposal of the Secretary of the Smith-
sonian Institution for the necessary arrangements in this connection.
The plans for the adaptation of the building to this purpose were
put in the hands of the superintendent of construction, Mr. Bernard
R. Green, and the work necessary was conducted by him to a success-
ful conclusion. About 100,000 square feet of the building on the first
and second floors, exclusive of the south wings, were used for the
purposes of the congress. In order to make the space as attractive
as possible, muslin was used to cover the rough places and many flags
of the United States and of foreign nations were gracefully festooned
about the halls. The Institution is indebted to the War, Navy, and
Treasury departments, and also to the Bureau of American Republics,
for the use of the flags. The temporary arrangements for the illumi-
nation of the building required 600 lamps of 80 candlepower each,
consuming about 40,000 feet of wiring.
The congress opened on September 21, 1908, and adjourned on
October 12. By November 3 all traces of the convention had been
20 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
removed and the building was again ready for the resumption of
construction operations. About $25,000 was expended in fitting up
the building for the congress ($15,000 being thus unused from the
appropriation).
Thirty-one independent nations and forty-five States of the Union
were represented. There were 488 contributors, of whom 312 were
citizens of the United States. The total attendance at the congress
was approximately 148,000.
Among the contributors to the exhibits the Smithsonian Institu-
tion presented results of an investigation among certain of the Indian
tribes for the Department of the Interior, with a view to showing the
actual amount of tuberculosis existing. This work was done by Dr.
Ale’ Hrdlitka, of the National Museum, who visited the Menominee,
Sioux, Quinault, Hupa, and Mohave tribes. The exhibit occupied a
space amounting to 18 by 40 feet, and the congress expressed its
appreciation of it by awarding the Institution a gold medal.
As already mentioned in the paragraphs on the Hodgkins fund, the
Institution offered a prize of $1,500 for the best treatise on “ The
relation of atmospheric air to tuberculosis.”
Anniversary of birth of Torricelli.—At the exercises commemorat-
ing the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Evangelista
Torricelli, held at Faenza, Italy, in November, 1908, Professor
Senator Giovanni Copellini was requested to act as the representative
of the Institution.
American Mining Congress——Dr. George P. Merrill, head curator
of geology, United States National Museum, represented the Institu-
tion and the Museum at the eleventh annual session of the American
Mining Congress, held at Pittsburg, Pa., December 2 to 5, 1908.
Pan-American Scientific Congress.—The first Pan-American Scien-
tific Congress was held in Santiago, Chile, December 25, 1908, to
January 6, 1909. The Smithsonian Institution was represented by
Mr. William H. Holmes, Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology
and curator of prehistoric archeology in the National Museum, who
presented a paper on “ The peopling of America.” An account of the
congress, by Mr. Holmes, is given as an appendix to the present
report.
Aeronautical exposition.—The Institution sent seven large photo-
graphs of the Langley aerodrome to the International Aeronautical
Exposition held at Frankfort on the Main, Germany, February 27,
1909.
National Academy of Sciences—As has been the custom for many
years, the Institution afforded facilities for the meetings of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences, April 21 to 23, 1909. One of the halls
of the National Museum was used for the public meetings of the
academy, the council meetings being held in rooms in the Smithsonian
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 21
building. The programme of the meetings included the usual num-
ber of papers covering a wide field.
Congress of photography.—The Smithsonian Institution accepted
an invitation to participate in the International Congress on Pho-
tography at Dresden, Germany, May to October, 1909, and sent a
number of enlarged photographs and transparencies.
International Archeological Congress.—Upon the recommendation
of the Smithsonian Institution Mr. A. M. Lythgoe, of the Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art, and Prof. Paul Baur, of Yale University, were
designated by the Department of State as delegates on the part of
the United States to the Second International Archeological Con-
gress, which was held at Cairo, Egypt, Easter, 1909.
Darwin celebration—It was my pleasure, by resolution of the
Board of Regents, to represent the Institution at the one hundredth
anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, held at Cambridge
University, England, June 22 to 24, 1909, when the university con-
ferred upon me the degree of Sc. D. In this connection a bronze
bust of Darwin, a gift of many of Darwin’s admirers in America,
was presented to the university.
University of Geneva anniversary.—Prof. J. M. Baldwin, of Johns
Hopkins University, was appointed to represent the Smithsonian
Institution at the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of
the Geneva University, which was held at Geneva July 7 to 10, 1909.
University of Leipzig anniversary.—The Institution accepted an
invitation to participate in the five hundredth anniversary of the
University of Leipzig held July 28 to 30, 1909, and Dr. William
H. Welch, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., consented
to act as its representative on that occasion.
Congress for the History of Religions——Dr. Paul Haupt, of Johns
Hopkins University, and Prof. Morris Jastrow, jr., of the University
of Pennsylvania, were designated, at the suggestion of the Institu-
tion, as delegates on the part of the United States to the Third Inter-
national Congress for the History of Religions, held at Oxford,
England, September 15 to 18, 1909.
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition—In the act of Congress ap-
proved May 27, 1908, an appropriation of $200,000 was made for
an exhibition by the Government at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Ex-
position held at Seattle, begining June 1 and closing October 1,
1909. Mr. W. deC. Ravenel, administrative assistant in the United
States National Museum, was designated by the Secretary as Repre-
sentative of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum. An
allotment of $24,000 was made for an exhibit by the Institution and
the Museum to illustrate our national history, especially with refer-
ence to Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, and the United
States west of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Ravenel’s account of
this exhibit is given in an appendix to the present report.
99 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Mr. Ravenel was also appointed by the President as a member of
the United States Government board of managers of the exposition.
LANGLEY MEDAL AND MEMORIAL TABLET.
As a tribute to the memory of the late Secretary Samuel Pierpont
Langley and his contributions to the science of aerodromics, the
Regents on December 15, 1908, adopted the following resolution:
Resolved, That the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution establish
a medal to be known as the Langley medal; to be awarded for specially meri-
torious investigations in connection with the science of aerodromics and its
application to aviation.
Following the establishment of this medal a committee on award,
composed of the following gentlemen of recognized attainments in
the science of aerodromics, was appointed by the Secretary:
Mr. Octave Chanute, of Chicago, chairman.
Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Washington, D. C.
Maj. George O. Squier, U. S. Army.
Mr. John A. Brashear, Allegheny, Pa.
Mr. James Means, formerly editor of the Aeronautical Annual,
Boston, Mass.
The obverse of the medal is the same as in the Hodgkins medal
and was designed by M. J. C. Chaplain, of Paris, a member of the
French Academy. It represents a female figure, seated on the globe,
carrying a torch in her left hand and in her right a scroll emblematic
of knowledge, and the words “ Per Orbem.” The reverse is adapted
from the seal of the Institution as designed by Augustus St. Gaudens,
the special inscription being inserted in the center instead of the map
of the world. The medal is about 3 inches in diameter.
The committee recommended that the first medal be bestowed on
Wilbur and Orville Wright, and the medal was awardeu to these
gentlemen under the following Tesolubion, adopted by the Board of
Regents on February 10, 1909:
Resolved, That the Langley medal be awarded to Wilbur and Orville Wright
for advancing the science of aerodromics in its application to aviation by their
successful investigations and demonstrations of the practicability of mechanical
flight by man.
At the meeting of the Board of Regents on December 15, 1908, the
following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution be requested to
report to the Board of Regents as soon as practicable upon the erection in
the Institution building of a tablet to the memory of Secretary Langley, setting
forth his services in connection with the subject of aerial navigation.
Designs for this tablet are now being prepared by a well-known
architect of this city, whose advice I have requested.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 23
MISCELLANEOUS.
GREENOUGH STATUE OF WASHINGTON.
The Greenough statue of Washington, which was transferred to the
custody of the Institution by joint resolution of Congress of May 22,
1908, introduced by Representative Mann, was removed from the
plaza east of the Capitol in November, 1908, and has been installed
in the west hall of the Smithsonian building.
MEMORIAL CONTINENTAL HALL.
Under date of April 30, 1909, the president-general of the National
Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution communicated
with the President, offering to place at the disposal of the Smith-
sonian Institution the use of the auditorium in Memorial Continental
Hall. The President transmitted this offer to the Secretary of the
Institution, and its thanks were expressed in a statement that the
needs of the Institution at present are of a special nature and require
particularly facilities for laboratory and research work, for which
Continental Hall is not well adapted, but should there be need in the
future for additional space for lecture purposes and the like, the
Institution would be glad to avail itself of the courteous proposal of
the Daughters of the American Revolution.
NATIONAL MUSEUM.
The operations of the National Museum are discussed in detail by
the assistant secretary in the appendix to this report and also in a
separate volume, and need not therefore be fully treated here.
It was expected that the new building would be ready for occu-
pancy before June 30, but delayed contracts and other circumstances
prevented its completion. The entire stonework of the outer walls
was, however, finished, as were also the roofs and skylights of the
building. Much progress was made in the interior and it is expected
that some of the halls and workrooms will be ready for use early in
the autumn. A large part of the first and second floors and of the
basement were utilized in the autumn of 1908 for the meetings and
exhibition halls of the Sixth International Tuberculosis Congress,
an appropriation having been made by the Government for the erec-
tion of necessary partitions and other fittings.
It was found to be in the interest of economy to install in the new
building a central heating and electrical plant of sufficient capacity
to serve the needs of the older buildings as well, the pipes and wires
to be carried through a small connecting tunnel.
Over 250,000 specimens were added to the Museum collections dur-
ing the year, about 200,000 of them pertaining to biology and the re-
mainder to geology and anthropology. One of the most important
45745°—sm 1909——3
24 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
additions to the division of ethnology was a contribution from Dr.
W. L. Abbott, consisting of about 500 objects from southwestern
Borneo. I may also mention a number of Chinese velvets and em-
broideries of the Chien-lung period (1736-1795), presented by the
Baroness von Sternberg as a memorial to her husband, the late Baron
Speck von Sternberg, German ambassador to the United States. To
the technological collections were added more than 200 objects trans-
ferred from the United States Patent Office. These included a num-
ber of rifles, muskets, revolvers, and pistols, making the firearms ex-
hibit in the National Museum one of the finest in the country. Many
other objects of interest are enumerated by the assistant secretary in
his detailed report. The department of biology received a noteworthy
gift of about 1,200 European mammals and 61 reptiles from Mr. Old-
field Thomas, of the British Museum, and Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, of
this Museum. This has so greatly increased the importance of the
National Museum collection of the mammals of Europe that it now
ranks as one of the largest and most valuable in the world. I may
also mention a contribution of about a thousand mammals and birds
of Borneo, received from Dr. W. L. Abbott.
In connection with the work of excavation and repair of the Casa
Grande ruins in Arizona, under the direction of the Smithsonian
Institution, as authorized by act of Congress approved March 4,
1907, there were collected and placed in the National Museum about
650 stone axes and hammers, rubbing and grinding stones, earthen-
ware bowls and vases, pieces of basketry and textile fabrics, shell
ornaments, and wooden implements. From similar excavations in
the Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, there were received about
500 objects of like character. The department of geology received
a large series of Cambrian fossils from the Rocky Mountains, col-
lected during my field studies in that region. There were also added
to the collections many interesting objects pertaining to mineralogy
and paleobotany. Eighty-two regular sets of geological specimens
to the number of 7,739 were distributed during the year for educa-
tional purposes, besides 1,300 specimens of geology, marine inverte-
brates, and fishes arranged in special sets.
In my last report mention was made of a loan collection of laces,
embroideries, rare porcelains, enamels, jewelry, and other artistic ob-
jects, temporarily installed in the hall occupied by the gallery of art.
This collection was brought together by Mrs. James W. Pinchot with
the assistance of a committee of ladies of Washington. The extent
of the collection is limited on account of present lack of space. The
lace exhibit is specially noteworthy in variety and value. It is ex-
pected that this temporary collection will lead to a permanent exhibit
of art objects that may help to elevate the standard of American art
workmanship.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 25
Two field parties in which the Institution and Museum are greatly
interested left this country during the year for important collecting
regions, from both of which especially valuable results may be ex-
pected. The first, which will explore Java and some of the adjacent
islands, is being conducted by Mr. Owen Bryant, of Cohasset, Mass.,
entirely at his own expense. He is accompanied by Mr. William
Palmer, of the Museum staff, and will present to the Museum a
large share of the specimens obtained. The party sailed at the be-
ginning of the calendar year 1909. The second expedition is that
under the direction of Col. Theodore Roosevelt into British East
Africa and more inlands districts. This expedition is more fully
mentioned on another page.
In the near future it will be possible to give the national collections
adequate space and more systematic arrangement. In the new build-
ing it is proposed to exhibit collectioms representing ethnology,
archeology, natural history, and geology, while the older buildings
will be more specially given up to the arts and industries. The
Museum thus amply provided with space will enter upon a new era
of prosperity and usefulness.
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART.
Some notable accessions have been made to the National Gallery of
Art as enumerated in the appendix. I may specially mention addi-
tions to the Charles L. Freer collection, consisting of a number of
oil paintings, pastels, 247 pieces of oriental pottery, and 25 miscella-
neous examples of oriental art. Mr. William T. Evans has also in-
creased his generous gift of works of contemporary American artists
so that it now numbers 84 oil paintings, representing 58 artists. This
collection, which had been exhibited for some months at the Corcoran
Gallery of Art, was transferred to the Museum building during the
first week of July, 1909.
Congress having failed to authorize the adaptation of the large hall
of the Smithsonian building for the exhibition of the rapidly in-
creasing collection of works of art, it has become necessary to make
temporary use of one of the halls in the new Museum building and its
adaptation to that purpose will soon begin.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY.
The Bureau of American Ethnology during the year has been
engaged mainly in making summaries of the information resulting
from many: years of study, both in the field and office, of the lan-
guages, social organization and government, systems of belief, reli-
gious customs, and arts and industries of the Indians, as well as their
physical and mental characteristics.
26 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The bureau has collected data relating to 60 families or linguistic
stocks and upward of 300 tribes. It does not expect to study all of
the tribes in detail, but rather to investigate a sufficient number as
types which may stand for all. The results of the work heretofore
accomplished are embodied in 26 published reports, 36 bulletins, 8
volumes of contributions, and in many manuscripts preserved in the
archives of the bureau. It has seemed wise at this stage of the re-
searches to prepare a summary of our knowledge of the tribes, and
this has taken the form of a Handbook of the Indians, of which one
large volume is published and the second nearly through the press.
In order to keep this summary within the compass of an easily con-
sulted handbook many important subjects are treated merely in out-
line. Other handbooks dealing with the more important branches
of the work are in course of preparation. The first is the Hand-
book of Languages, which is now in press and will form two volumes.
The arts and industries are also being treated in separate volumes,
and handbooks relating respectively to religions, folklore, social cus-
toms, government, sign language, pictography, esthetic arts, phys-
ical and mental characters, pathology and medicine, archeology, geo-
graphical names, etc., are in prospect.
The people of the United States have two great obligations which
the bureau is trying to fulfill: (1) That of acquiring a thorough
knowledge of the Indian tribes in the interests of humanity; (2)
that of preserving to the world an adequate record of the American
race which is so rapidly disappearing. The work is of national,
even of world-wide, importance, and unless steadfastly carried for-
ward by the Government can never be completed.
Recently much popular interest has been manifested in the antiqui-
ties of the country, more especially in the great pueblo ruins and
cliff dwellings of the arid region, and the Fifty-ninth Congress
enacted a law for the preservation of these antiquities. A first step
in making this law effective is their exploration. A second is the
excavation and repair of the more important ruins to insure their
preservation and to make them available to the public and for study.
Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, has
continued the work of excavation and repair of the ancient ruins in
the Mesa Verde National Park, in cooperation with the Department
of the Interior. During the year the repair of Spruce Tree House
was completed, and at the end of June he had made excellent progress
in uncovering and repairing the crumbling walls of Cliff Palace, the
greatest of the ancient ruins of its kind in this country.
There is need also for ethnological work in the Hawaiian Islands
and Samoa, for the following reasons: It is regarded as most im-
portant that the Government should have definite and detailed in-
formation regarding the native inhabitants of these islands, which
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. Oy
are under its control and for whose welfare it is responsible. It is
not less a duty of the nation to preserve some record of this peculiar
race for the purposes of history and science, as neglect will become
a source of deep regret. An experienced ethnologist should make
investigations regarding the history, social institutions, religion, and
general culture of the people, and a physical anthropologist should
study their physical and mental characteristics.
A work by Dr. N. B. Emerson—Unwritten Literature of Hawaii:
the Sacred Songs of the Hula—is now in press, and there is also be-
ing prepared by Dr. Cyrus Thomas, of the bureau’s staff, and Prof.
H. M. Ballou, of Boston, Mass., a catalogue of books and papers re-
lating to the Hawaiian Islands.
Another field for research that should be developed is among the
tribes of the Middle West. There is now a strong sentiment among
historical societies and educational institutions of this section in favor
of prosecuting more vigorously the studies of the tribal remnants of
the Mississippi Valley, for it is realized that when the old people of
the present generation have passed away the opportunity for collect-
ing historical and ethnological data will be lost forever.
Mr. J. P. Dunn has been engaged as a collaborator of the bureau
on a study of the linguistics of the Algonquian tribes of this region,
and Prof. H. E. Bolton, of the University of Texas, has continued
his studies on the tribes of Texas.
Other collaborators of the bureau have been making special
investigations relating to various tribes in different parts of the
country.
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES.
For the purpose of more fully carrying into effect the provisions
of the exchange convention concluded at Brussels on March 15, 1886,
and proclaimed by the President January 15, 1889, a resolution was
passed by Congress during the year setting aside a certain number of
copies of the daily Congressional Record for exchange with the
legislative chambers of foreign countries. Under the authority
contained in this resolution arrangements for the exchange of the
parliamentary record have been entered into with 21 governments,
and the matter has been taken up with a number of other countries.
It should be stated in this connection that the convention here re-
ferred to was the second exchange agreement concluded at Brussels
between the United States and other countries on March 15, 1886.
The first convention was for the exchange of government documents
and scientific and literary publications, while the articles of the second
agreement made it obligatory on the contracting States to transmit,
immediately upon publication, a copy of the official journal to the
legislatures of each. The full text of the resolution, together with
28 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
further details concerning this exchange, will be found in the ap-
pended report on the exchanges.
The increase in the number of packages handled by the bureau
during the past year was the largest in the history of the exchanges—
25,777 more packages having passed through the service than in
1908, the total number being 228,875. The weight of these pack-
ages was 476,169 pounds, a gain of 40,884 pounds over the preceding
year.
The congressional appropriation for carrying on the system of
exchanges during 1909 was $32,200 (the same amount as was granted
for the preceding year), and the sum collected on account of repay-
ments was $3,777.33, making the total available resources $35,977.33.
The results of the efforts of the bureau to procure larger returns of
publications from abroad for the Library of Congress and the several
departments and bureaus of the Government have been more than
satisfactory—in fact, they have far exceeded my expectations, in
some cases hundreds of volumes having been received.
The Japanese department of foreign affairs, which has in the past
been good enough to distribute exchanges sent in its care for cor-
respondents in Japan, has recently signified its willingness to for-
ward to the Smithsonian Institution consignments bearing addresses
in the United States.
A bureau of exchanges has been established by the Kingdom of
Servia and placed under the direction of the department of foreign
affairs at Belgrade, and the Argentine exchange bureau has been
separated from the National Library and connected with the super-
vising commission of public libraries at Buenos Aires.
The total number of full sets of United States official publications
now sent regularly to depositories abroad is 55, and the number of
partial sets 33, Servia having been added during the year to the
former and Alsace-Lorraine to the latter.
The number of correspondents has increased from year to year
until the aggregate is now 62,630, or 2,507 more than at the conclu-
sion of the fiscal year 1908.
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK.
The National Zoological Park during the year added 576 new
animals to its collections, which offsets a loss of 562 by exchange,
death, and return of animals, and brings the number of individuals
on hand June 30, 1909, up to 1,416. There were 564,639 visitors, a
daily average of about 1,547, the largest number in any one month
being in April, when 127,635 were counted, a daily average of 4,254.
The entire support of the park was derived from an appropriation
of $95,000 for general purposes, including the purchase, transporta-
tion, care, and maintenance of animals; the care and improvement
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 29
of grounds; the construction and repair of all buildings, inclosures,
roads, walks, and bridges. Of this amount the increased price of
necessary provisions and labor brought the cost of maintenance alone
to about $85,000. It was therefore possible to do little toward per-
manent construction or improvement of the more or less temporary
shelters, roads, walks, and inclosures which lack of adequate funds
at the time of the inception of the park made it necessary to build.
It has not been possible as yet to develop the park to the standard
that such institutions usually attain at the capitals of great nations.
The improvements made during the year were for the most part
those necessary for the safety of visitors. A series of yards for bears
and ten new yards for foxes and wolves were constructed, however,
and many of the roads treated with tar preparations to prevent dust
and abrasion. The superintendent of the park states that there are
needed: A new aquarium, the present building being originally a hay
shed, now in a most dilapidated condition; a general aviary and out-
of-door shelter for hardy birds; an inclosure for sea lions and seals;
an antelope house; a more centrally located office building; a restau-
rant and retiring rooms for visitors; and further improvements to
roads and walks.
Of the 576 accessions to the collections during the year, 124 were
gifts to the park, 12 were received in exchange, 307 were purchased,
9 were deposited, 110 were born and hatched in the National Zoolog-
ical Park, and 14 were captured in the Yellowstone National Park.
It is expected that the collections of the Zoological Park will benefit
either directly or indirectly through the Smithsonian African expe-
dition under Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, which left this country in
March and is at present engaged in gathering specimens of fauna
in Africa.
The appropriations during the eighteen years since it was estab-
lished have permitted of the erection of only three permanent build-
ings, all of the others having necessarily been constructed cheaply
and as temporary makeshifts to meet the successively urgent require-
ments of the growing collections. The result is that at the present
time most of the animals are housed in poor wooden buildings and
exposed cages, which are not only inadequate and unsightly but also
entail a larger annual expense for repairs and maintenance than the
dictates of economy would seem to justify. Elaborate and ornate
buildings are not called for, but the necessity for substantial struc-
tures adapted to the requirements of the different groups of animals
can not be too strongly urged.
It is also to be borne in mind that the Zoological Park is a part of
the great park system extending through Rock Creek Valley. Its
main roads are continuous with those leading up the creek and are
traversed by the same vehicles, including heavy automobiles, which
30 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
makes it necessary to maintain these roads on a better basis than
would be required if they were intended solely as entrances to the
Zoological Park. The heavy expense which this involves falls upon
the appropriation for the park, a fact which, it is felt, may not have
been fully realized by the Congress in considering the park estimates.
Attention has heretofore been called to the importance of acquiring
the narrow tracts of land lying between the park boundaries and the
recently established highways on the southeast and west. The high-
ways were located as close to the park as the topography would per-
mit, so as to reduce these tracts to a minimum width, with the
expectation that they would be acquired by the Government. Prop-
erty in this vicinity is gradually increasing in value, and in the inter-
est of economy the tracts should be secured now so that the park
boundaries may be permanently established and guarded against
injurious encroachment by adjacent grading.
ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY.
The work of the Astrophysical Observatory during the year con-
sisted :
(1) Of bolometric observations carried on at Washington on the
brightness of different parts of the sun’s image; also some experi-
mental work on the transparency of the air for long-wave rays, such
as the earth radiates. A computation of the results of these experi-
ments is now far enough advanced to show their satisfactory quality.
Precise knowledge of the selective absorption of our atmosphere for
earth rays is still lacking, and contradictory views are still being
expressed about this important subject; hence it is hoped that these
experiments will be useful in the study of the dependence of the
earth’s temperature on radiation.
(2) Spectrobolometric measurements of the solar constant of radia-
tion have been continued at the Mount Wilson observatory in Cali-
fornia. As in former years, evidences of a fluctuation of solar radia-
tion were found in the results of the measurements thus far obtained.
A new and improved standard pyrheliometer was found to be more
satisfactory than the one used in 1906, and great confidence is felt
in the results obtained with it. Efforts have also been made to
carry the bolometric measurements much farther in the ultra-violet
through the use of a large quartz prism, a large ultra-violet glass
prism, and two magnalium mirrors. Mr. Abbot, the director of the
Astrophysical Observatory, visited the summit of Mount Whitney
(14,502 feet), where the institution is preparing to erect a shelter
house for the use of observers. This is the mountain upon which
Mr. Langley carried on his well-known observations in 1881, and it
is believed that the location will prove to be of great value in the
further study of the solar constant of radiation.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. ol
As stated in the two preceding annual reports, it is highly desirable
to continue the solar observations throughout the year, and this can
be accomplished by observing during the winter and spring months
in southern Mexico, where a cloudless sky and high altitude of the
sun may be had, although during those months bad observing condi-
tions occur in the United States. Hitherto lack of funds has pre-
vented a Mexican expedition.
The work of the observatory is receiving highly favorable notice
both in this country and abroad, its results being employed by our
own Weather Bureau and by foreign investigators as a basis for
their measurements on the radiation of the sun.
INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC LITER-
ATURE.
The purpose of the International Catalogue of Scientific Litera-
ture is to collect and publish in 17 annual volumes a classified
index of the current scientific publications of the world. This is
accomplished by the cooperation of 32 of the principal countries
of the world, each having a regional bureau which prepares the
data necessary and indexes all scientific literature published within
its domain. The material thus prepared is forwarded to a central
bureau in London for publication in the annual volumes.
The various subscribers throughout the world bear the entire cost
of printing and publishing by the central bureau, each country tak-
ing part in the enterprise bearing the cost of indexing and classify-
ing its own publications. The 17 annual volumes combined contain
between 10,000 and 12,000 printed pages.
The regional bureau for the United States furnishes yearly about
30,000 classified citations to American scientific literature, which is
between 11 and 12 per cent of the total work.
Millions of dollars are being spent each year in scientific investiga-
tion and many of the foremost men of the day are devoting their
entire time to such work. The results of their labors find publicity
through some scientific journal of which there are over 5,000 being
regularly indexed by the various regional bureaus, and over 500 in
the United States alone. In addition to these periodicals are hun-
dreds of books and pamphlets, all of which the International Cata-
logue aims to index in its yearly work.
The International Catalogue furnishes in condensed, accurate, and
permanent form a minutely classified index to all of these publica-
tions. It is necessary for each paper to be carefully studied by a
person competent to thoroughly understand the subject treated, as
the method of classification actually furnishes a digest of the con-
tents in addition to the usual bibliographisal data. The catalogue
is to science what the legal digest is to law.
32 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
During the past year 34,409 classified index cards of American
scientific literature were prepared and forwarded to London, as
compared with 28,528 during the year preceding. The publication
of the sixth annual issue was completed during the year and 9 of the
17 volumes of the seventh annual issue were received from the Central
Bureau and distributed to the subscribers in this country.
NECROLOGY.
OTIS TUFTON MASON.
It is with deep regret that I have to announce the death, on Novem-
ber 5, 1908, of one of our strong men, Prof. Otis T. Mason, who had
been associated with the Institution since 1873, first as a collaborator -~
in ethnology, next as curator of that branch, and finally as head
curator of the department of anthropology. I may say, indeed, that
this association and influence dates much farther back, when, at 12
years of age, in 1851, he began his education in Washington when
the activities of the Institution affected every intelligent citizen.
Professor Mason was born in 1888, so that his life has been almost
contemporaneous with the Smithsonian Institution, and he bears an
honorable share in its history. He says in his autobiography:
My first studies were in the culture of the eastern Mediterranean peoples,
which I followed persistently until the early seventies, when a chance acquaint-
ance with Professor Henry and Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution,
opened the Western Hemisphere to my mind and changed the current of my
life.
His agreeable qualities as a man, his earnestness in his work, and
his contagious enthusiasm render this loss a most severe one to the
Institution.
Respectfully submitted.
Cuartes D. Watcort, Secretary.
APPENDIX I.
REPORT ON THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.
Str: I have the honor to submit the following report on the operations of
the United States National Museum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909:
BUILDINGS.
Although it had been fully expected, as explained in the last report, that the
new building would be completed before the close of the year, delayed contracts
and other circumstances interfered so greatly with the progress of the work
that no part of the structure was in condition for occupancy at the end of
June. The entire stonework of the outer walls of the building, including the
porch, columns, and front of the south pavilion in which the main entrance
is located, was, however, finished, as were the roofs and skylights of the build-
ing generally. The placing of the slate on the dome of the rotunda and on the
adjacent roof of the south pavilion was under way, but the laying of the
extensive granite approaches, for which the stone has been delivered, had not
been begun.
Much remains to be done in the interior of the rotunda, but as it is the main
part of the building which is most urgently needed for the accommodation
of the collections and laboratories, it is there that the work has been most
energetically prosecuted. Except for some special items, such as metal doors,
transoms, etec., the construction of which will require several months, it is
expected that at least some parts of the building will be ready for use and
that the moving from the older buildings may be started before autumn.
It is interesting to mention that the building has already been made to
serve a commendable purpose as the meeting place of the Sixth International
Tuberculosis Congress, held in the early autumn of 1908. Being then in a very
unfinished condition, it was necessary to make special arrangements, authorized
by an act of Congress, for such partitions and other fittings as were required
for the accommodation of the several sections and for the display of the exten-
sive collections that were brought together. A large part of the first and second
floors as well as of the basement was given over to the congress, and while
the progress of construction on the building was thereby much retarded, the
delay may be regarded as fully sanctioned by the exceptionally important
nature of the event which occasioned it.
The reconstruction of the main roofs of the old Museum building was com-
pleted during the summer of 1908, when the slate covering of the rotunda was
replaced with tin. The use of slate on these roofs in the beginning had been
a mistake in view of their generally slight pitch and the relatively light charac-
ter of the supporting iron framework. ‘The old roofs had always leaked badly,
but up to the present time the new ones have shown no weakness of any kind,
and it is felt that they have been built in a proper and substantial manner.
Other important repairs interfered with the work of filling in the large arch-
ways between the halls of the old building, intended, as explained in previous
3°
34 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
reports, to provide against the spread of fire, though something was done in
this direction. A much-needed alteration in the arrangements and conveniences
of the photograph gallery was in progress at the end of the year.
Much work was done in the preparation and construction of furniture for
the new building, more especially for the storage rooms and laboratories, in
which it is important that fireproof material be employed to the greatest ex-
tent possible. There is already in use a large amount of wooden furniture of
modern and appropriate design which it would be extravagant to dispense with,
and it is therefore being sheathed with sheet steel to conform to the required
conditions.
In regard to new storage furniture, an effort is being made to obtain all
metal work, and in view of its recent reduction in cost, due to competition, it
now appears feasible to provide for the protection of the immense reserve col-
lections on a basis in keeping with the substantial character of the building.
There were on band at the close of the year 2,407 exhibition cases, 3,184 storage
eases, and 1,645 pieces of office and laboratory furniture.
The boiler and electrical plant installed in the new building, embodying the
latest improvements, is found to be of sufficient capacity for also heating and
lighting the older buildings, and, in the interest of economy, it has been de-
cided to make this one plant serve for all. Plans for carrying this arrangement
into effect were nearly completed at the close of the year, and it is expected
that the connections can be made before autumn. It will be necessary to con-
struct a small tunnel for carrying the pipes and wires from the new building
to the Smithsonian building, where they will enter the existing conduits. While
the new building will be heated by hot water, steam will be carried to the
older buildings, the latter being the medium for which their pipes and radiators
are now adapted.
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART.
By a third deed of gift, dated May 10, 1909, Mr. Charles L. Freer, of Detroit,
Mich., added to his large donation of American and oriental art the following
examples acquired since the transfer of the previous year, namely: Four oil
paintings and 1 pastel, by Dwight W. Tryon; 3 oil paintings and 1 pastel, by
Thomas W. Dewing; a portrait of ex-President Roosevelt, by J. Gari Melchers;
2 oil paintings, 1 water color, 4 drawings and sketches, 1 album of sketches,
and 8 etchings and dry points, by James McNeill Whistler; 4 oriental paintings;
247 pieces of oriental pottery; and 25 miscellaneous examples of oriental art.
Mr. William T. Evans, of New York, also continued to make important addi-
tions to his collection of the works of contemporary American artists, which,
at the close of the year, numbered 84 oil paintings received in Washington, rep-
resenting 58 artists. As the Corcoran Gallery of Art required for its own use
the space which has been occupied by the Evans pictures, the transfer of the
latter was arranged for in June and carried into effect during the first week
of July, 1909. The walls and screens of the picture gallery in the Museum
building were entirely given over to this collection, and the new installation
displays the paintings to much better advantage than the previous one. This
change, however, necessitated the removal of the paintings which have hitherto
been hanging in the gallery to temporary quarters in the Smithsonian building.
It has now become imperative to provide some place where the paintings be-
longing to the National Gallery of Art can be segregated, and since the fitting
up of the second story of the Smithsonian building has so far failed to secure
the approval of Congress, it has been decided to make temporary use of one of
the skylighted halls in the new Museum building. Its adaptation to this pur-
pose will be taken up early in the new fiscal year.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 35
It should be mentioned that the full-length portrait of Guizot, the French
statesman and writer, by G. P. A. Healy, belonging to the Government, has beep
recalled from the Corcoran Gallery of Art. An important addition to the
historical-portrait series is a full-length painting of Rear-Admiral George W.
Melville, U. S. Navy, by Sigismond de Ivanowski. This portrait was executed
on the order of a number of friends of the distinguished naval officer and pre-
sented through the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at their annual
meeting, held in Washington, in May, 1909.
ART TEXTILES.
The loan collection of art textiles and other objects begun in May, 1908, by
Mrs. James W. Pinchot, with the assistance of a number of ladies of Washing-
ton, has ‘received much attention, and its importance has been greatly increased
by many valuable additions. The limited amount of space which could be
allotted to this subject in the picture gallery tended to restrict the number of
contributions, but as soon as the removal of the paintings to another hall has
been effected the entire area of the present one will become available. The col-
lection is now contained in 24 cases, of which 9 are devoted to laces, 7 to other
art fabrics, 4 to porcelains, 2 to enamels, and 2 to fans. With these are also
exhibited numerous examples of silverware, jewelry, and wood and ivory
carving. There have been 22 contributors since the last report. The assemblage
of lace constitutes the most noteworthy part of the collection, being exceeded
in variety and value only by the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
of New York and the Boston Museum of the Fine Arts. This art movement, so
auspiciously inaugurated and so earnestly supported, if it be sedulously fol-
lowed up, is certain to prove an important factor in the future history of the
National Museum. It was started with the definite purpose of stimulating the
formation of a permanent exhibit, which should be valued not only on account
of its attractiveness and historical interest, but more especially as furnishing
motives and designs which may help to elevate the standard of art workman-
ship in this country. Its growth has been exceptional, and it is hoped that its
intent will be fulfilled.
ADDITIONS TO THH COLLECTIONS.
The total number of accessions to the Museum during the year was 1,358,
comprising 254,787 specimens, distributed among the three departments, as fol-
lows: Anthropology, 26,400; biology, 216,324; and geology, 12,063.
Department of Anthropology.—The most important contribution in ethnology
consisted of about 500 objects illustrating the handiwork and domestic arts of
the natives of southwestern Borneo, collected and presented by Dr. W. L.
Abbott, to whom the Museum was already indebted for several large gifts of a
Similar character from the Malaysian region. Next should be mentioned a
valuable collection obtained by Dr. AleS Hrdlicka in the course of his investiga-
tions relative to tuberculosis among the Indians of the southwestern United
States, and many objects from the northern coast of Alaska, donated by Mr.
E. de K. Leffingwell, who is conducting extensive explorations in that region.
Ethnological material was also received from the Philippine Islands, Africa,
and Central and South America.
Most noteworthy among the additions in prehistoric archeology were the
collections resulting from the work of Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, in the excavations and repairs, conducted first at the
Casa Grande ruins in Arizona, under a special appropriation by Congress to
the Smithsonian Institution, and, later, at the Spruce Tree House in the Mesa
36 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Verde National Park, Colo., under authority from the Department of the In-
terior. The number of objects forwarded to Washington from the former
locality was 662 and from the latter 501. In these important undertakings,
justified by the great historical and scientific significance of the ruins, every-
thing that formed an integral part of the structures or could be safely left at
the sites was allowed to remain, only such objects being taken away as would
tend to attract looting or would be likely to fall into the hands of unwarranted
collectors.
The division of historic archeology was enriched by a manuscript of the
Mahabarata, the great epic of India, containing 90,000 couplets, written in
Sanscrit characters on palm leaves, a gift from the learned Rajah Sir Sourindro
Mohun Tagore. Several interesting additions were made to the very valuable
loan collection of Jewish ceremonial objects by the generous friend of ie
Museum, Haidji Hphriam Benguiat, of New York.
The collections of physical anthropology, which are not restricted to the
human race, but also extend to other groups of the higher vertebrates, received
important additions from many widely separated regions. Mention should
especially be made of the generous action by the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
of New York City, in allowing the National Museum to share, without expense,
in the results of its Egyptian excavations, which are in charge of Prof. Albert
M. Lythgoe. ‘The skeletal remains of the ancient Egyptians found in the tombs
uneovered by the explorations, and hitherto not generally preserved, are now
being saved and in greater part turned over to the National Museum, where
their study should result in interesting contributions on the physcial character-
istics of these peoples. A large number of remains were received during the
year, and, on the invitation of the Metropolitan Museum, Doctor Hrdli¢ka,
assistant curator in charge of these collections, had the opportunity of visiting
Hgypt last winter for the purpose of instructing the excavators as to the best
methods of preserving and packing the remains for shipment and of making
studies on the spot.
The division of technology received numerous accessions, including many
objects transferred from the Patent Office. The subjects principally represented
were firearms (of which the Museum collection is now the finest in the coun-
try), electrical devices, calculating machines, printing presses, the early history
of the aeroplane, and watch movements.
Two gifts of exceptional beauty and value from the Government of China
were added to the collections in ceramics. One was a celadon vase of large
size and graceful shape, the other one of the famous peachblow vases from the
imperial treasure house at Mukden. :
To each of the divisions of graphic arts and musical instruments a few addi-
tions were made. Plans were begun for broadening and enlarging the collec-
tions of medicine so as to meet the requirements of the recent extensive inves-
tigations into this subject, and they will be carried out as soon as additional
space becomes available.
Among many gifts and loans to the division of history, mention should be
made of a number of valuable presents to the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox by the
Czar of Russia during his mission to that country in 1866, and bequeathed to
the Museum by his widow;; also interesting relics of the Jeannette arctic expedi-
tion of 1879-1881, and memorials of Gen. Judson Kilpatrick, U. S. Army,
and Commander Harry H. Hosley, U. S. Navy.
Department of Biology.—The largest amount of zoological material from any
single source was derived from the Bureau of Fisheries, and especially from
the explorations of the steamer Albatross among the Philippine Islands, in
which Dr. Paul Bartsch, assistant curator of mollusks, participated for about
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. a
a year, being detailed as a member of the scientific staff of that vessel. A
part of the collections obtained on this expedition, including over 100,000 speci-
mens of mollusks and other groups of marine invertebrates, was transferred
directly to the Museum for working up. Doctor Bartsch was also enabled
to make some important collections of birds and reptiles. The same bureau
likewise turned over to the Museum other important collections of marine
invertebrates and fishes, chiefly from explorations in various parts of the
Pacific Ocean.
Among important gifts were about 1,200 Huropean mammals presented by
Mr. Oldfield Thomas, of the British Museum, and Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, jr.;
about 700 mammals and 200 birds collected in Borneo by Dr. W. L. Abboit;
about 600 specimens, mainly of invertebrate animals obtained in Labrador, by
Mr. Owen Bryant; and a large collection of Peruvian reptiles, mollusks, crusta-
ceans, and sponges from the Peruvian Government. The large collection
of birds secured during the expedition of Mr. Robert Ridgway to Costa Rica
was received in the summer of 1908. Besides those mentioned above the prin-
cipal accessions of reptiles came from the Philippines and Panama, and of
fishes from New South Wales and Florida.
The division of insects received over 32,000 specimens, including several
accessions of special value. Mr. William Schaus added to his previous note-
worthy donations about 16,000 specimens of Lepidoptera from Costa Rica and
other tropical countries. Mr. H. L. Viereck, of the Bureau of Entomology, and
Mr. J. C. Crawford, of the National Museum, presented their private collec-
tions of Hymenoptera, amounting to over 5,000 specimens in all. Lord Wal-
singham and Mr. F. D. Codman contributed many Central American species
described in the Biologia Centrali Americana. The balance of the accessions
consisted mainly of transfers from the Department of Agriculture, and repre-
sented many parts of the United States.
The additions to the collections of mollusks and other marine invertebrates
were mainly derived from the explorations of the Bureau of Fisheries, as else-
where described. A notable gift from the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen,
Denmark, consisted of several hundred crabs from the Gulf of Siam, including
20 genera and 66 species new to the Museum.
The herbarium received extensive collections, coming mostly from Mexico,
New Mexico, Oregon, and the Philippines.
Department of Geology.—Nine series of rock specimens, the results of field
work in as many parts of the United States, were transferred by the Geological
Survey. In invertebrate paleontology the more noteworthy additions were a
large series of Cambrian fossils from the Rocky Mountain region, resulting
from the explorations of Secretary Walcott during the summer of 1908; a large
collection of Paleozoic fossils from the Appalachian Valley and central Ten-
nessee, made by the curator of the division; and a collection of Tertiary fossils
from the Coalinga district, California, received from the Geological Survey. A
large amount of material from the Fort Union beds of Sweet Grass County,
Mont., representing many new and little known mammalian species, constituted
the principal accession in vertebrate paleontology.
CARB AND PRESERVATION OF COLLECTIONS.
The collections have been maintained in good condition notwithstanding the
overcrowding in all the divisions. Much of the routine work was planned with
the view of placing the collections in such shape as to permit of their removal
to the new building in systematic order, but the delay in the completion of
the building has made this part of the task especially difficult. With the assur-
38 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ance that the new structure would be finished during the winter or spring of
1909, no appropriation was requested or obtained for continuing the occupancy
of the rented buildings, in which, for many years, large quantities of museum
specimens and other property have been housed. As these buildings had to be
surrendered at the end of the year it became necessary to transfer nearly all of
this material in bulk to the new building, where it occupies a large part of one
of the exhibition floors. Under more favorable circumstances it would have
been unpacked and assorted beforehand.
AS good progress was made in the sorting, classifying, labeling, and cata-
loguing of the accessions of the year as was possible under the adverse condi-
tions and with the relatively small staff of experts attached to the Museum.
The examination of the collections resulting in many important scientific con-
tributions, in which a number of specialists connected with other establishments
have participated.
The exhibition collections have been added to and changed only in minor
ways, principally in connection with the loan collection of art textiles, tech-
nology, history, and historic archeology.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Of duplicate material, chiefly natural history, separated from the collections
in the course of recent studies, over 9,000 specimens arranged in classified sets
for educational purposes were distributed to many high-grade schools and
colleges throughout the country. About 10,000 duplicates were used in making
exchanges with museums and other scientific establishments, from which an
equivalent in new material has been or will be received. To specialists in
different fields connected with other institutions, both at home and abroad,
about 19,000 specimens were sent for examination, all of which, except some
of the duplicates, will be returned to the Museum. A large part of the work
on these loan collections is being carried on directly in the interest of the Na-
tional Museum.
The number of visitors to the public halls was a little less than a quarter of
a million, which is about the annual average. This is in striking contrast with
the records of Jarge museums in other places, where the hours of opening are
extended to evenings and Sundays for the benefit of the working people. While
the additional cost involved in the extra. hours of heating and the employment
of a few more watchmen would be inconsiderable, the means at the disposal of
the museum have never been quite sufficient to accomplish this worthy purpose.
It is hoped that this matter may be satisfactorily adjusted in connection with
the- new building.
The publications issued by the Museum consisted of the annual report for the
year ended June 30, 1908; volumes 34 and 385 and part of volume 36 of the
Proceedings; 3 bulletins and parts of 2 other bulletins. They comprised
91 separate papers and memoirs, all of which except the administrative report
were descriptive of Museum collections. In addition, a number of papers of the
same character were printed in the Quarterly Issue of the Miscellaneous Col-
lections of the Smithsonian Institution and elsewhere.
The additions to the library, which is restricted to the subjects covered by
the activities of the Museum, consisted of 2,680 books, 3,671 pamphlets, and 227
parts of volumes, which increased the total contents of the library to 36,244
volumes and 56,010 unbound papers. The annual appropriation of $2,000 for
the purchase of books, periodicals, and pamphlets required for the classification
of collections, is wholly inadequate to meet the needs of this work, and should
be at least doubled. For a large part of its increase the library is dependent
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 39
upon gifts and exchanges, but even these means combined with the purchase
fund are not nearly sufficient to satisfy the important demands in this direction.
In conjunction with the Institution, the Museum is participating extensively
in the government exhibit at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacifie Exposition at Seattle,
which opened on June 1 and will close on October 16. The general subject
which, in accordance with the law, the Institution and Museum were directed
to illustrate is that part of the national history of the United States which re-
lates to Alaska, the Philippine Islands, and that section of the country lying
west of the Rocky Mountains. Samoa and Guam have also been included. The
collections assembled for this purpose, obtained partly from original sources
and in part selected from the Museum exhibits, consist of models, pictures, and
actual objects, representing the peoples, conditions, etc., from prehistoric to
modern times. The exhibit is interesting and instructive and has been attrac-
tively arranged.
The Museum, in conjunction with the Bureau of American Ethnology, also
sent to the International Photographic Exhibition at Dresden, Germany, a
series of enlarged photographic prints and transparencies covering a variety of
subjects, but designed to illustrate the perfection to which the art of photog-
raphy has attained in this country in the portrayal of scientific subjects.
Respectfully submitted.
RICHARD RATHBUN,
Assistant Secretary in charge of U. S. National Museum.
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
45745°—sm 1909——4
APPENDIX II.
REPORT ON THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY.
Sir: The operations of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the fiscal
year ended June 30, 1909, conducted in accordance with the act of Congress
making provision for continuing researches relating to the American Indians,
under direction of the Smithsonian Institution, were carried forward in con-
formity with the plan of operations approved by the Secretary June 18, 1908.
As in previous years, the systematic ethnologiec work of the bureau was in-
trusted mainly to the regular scientific staff, which comprises eight members.
As this force is not large enough to give adequate attention to more than a
limited portion of the great field of research afforded by the hundreds of
Indian tribes, the deficiency was supplied in a measure by enlisting the aid of
other specialists in various branches of ethnologic work. By this means the
bureau was able to extend its researches in several directions at a compara-
tively modest outlay.
The work of the bureau for the year comprised: (A) The continuation of
various unfinished researches among the Indian tribes and (B) the summar-
izing for publication of available data from all sources.
(A) The unfinished researches were in continuation of systematic investiga-
tions already in hand and were essential to a reasonable rounding out of the
work among the tribes. These researches were distributed as follows:
Regular force: Matilda Coxe Stevenson, the Pueblo tribes; James Mooney, -
the Great Plains tribes; J. N. B. Hewitt, the Iroquoian tribes; J. R. Swanton,
the Southern tribes; F. W. Hodge, literary researches for the Handbook of the
Indians; J. W. Fewkes, archeology of Southwestern tribes; W. H. Holmes,
technology of the tribes; Cyrus Thomas, bibliography of Hawaii.
Collaborators: Franz Boas and eight assistants, the languages of the tribes;
AleS Hrdlitka, the physical anthropology of the tribes; Frances Densmore,
ceremony and songs of the Ojibwa tribes; J. P. Dunn, linguistics of the Algon-
quian tribes of the Middle West; N. B. Emerson, the Hawaiians; H. M. Ballou,
the Hawaiians; H. EH. Bolton, the tribes of Texas; J. P. Reagan, Northwest
Coast, tribes; Alice C. Fletcher, the Omaha tribe; Francis La Flesche, the
Omaha tribe; W. F. Gerard, etymology of Indian names.
(B) The summarizing of the materials now available relating to the tribes
was initiated by the preparation of the Handbook of the Indians, which assumes
to cover the whole ground in brief articles arranged in alphabetical order.
Its preparation has led to a clearer understanding of the work done and to be
done, and the researches now in hand contemplate the preparation of a series
of handbooks, each to be devoted to a full presentation of a single branch of
the subject, as follows:
(a) Handbook of the Tribes: History, distribution, settlements, population,
ete., of each stock, tribe, and minor group. Preliminary assemblage of the
data is embraced in the present Handbook of American Indians, of which Part
I is published and Part II almost ready. ;
(6) Handbook of Languages: Volume I now in press, Volume II in prepa-
ration. As several hundred languages are to be considered, a number of years
will be required to complete the work.
40
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 41
(c) Handbook of Race History: Physical and mental characters, physiology,
pathology, medicine, etc. Researches in hand, but requiring extensive addi-
tional investigation.
(d) Handbook of Social Systems: Organization and customs of society, the
family, clan, tribe, confederacy, government, etc. A large body of material is
already in hand, but much additional research is necessary.
(e) Handbook of Religions: Religious customs, rites and ceremonies, folk-
lore, etc. The large body of data in hand requires much elaboration, with
additional research.
(f) Handbook of Technology: Arts, industries, implements, utensils, manu-
factures, building, hunting, fishing, ete.
(g) Handbook of the Hsthetic Arts: Painting, sculpture, ornaments, music,
drama, etc.
(h) Handbook of Sign Language.
(i) Handbook of Pictography.
(j) Handbook of Treaties and Land Cessions,
(k) Handbook of Games and Amusements.
(1) Handbook of Burial Customs.
(m) Handbook of Economics: Food resources, culinary arts, medicinal re-
sources, etc.
(n) Handbook of Archseology. The extensive researches of past years need
to be supplemented by much additional exploration.
(0) Handbook of Geographical Names.
(p) Handbook of Hawaii. Researches initiated by the preparation of a bib-
liography of 6,200 titles now nearly ready and a work on mythology now in
press.
(q) Bibliographies.
(vr) Dictionaries.
(s) Grammars.
(t) Portfolios of portraits, ete.
The body of data in hand relating to the Indians probably surpasses that
heretofore obtained relating to any primitive people, but still falls short of the
rounding out that should characterize the work of the American nation, dealing
as it does with a race and a culture which are rapidly disappearing.
During the year researches were carried on in Arizona, New Mexico, Col-
orado, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, South Carolina, Indiana, and Oregon, and
were incidentally extended to the Argentine Republic, Chile, Bolivia, Peru,
California, Washington, and British Columbia.
The chief devoted his time while in the office to the administrative work of
the bureau, giving the necessary attention to his duties as curator of the Section
of Prehistoric Archeology and to the National Gallery of Art in the National
Museum. During the year considerable progress was made in the preparation
of a work already well advanced, on the stone implements of North America.
Having been designated by the Department of State to represent the Smith-
sonian Institution at the First Pan-American Scientific Congress, held at San-
tiago, Chile (at which he represented also the George Washington University),
on October 29 the chief took passage on the Hamburg-American steamer
Amerika for England, sailing thence by way of Vigo, Spain, and Lisbon, Portu-
gal, to Buenos Aires. After spending ten days in the Argentine capital with
members of the delegation, making official visits and pursuing studies in va-
rious public institutions, he traversed the pampean country by rail to Mendoza,
and thence up the Mendoza River to Las Cuevas at the base of the cumbre
or crest of the Andes. Taking coach at this point he crossed to the Chilean
42 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
side and soon reached Santiago. The three weeks spent in Santiago were taken
up largely with affairs of the delegation, including official duties and attend-
ance on meetings of the Congress. The section of the natural sciences, includ- —
ing anthropology, met daily, and on December 28 the chief acted as chairman
of the section. His contribution to the programme of the congress was a
paper on “ The peopling of America,” an abstract of which follows:
Discussion of the problem of the origin of the American aborigines involves
consideration of several important questions, as follows:
(1) Evolution of the human species from lower forms.
(2) Geographical location of the original home of the race.
(8) Dispersal to the different land areas of the globe.
(4) Differentiation of the subraces physically and culturally.
(5) Chronology of the racial history.
In the present state of our knowledge we can not assume to dispose finally
of these several questions. It is most important, however, that the whole sub-
ject should be passed under review at frequent intervals, and the data as-
sembled, classified, and critically examined. The writer’s views, formulated
after careful consideration of the various phases of the subject presented, con-
sidering more especially the North American evidence, are expressed in the
following summary of probabilities:
(1) That the human family is monogenetic; that is to say, the present sub-
races have been derived by differentiation from a common stock.
(2) That the precursor—that is to say, man before he reached the human
status—occupied a limited area.
(3) That this area was tropical or subtropical and was situated in the Old
World rather than in the New.
(4) That multiplication of numbers led to wide distribution, and that isola-
tion on distinct land areas finally led to the differentiation of the subraces.
(5) That the separation into distinct groups began at an early period, but
not until after the typical human characters had been developed.
(6) That the human characters were acquired in Tertiary time, and that
dissemination extended to distant continents, mainly in Quaternary time.
(7) That the pioneers of the present American race belonged to the well-
differentiated Asiatic subrace and that they reached America by way of Bering
Strait. :
(8) That the early migrations included few individuals and occurred at
widely separated periods; that the movements were slow and by means of the
ice bridge in winter or by skin boats in summer.
(9) That the culture of the immigrants in all cases was very primitive, not
rising above the hunter-fisher stage.
(10) That successive migrations involved numerous distinct groups or tribes,
so that the American race is a composite of diversified Asiatic elements more
or less completely amalgamated.
(11) That the result was a new people and a new culture, essentially
American.
(12) That the Eskimo—forming a widely distributed ethnic group occupying
the northern shores of both continents—acquired their physical characteristics
and peculiar culture under the influence of Arctic conditions, and that they are
the descendants of marginal tribes early forced to the northward from southern
Eurasian sources of population. Y
(18) That occasional accessions of population may have resulted from the
accidental arrival of voyagers from other lands, though not in numbers large
enough to affect the race perceptibly.
(14) That in the present period prior to the Columbian discovery occasional
voyagers from southern Asiatic culture centers or from Japan or China may
have reached American shores and left an impress on the culture of middle
America. ; '
(15) That the peopling of America with the present race was accomplished
in late Glacial or post-Glacial time rather than in early Glacial or Tertiary
time.
(16) That much of the recorded geological evidence of great human antiquity
in America is unreliable and requires critical revision.
(17) That the aboriginal peoples will soon disappear as the result of inter-
minglings with other races and failure to accommodate themselves to new con-
ditions; that America will be fully occupied by a cosmopolitan people embody-
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 43
ing the best elements of every civilization—a race of superior capacity and
force, destined in its full fruition to surpass all others in the grandeur of its
achievements; and that the activities of the present and of future Pan-Ameri-
ean scientific congresses will contribute a worthy share in the accomplishment
of this grand result.
At the closing session of the congress the chief was made a member of a com-
mittee of five to arrange for the next meeting of the congress, to be held in
Washington, D. C., in October, 1912.
While in Santiago much attention was given to the national museum, which
contains a great deal of material illustrating the ethnology and archeology of
Chile, and a number of private collections, rich chiefly in Peruvian antiquities,
were visited.
The homeward trip from Santiago included excursions to Bolivia, where the
small national museum was visited and where studies were made of the ruined
city of Tiahuanaco; to Peru, where a brief period was devoted to a study of
the rich collections of the national museum; and to Panama for a short stay.
Washington was reached on February 11, and reports were then prepared for
the institutions which the chief represented as delegate and for publication in
scientific journals.
The services of the chief were enlisted during the early months of the year
in the preparation of the Institution’s exhibit to illustrate the history of the
Pacific Coast States and the Pacific islands at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposi-
tion at Seattle. Before leaving for South America in October he designed a
number of lay-figure family groups, which were elaborated by the sculptor
during the winter months; and on his return from the South he attended to the
completion of these groups and to the construction of a model of the Santa Bar-
bara mission establishment, California, for the exposition. On May 4 he pro-
ceeded to Seattle to assist in setting up the exhibits, stopping en route to select
a site on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado suitable for the
erection of the monument to the late Maj. J. W. Powell recently provided for by
the Congress; at Los Angeles, to examine the collections in the Southwestern
Museum; at Santa Barbara, to study the plan of the mission; and at San
Francisco, to visit the museum of the University of California. While in
Seattle visits were made to Tacoma, Wash., and to Victoria, British Columbia,
for the purpose of examining collections of ethnological and archeological
material preserved in these places. The chief returned to Washingéon on
June 11.
During the year the chief made studies of a more or less elaborate nature in
the following museums:
Blackmore Museum, Salisbury, England.
University of La Plata Museum, Argentine Republic.
Faculty of Philosophy and Letters Museum, Buenos Aires, Argentine
Republic.
National Museum, Buenos Aires.
National Museum, Santiago, Chile.
National Museum, La Paz, Bolivia.
National Museum, Lima, Peru.
California University Museum, San Francisco.
_ Southwestern Museum, Los Angeles.
Ferry Museum (Tozier collection), Tacoma, Wash.
University of Washington Museum, Seattle, Wash.
Provincial Museum, Victoria, British Columbia.
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
Academy of Sciences Museum, Philadelphia.
44 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Early in the year the bureau was urged by the officers of the Mississippi
Valley Historical Association to contribute data relating to the history of the
Indian tribes of the region for the meeting of the association convened in
St. Louis June 15, 1909. ‘The chief contributed a paper entitled ““ Remarks on
the aboriginal history of the Mississippi Valley;” and Mr. James Mooney and
Dr. John R. Swanton were designated to attend the meeting and present papers
dealing with kindred subjects.
Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, ethnologist, remained in the field, in New Mexico,
during the entire year. Having established headquarters at Espafiola, she
devoted her time largely to investigations among the local Pueblo tribes, inter-
rupting the work for short periods to record valuable data communicated by
visiting members of the Zufi tribe. Her researches included detailed studies
of the history, social organization and customs, religion and religious prac- -
tices, and arts and industries of the Santa Clara and San Ildefonso tribes; and
progress was made in the comparative study of these varied subjects among the
numerous pueblos.
Aside from the more systematic ethnological work, Mrs. Stevenson gave much
attention to her unfinished papers on “The preparation of cotton, yucca, and
wool for the loom by the New Mexican tribes” and on the ‘“‘ Medicinal and food
plants used by the Zuni Indians.”
Mr. EF. W. Hodge, ethnologist, was engaged chiefly in continuing the editorial
work on Part 2 of the Handbook of American Indians, carrying along the proof
reading toward the close of the alphabet and writing and inserting many ar-
ticles on lesser subjects that it had been found essential to include. In this
work he had the assistance especially of Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, who prepared
articles pertaining chiefly to the Iroquois tribes; of Mr. William R. Gerard, of
New York, who revised and rewrote numerous articles involving the etymology
of Indian terms; and of Dr. Herbert H. Bolton, of the University of Texas,
who continued to supply, to the end of the alphabet, articles relating to the
tribes of Texas. The work of completing the second part of the Handbook
of American Indians did not proceed as rapidly as was hoped at the beginning
of the year, owing to the fact that the burden of the administrative work of
the bureau devolved upon Mr. Hodge when the chief was called to South
America and later to the Seattle Exposition, as previously mentioned. In the
handbook work Mr. Hodge had the clerical assistance of Mrs. Frances Nichols.
It is now expected that Part 2 will be ready for distribution in the near
future. Mr. Hodge represented the bureau on the Smithsonian advisory com-
mittee on printing and publication, and served also as a member of the sub-
committee on bibliographical citations. In addition he prepared answers to
many inquiries from correspondents, oftentimes requiring considerable research.
Dr. Cyrus Thomas, ethnologist, devoted his time during the year to work
on the catalogue of books and papers relating to the Hawaiian Islands. This
catalogue, in the preparation of which Prof. H. M. Ballou, of Boston, Mass.,
is joint author, has grown to an extent not anticipated at the outset. During
the last and next preceding fiscal years Professor Ballou examined, for this
purpose, the libraries of Boston and other cities of New England, and also
of New York. He also visited Hawaii, where he made a careful examination
of the public and private libraries of Honolulu, obtaining thereby considerable
early mission and official material of a bibliographical nature not found else-
where. During the same period Doctor Thomas visited Boston and Worcester
twice, searching the libraries chiefly along special lines to which Professor
Ballou had not given exhaustive attention; he also devoted considerable time
to an examination of the libraries of Washington. In addition to these
researches considerable bibliographical material has been obtained by corre-
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 45
spondence. As a result of this work the number of titles in the catalogue
(which is now about finished) reaches some 6,200—more than eight times the
number in the largest catalogue in the same field hitherto published. Hon.
George R. Carter, former governor of the Territory of Hawaii, has given much
encouragement to this work; in fact, with Professor Ballou, he formed the
leading spirit in its inception, though the beginning of the work for the bureau
was undertaken quite independently. Doctor Thomas has appended a subject
or cross-reference catalogue of about 38,200 titles, which is so nearly complete
that it is hoped the entire work will be submitted for publication before the
end of August, 1909. In addition to this work Doctor Thomas assisted to some
extent in the preparation of Part 2 of the Handbook of American Indians, and
attended to such official correspondence as was referred to him.
Mr. James Mooney, ethnologist, during the entire year was occupied chiefly
in an investigation of the subject of the Indian population north of Mexico at
the period of first disturbance and occupancy of the country by the whites.
A preliminary study was condensed for introduction into Part 2 of the Hand-
book of the Indians. The final work is expected to appear as a bulletin of
the bureau. The investigation is being carried out in detail for each well-
defined geographic section, and for each tribe or tribal group separately, from
the earliest period to the present, with careful sifting of authorities and con-
sideration of Indian habits of living. No such detailed and extended study
of the subject has ever before been attempted, and the result must prove of
interest and importance. The usual share of attention was given also through-
out the year to the preparation and proof reading of various articles for the
Handbook of the Indians and to routine correspondence. On request of the
Mississippi Valley Historical Association, Mr. Mooney, together with Doctor
Swanton, attended the meeting of that body at St. Louis, June 17-19, as repre-
sentatives of the bureau, and presented papers on the ethnology of the central
region.
During the year Dr. John R. Swanton, ethnologist, was engaged as follows:
The months of October, November, and December, 1908, were spent in Okla-
homa, Texas, and Louisiana. In Oklahoma the Natchez linguistic material
collected by Gallatin, Pike, Brinton, and Gatschet was gone over with one of
the four surviving speakers of the Natchez language, and about fifty pages of
text were recorded. In Texas the Alibamu Indians were visited in an en-
deavor, partially successful, to determine the relationship of the Pascagoula
tribe, formerly resident near them. In Louisiana the linguistic material col-
lected by Gatschet and Duralde was gone over with some of the surviving
Attacapa, Chitimacha, and Tunica. On the way to Washington Doctor Swan-
ton visited Columbia, S. C., to examine the early archives of that State. The
most important result of the expedition, however, was the discovery at Marks-
ville, La., of a woman who remembers a large amount of the Ofo language
formerly spoken on Yazoo River. As large a vocabulary of this language as
possible was recorded.
In the office Doctor Swanton completed the proof reading of his work “ Tlin-
git myths and texts,’ which was ready for the press at the close of the year.
He completed also a bulletin on ‘The Indian tribes of the lower Mississippi
Valley and northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico,” and read proofs of the same.
Additional work was accomplished as follows: The editing of the late J. O.
Dorsey’s material on the Biloxi language (in press), and the proof reading of
the same; the copying of texts collected during the field expedition above
referred to, and incorporating the linguistic material then obtained with the
material previously collected in the Natchez, Attacapa, Chitimacha, and Tunica
languages, and the copying on cards of the Ofo vocabulary; the reading of
46 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
galley proofs of sketches of the grammar of the Haida and the Tlingit for
the Handbook of Indian Languages; assistance rendered Doctor Thomas in
preparing for publication his bulletin on the languages of Mexico and Central
America, and work incidental to the preparation for publication of Byington’s
Choctaw Dictionary (in press).
Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, was occupied in the office during the entire
year. For a large portion of the time he was engaged in amending and
transcribing the Onondaga text which, with a long supplement, is to form
Part II of his Iroquoian Cosmology, and in supplying an interlinear rendering
and a free translation of the text. From his researches in connection with the
preparation of articles for the Handbook of the American Indians he arrived
at facts which greatly modify hitherto accepted views regarding the location
and interrelations of the tribes around lakes Huron and Michigan. In this
connection he pursued extended studies of the early history of the Potawatomi,
Mascoutens, Kickapoo, Sauk, Foxes, Miami, and the “ Nation de la Fourche,”
or ‘Tribe of the Fork,” in an effort to identify these tribes with those known
to the early Hurons by names which occur in the writings of Champlain,
Sagard, and the Jesuit Fathers. The expulsion of the Potawatomi, Sauk,
Foxes, and the Tribe of the Fork from their earliest known habitat in Michigan
by the Neutrals and their Ottawa allies—not by the Iroquois, as commonly
asserted—was determined, and the most probable course of their retreat fixed.
Similar research was conducted among early records to determine as far as
possible the identity of the tribes whose names are recorded on the Dutch
“Carte Figurative” of 1614, which represents them as living along the middle
and upper Susquehanna River and its western affluents. As these names were
erroneously identified as Spanish in origin, and as such adopted without ques-
tion, much confusion and many inaccuracies have arisen in recent historical
works.
Mr. Hewitt continued the collection and elaboration of linguistic data for the
sketch of Iroquois grammar as exemplified in the Onondaga and the Mohawk,
with parallel illustrative examples from the Seneca, Cayuga, and Tuscarora.
He also partially rewrote the articles “Seneca” and “Sauk” for the Hand-
book of American Indians, and endeavored, so far as was feasible, to incorporate
in the remaining galley proofs of this work the results of his later researches.
Mr. Hewitt was also called on to prepare data of an ethnologic nature for
official correspondence.
At the beginning of the year Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, ethnologist, was in the
field, having just completed the excavation and repair of the cliff ruin known
as the “ Spruce-tree House,” in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Before
the close of July he returned to Washington and commenced the preparation of
a report on this work, and undertook to complete the reports of unfinished
researches of previous years. During his stay in Washington his services were
enlisted in the building of a number of large models of the ruins for the Alaska-
Yukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle and in supervising the painting of pano-
ramic views of the Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park for the same
purpose.
In June Doctor Fewkes again took up his work among the Mesa Verde ruins,
and by the close of the year had made excellent progress in uncovering and
reenforcing the crumbling walls of Cliff Palace, the greatest of the ancient
ruins of its kind in the arid country.
The funds for the actual work of excavation and repair of these ruins were
furnished by the Department of the Interior, which has control of the park.
Being the essential feature of the park, it is most fortunate that these impor-
tant and interesting ruins are now receiving adequate care and protection,
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 47
since in recent years the progress of destructive agencies, especially the activi-
ties of relic hunters, has been very rapid.
SPECIAL RESEARCHES.
As in former years, a number of collaborators were engaged in conducting
researches of a special nature in various fields. Dr. Franz Boas, honorary
philologist of the bureau, continued his labors on the Handbook of Languages,
assisted by a number of students. Prominent among these is Dr. Leo J.
Frachtenberg, who at the close of the year was engaged in studying the lan-
guage of the Siletz tribe on its reservation in Oregon. Volume I of the Hand-
book of Languages is now in press, and the work of Doctor Boas for the year
included the proof reading of this volume as well as the preparation. of the
text of Volume II.
Miss Frances Densmore continued her researches relating to the music of
the Chippewa, and a paper dealing with this subject was submitted for pub-
lication as Bulletin 45. A number of valuable phonographic records were
obtained.
Mr. J. P. Dunn, who was assigned the linguistic work among the western
Algonquian tribes left unfinished by the late Doctor Gatschet, continued the
study of the Miami language among tribal remnants in Indiana and Oklahoma,
and submitted a number of preliminary papers,
COLLECTIONS.
The collections acquired by the bureau and transferred to the National Mu-
seum during the year comprise fifteen accessions, the more important being as
follows:
Collection of West Indian antiquities, purchased from C. W. Branch, St.
Vincent, British West Indies.
Indian relics from Moosehead Lake, Maine, presented by Mr. J. D. McQuire.
Cache of flaked stone objects from Moosehead Lake, Maine, purchased from
T. Wilson.
Collection of bones, pottery fragments, ete., obtained by Mr. J. D. McGuire
and Dr. AleS Hrdlitka at Piscataway, Md.
Archeological objects collected by Dr. J. W. Fewkes, ethnologist, during
the excavation and repair of Spruce-tree House in the Mesa Verde National
Park, Colorado.
Pottery fragments from Coden, Ala.
Stone implements from Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, and an earthenware vessel
from Nazco, Peru, collected by Mr. W. H. Holmes.
Fragments of earthenware of the variety known as “salt vessels,” from
the vicinity of Shawneetown, Ill., presented by Mr. R. Moore, of Equality, M1.
Ethnologica of the Chitimacha Indians, collected by Dr. John R. Swanton.
PUBLICATIONS.
The editorial work remained in charge of Mr. J. G. Gurley, who for a short
period had the assistance of Mr. Stanley Searles.
Work on the publications of the bureau during the fiscal year may be briefly
summarized as follows: The proof reading of the Twenty-sixth Annual Report
and of Bulletin 34 was completed, and these publications were issued. The
Twenty-seventh Annual Report and Bulletins 39, 41, 42, 48, 46, and 47 were
prepared for and submitted to the Government Printing Office. Of these at
the close of the year Bulletin 42 was issued, while Bulletins 39 and 41, also
Bulletin 38 (the proof reading of which occupied much time during the year),
were substantially ready for the bindery. The Twenty-seventh Annual and Bul-
letin 43 were in galley form, and considerable progress had been made in the
48 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
composition of Bulletins 46 and 47. The preparation of nearly all the manu-
script of Bulletin 40, Part I, was finished, and most of the volume was in type.
At the close of the year manuscripts duly approved for publication as bu-
reau bulletins were on hand, as follows:
Bulletin 37 (partially edited). Antiquities of central and southeastern Mis-
souri, by Gerard Fowke.
Bulletin 44 (partially edited). Linguistic families of Mexico and Central
America, by Cyrus Thomas, assisted by John R. Swanton.
Bulletin 45. Chippewa music, by Frances Densmore.
The distribution of publications continued as in former years. The Twenty-
sixth Annual Report was issued in July, and Bulletin 34 in December. During
the year 1,676 copies each of the Twenty-sixth Annual Report and Bulletin 34
were sent to regular recipients, and 3,000 volumes and pamphlets were trans-
mitted in response to special requests, presented largely by Members of Con-
gress. The number of requests for the bureau’s publications greatly exceeded
those received during any previous year.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
The preparation of illustrations continued in charge of Mr. De Lancey Gill,
with Mr. Henry Walther as assistant. Illustrative material for six bulletins
and one annual report was completed during the year; of this material 498
illustrations were photographic prints and 77 were drawings. Proofs of the
illustrations of three bulletins were examined and approved. Portrait nega-
tives of 22 visiting Indian delegations to the number of 196 were made. ‘The
total output of the photographic laboratory was as follows: New negatives, 473 ;
films exposed in the field and developed in the office, 454; photographic prints,
3,498.
LIBRARY.
The library continued in charge of Miss Ella Leary, librarian. During the
year 1,459 volumes and about 700 pamphlets were received and catalogued, and
about 2,000 serials, chiefly the publications of learned societies, were received
and recorded. As the law now permits the binding of miscellaneous publica-
tions belonging to the library at the expense of the allotment for general print-
ing and binding, it was found possible to bind a much larger number of vol-
umes than in previous years, and thus to save many valuable works that were
threatened with destruction. During the year 2,194 volumes were sent to the
bindery, and of these all but about 500 had been received before the close of
the fiscal year. In addition to the use of its own library, which is becoming
more and more valuable through exchange and by limited purchase, it was
found necessary to draw on the Library of Congress.for the loan of 5138 vol-
umes. The library of the bureau now contains 15,511 volumes, about 11,000
pamphlets, and several thousand unbound periodicals.
LINGUISTIC MANUSCRIPTS.
Mr. J. B. Clayton served as custodian of manuscripts. The bureau now pos-
sesses 1,678 manuscripts, mostly linguistic, 19 having been added during the
year, mainly by purchase. All of these are of great value, and the number in-
cludes four by Miss Frances Densmore on Chippewa music, four by Mr. J. P.
Dunn on Miami and Peoria linguistics, one each by Miss Alice C. Fletcher on
the Omaha Indians, Mr. D. I. Bushnell on the Choctaw Indians of Louisiana,
and Mr. Paul Radin on the Winnebago Indians. The card catalogue of manu-
scripts is complete to date.
Respectfully submitted.
W. H. Hortmes, Chief.
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
APPENDIX III.
REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES.
Sir: I have the honor to submit a report on the operations of the Interna:
tional Exchange Service during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909.
The most noteworthy event in connection with the service during the year
was the passage of the following resolution:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled, That for the purpose of more fully carrying
into effect the provisions of the convention concluded at Brussels on March
fifteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, and proclaimed by the President on
January fifteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, the Public Printer is hereby
authorized and directed to supply to the Library of Congress such number as
may be required, not exceeding one hundred copies, of the daily issue of the
Congressional Record for distribution, through the Smithsonian Institution, to
the legislative chambers of such foreign governments aS may agree to send to
the United States current copies of their parliamentary record or like publica-
tion, such documents, when received, to be deposited in the Library of Con-
gress. (Approved March 4, 1909.)
Though the Smithsonian Institution has endeavored on previous occasions to
have the Congress set aside a number of copies of the daily Congressional Record
for exchange with foreign governments, it has only now been possible to have
the matter favorably acted upon—twenty years having elapsed since the rati-
fication by this Government of the Brussels convention for the immediate ex-
change of the official journal.
Upon the passage of the above resolution, the Congressional Record was at
once sent to the following countries, the parliaments of which already transmit
their official journal to the Library of Congress or have agreed to do so:
Australia. Greece. Portugal.
Austria. Guatemala. Roumania.
Belgium. Honduras. Russia.
Brazil. Hungary. Servia.
Canada. Italy. Spain.
Cuba. New South Wales. Switzerland.
France. Prussia. Uruguay.
The subject has been brought to the attention of other countries, and it is
anticipated that during the coming year this proposed exchange, which is of so
much importance to the members of the various national legislatures, will be
entered into with a number of additional governments. It should be stated, in
this connection, that the exchange here alluded to is separate and distinct from
the exchange of official documents which has existed between the United States
and other countries for a number of years. It is interparliamentary, and pro-
vides for the immediate transmission, direct by mail, of the official journal as
soon as published.
That the Smithsonian system of exchanges is appreciated by governmental
and scientific establishments and men of learning throughout the world is indi-
cated by the large number of packages intrusted to its care for distribution.
49
50 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
During the past year 228,875 packages were handled, being an increase over
the number for the preceding year of 25,777-—the largest annual increase in
the history of the service. The total weight of these packages was 476,169
pounds, a gain of 40,884 pounds.
The handling and recording of these parcels has taxed to the utmost the
limited force engaged in conducting the service, and it has only been possible
to keep abreast of the work by the diligent application of each employee.
The appropriation by Congress for the support of the service during 1909
was $32,200 (the same amount as was granted for the preceding year), and the
sum collected on account of repayments was $3,777.33, making the total avail-
able resources for carrying on the system of international exchanges $35,977.33.
In the last report it was stated that the bureau had entered upon an active
and definite campaign to secure reciprocal returns from abroad for the ex-
changes sent by this Government and its departments and bureaus. Though
this work has added greatly to the correspondence of the office, it has been
pursued with unabated vigor during the past year, and the results have been
more than satisfactory. In some cases the returns have exceeded all expecta-
tions, hundreds of volumes having been received.
While the Japanese department of foreign affairs at Tokyo has, for a number
of years, been good enough to distribute exchanges sent in its care for corre-
spondents in Japan, the department has only recently signified its willingness to
act in the full capacity of a bureau of exchanges—forwarding to the Smith-
sonian Institution consignments for distribution in the United States, as well
as transmitting to their addresses in Japan exchanges sent in its care.
Reference was made in the last report to the fact that the Kingdom of
Servia, which was one of the signatories to the Brussels convention of 1886,
had not established a bureau of exchanges and that the good offices of the
Department of State had been solicited in bringing the matter to the attention
of the Servian officials. JI am gratified to state that these efforts have resulted
in the establishment of a bureau under the department of foreign affairs at
Belgrade. Packages received for Servia in the future will therefore be sent to
that department for distribution instead of being forwarded through the Smith-
sonian agent in Germany, as formerly. In the communication from Servia
regarding this subject, it is stated that copies of all of the official, scientific,
and literary publications will henceforth be forwarded to the United States,
and a request is made for similar documents of this Government. Servia has
accordingly been added to the list of those countries receiving full sets of official
publications, the first shipment, consisting of 20 cases containing a collection
of documents published since 1901, having been made on June 22, 1909.
In response to a request forwarded to the Library of Congress through the
Department of State, Alsace-Lorraine was added to the list of foreign coun-
tries receiving partial sets of official documents of the United States. The first
shipment, composed of 6 cases, was made under date of April 29, 1909.
Just before the close of the year a communication was received from the
director of the Biblioteca Nacional at Buenos Aires, stating that by decree of
his Government the Argentine bureau of exchanges had been withdrawn from
the national library and connected with the comisi6n protectora de bibliotecas
populares, Buenos Aires, which is under the direction of the department of
public instruction. Consignments intended for that country will therefore be
forwarded to the commission in the future. The Institution desires to record
here its grateful acknowledgements for the services rendered in the past by
the national library in the distribution of exchanges in the Argentine Republic.
In spite of the extra efforts put forth by this bureau in making shipments to
all countries at least once a month—in some instances, two, three, and even
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.
51
four times a month—complaints regarding delay in the delivery of packages to
addresses in other countries have been received by the Institution.
These de-
lays, aS a rule, occur in the various foreign exchange bureaus after consign-
ments have passed beyond the control of the Institution.
An improvement in
the service in this respect can therefore be brought about only by the societies
and individuals in other countries themselves taking the matter up directly
with their own governments.
this course has been suggested.
So far as reported to this office, the service has not suffered the loss of any
of its consignments during the past year.
Whenever such complaints have been received
When it is considered that nearly
2,000 boxes were shipped to every quarter of the globe, this statement is worthy
of note.
INTERCHANGE OF PUBLICATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER COUNTRIES.
The statement which follows shows in detail the number of packages re-
ceived for transmission through the International Exchange Service during
the year ending June 30, 1909:
Country.
PATADLAS seemic ec a's niels se siaiciercinie
AMON seems caicisecelecicisie ce
Austria-Hungary............
LTO ime GQ DOBC ODO DOR CMOCOSe
IBETMAUGAS| <5 oc ccicleicisicineec sis.
MOM eeeee ar aes sete see
Bismarck Archipelago -....-..
Boliviais-neejssce ae - cicisoecese
IBOINCOlauis sist cise secs fnceecse
ibalptloy lejbhom ee asoeoueceeso se
British Central Africa.......
British East Africa ..........
IBTitish GUIANA. sos... s2scs<s
UIP ATID io ciais cnc =a ceciesisc ss
Wanary Islands ...2-..------
Cape Colony: as<. 2 = <csse 505
Cape Verde Islands.......... |
(CEATIGIN sth ae SHER es ae me
Packages. Packages.
Country.
For. From. For. From.
146 G35] eDominicageen-oeeeeeeseseeccs 4B) epicesesee
Sul ects eeccee DutehiGuidnaresaseeesee seas Spl eeeeesnaoo
AGA Sarectesist= = WCUACOLar eae see esas ens 247 31
23) |e pocodaace Heyipiieresccj cee scccaeccisise sc 369 282
3, 378 464 || Falkland Islands..........-- Bilicscseemens
8, 003 POOR) |W) Wp TIER Rc a osoeco aoasesos S8ulee soos ee ae
89 |loosacoseas TAN COrsese eset erie Se 3, 074 5, 969
383i llbadogaoase French Cochin China....... 41 7
Ibi) | ASeS5ecace MrenchiGwiandess-eeeecee cee Biilc~menesee
17) |lsasooasocc German East Africa......... 22. catrejnacem's
4,535 2yOog|| RG CrMAllVie= seer eeeseeeeeranice 24, 821 8, 763
i ees ee Gibraltar ssseccoerasscesees 4 i
Ne Soecnpadd Gold'iCoast: sien cccsicccacre sc Geil eases
I essasodasa Grenadateucececscc = tice csies 7 |esteeeees
UG) Ta Soanecads Great Britain and Ireland ..| 22,808 8, 427
Gil eeiseccreecie (TE CCEn eo stan eocio ooo wtelelele 1,548 3
2, 718 AS6ullEGreenlandsaseasoaecseciacecn SP) sosceelce se
7, 306 446 || Guadeloupe ...-...-.....-.... PAY gosencede >
47 2al\KGusttemalaycececcissee sine ose B84 rarest wee
Was ceccnads DSU i ite see oe eee nee OADM ee emteeterae
aN aletnreratetareyat= Hawaiian Islands ........... 46) Socios
Be! llaceesocose FON GUTAS HS sees seca teisoe BIE | eecccoceco
(4b oesscosone On PON SS wpe ieee Sacre sien ieieie 188 I
215 TSU hicelandeeeseccce wens cee aise. 60 37
SA Rretertesereere TMG Ay esc eeaciccciseecce ee 2,710 176
1, 663 22 || Italy ...... alehate fasaleisisieiens spewose 7, 458 1, 352
eee eeeeneee JAMAICA eaee et seioecises icc ase 261 68
263) |/<nisin2c%si<1 JaMeMs eas eesee ones acme scl 3, 244 1, 646
2, 461 DADO PAV oree so -mee ewe eeceaccceccs 220 128
1, 088 65 || Kongo Free State.........-.. Di ltee ck mastmece
1,348 ME || PROLEA secs ciss sclaccloc Socewic ees (8) |(Saasosdoss
1, 672 AA WE AS OS = a oeacsclelsissteiesisvelnsie ce 2% | soocoacoos
1, 544 260) | PILI DErI Aiea sae so - aes Setectelios 527 1
Meo Secaagococ Lourenco Marquez.......... PANN saconnocce
Gb isegctione Toei setetete sella relelelejai=t 84 41
2,022 MOLD MMA CH OR teicrecisiis cele ciernisios as ilpecaoaee aoe
52
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Packages. Packages.
Country. Country.
For. From. For. From.
Mad arascanecescecce os. eie =e BON ewseencce St. Rubtsy.. sscsues se ceeee eer 4 oa cee
Madeira: ofoscccscscsesces Sal secececice St) buciae. <n eeces ce saee see 12) | cimictareteteets
Mia enya ood siecle osisesicisie ce xis Bijiossmeres sb. Martin! 2tecce-e- seeeese cee 125 | eee
Maltare saccsscscscecescsncse 128 1 || St. Pierre and Miquelon..... 14 | s2acdeeee
Mantini que ssassneecce cas = ccs 14 Se tekiece Siahomash: aaaceceseee tenes Ay |} eaneeeeae
MaMITILIMS Sees occeecteitaoe tae 1) escce nonce Stavincentiie-seeeeeeeee ners Alls Semele
IMIGXAG Oli. a sicisaccie seicins eeisisivie 1, 768 QO AtAlVad OLA Asse cceeaeee ner eaees 186 83
MontenerrOmeceerenscesceeeee NUD Masenecoad Samoa. ast sees ee eee LT: conte eee
MONtSErralb) a smencseess secre Dla werateatalatew Santo Domingo.............. BD 5<oeeeceee
IM OFOCCOM ERE Cte tee scismcinaesc ag er eeeseaic Sarawiales. 5.5 aes seeoescaceee 3) || Seemecesine
INSiballene cc acnme cic ctciocseacs 248 Gu |liSemerallen a. sees eit Gill Seremteerernte
INGEIETIHMOSEeeeeeenece reeset 8, 226 pinGH fall iistesare eae acoscaro nc ooborAoHe 735 il
ING VASeer wea te ciaeaniccls secs cele Bal eS Rcee SisM serosa oe cleo see ae 1,193 76
Newioundland= = - ==: 2222 s-.- 152 39)|tSierra Wueone eee seeeesseeeee re ease aGcoS
NewaHebridess-s-2- == -maccee DS a aden Ne Society Islands.............. 20 'lKasee eee
New South Wales............ 2, 955 462 || South Australia ............. 1, 605 439
News Zien an Gneceises ceric eee 1, 880 243) iG paimeseecessecseeacc- eee ccse 2,599 185
NCAT AP UIAE escsocaeeenee ase 230 1 || Straits Settlements.......... 224 4
NortolkalslandSseceses = sos 1 | eee res Sudan seeeeereceensceecnaae 34 1
IN ORW.E Veeco selsceinesieice 2, 670 5225 ||| Sumiatrarsses-- sesso aeens (| Gacenases:
Orange River Colony........ 129 TES WeEGeNh asses c sic a ane 8,366 50
(DATTA Meas elena ee eee cleo GON eee tee llwswalbzerl any Gast css a eene 4, 348 1,540
PALER UAV sem scecieiseeree ee cise ore 170 2h ASMA ates Sms oye mesa ee 1, 321 11
IRCTS1 8 een ae ssfatc tary eee Abe er ae Mransvaalsceean ak seems cese 1,407 10
Jee) Ula Gees ASB ONE Rane aan 1, 562 7610) trinidad eeee.scee essere ee IPA londcoo=bo5
Philippine Islands .......-.. OOH Eis ees MUMIS Se cones esa eee ce Stee 39 8
BOnOVRACOZ ese tek cise ceee tees 7D Ot asa ae Munkeyis-pesseceeseiaccces see UFO leBaneonco-
Ronhup alee sesessereseeeeene 1,800 2) |ehunks elanaseeeesesseeeeeee 20) eee eee
Portuguese West Africa ..... 33) eae eens United!/Statesss2----seeeee eee 52, 524 180, 292
Queensland! eee -cecee-=acce 1, 589 261) || Umugtaynaaseeaeee eens ceees 1, 965 867
REUMION: tee ce csstceccncccee Agfa) Wa eae ee VENCZUCI AS 2. nose eceeeeeeee 1, 289 2
RINGO eSigieee eo ee aseteee cee atl [gee ennai WiCtOriaisesce-cacnaecee carers 38, 329 208
ROUMANIA seo eee ee eee ee 536 12 || Western Australia........... 1, 463 551
EVUISSIA oieeijstorsgnciec see tesco 5, 3389 pe Bisyll| VAchiWAll eh ue Gat oaemonesboose V7 sete ecases
St. Croix. .-....-....--22-...- 4 fe.e--ee ees Motels eee ee "228,875 | 228, 875
Susetelenamascseses jones sele Sileaenisacects
During the year there were sent abroad 1,963 boxes (an increase over 1908 of
54 boxes), of which 236 contained complete sets of United States Government
documents for authorized depositories and 1,727 were filled with departmental
and other publications for depositories of partial sets and for distribution to
miscellaneous correspondents.
EXCHANGE OF GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS.
The number of packages sent abroad through the International Exchange
Service by United States Government establishments during the year was
122,340, an increase over the number forwarded during the preceding twelve
months of 19,646; while 20,216 packages were received in exchange, an increase
of 3,363.
This disparity between the number of packages received and those
sent may be accounted for largely by the fact that many returns for the publi-
cations forwarded abroad are not made through the exchange service, but are
sent to their destinations direct by mail.
This difference is further due to the
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 53
practice of sending consignments to the Library of Congress intact, in many
cases a whole box of publications being entered on the records of this office as
one package.
FORHBIGN DEPOSITORIES OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS.
In accordance with treaty stipulations and under the authority of the con-
gressional resolutions of March 2, 1867, and March 2, 1901, setting apart a cer-
tain number of documents for exchange with foreign countries, there are now
sent regularly to depositories abroad 55 full sets of United States official pub-
lications and 33 partial sets—Servia having been added during the year to the
list of countries receiving full sets and Alsace-Lorraine to the list of those
receiving partial sets, the details concerning which will be found above. ‘The
recipients of full and partial sets are as follows:
DEPOSITORIES OF FULL SETS.
Argentina: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Buenos Aires.
Argentina: Biblioteca de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
Australia: Library of the Commonwealth Parliament, Melbourne.
Austria: K. K. Statistische Central-Commission, Vienna.
Baden: Universitits-Bibliothek, Freiburg.
Bavaria: Konigliche Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek, Munich.
Belgium : Bibliothéque Royale, Brussels.
Brazil: Bibliotheca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro.
Canada: Parliamentary Library, Ottawa.
Cape Colony: Government Stationery Department, Cape Town.
Chile: Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional, Santiago.
China: American-Chinese Publication Exchange Department, Shanghai Bureau
of Foreign Affairs, Shanghai.
Colombia: Biblioteca Nacional, Bogota.
Costa Rica: Oficina de Depésito y Canje de Publicaciones, San José.
Cuba: Department of State, Habana.
Denmark: Kongelige Bibliotheket, Copenhagen.
England: British Museum, London.
England: London School of Economics and Political Science, London.
France: Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.
France: Préfecture de la Seine, Paris.
Germany: Deutsche Reichstags-Bibliothek, Berlin.
Greece: Bibliothéque Nationale, Athens.
Haiti: Secrétairerie d’Etat des Relations Extérieures, Port au Prince.
Hungary: Hungarian House of Delegates, Budapest.
India: Home Department, Government of India, Calcutta.
Ireland: National Library of Ireland, Dublin.
Italy: Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele, Rome.
Japan: Department of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo.
Manitoba: Provincial Library, Winnipeg.
Mexico: Instituto Bibliografico, Biblioteca Nacional, Mexico.
Netherlands: Library of the States General, The Hague.
New South Wales: Board for International Exchanges, Sydney.
New Zealand: General Assembly Library, Wellington.
Norway: Storthingets Bibliothek, Christiania.
Ontario: Legislative Library, Toronto.
Peru: Biblioteca Nacional, Lima.
Portugal: Bibliotheca Nacional, Lisbon.
54 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Prussia: K6nigliche Bibliothek, Berlin.
Quebec: Legislative Library, Quebec.
Queensland: Parliamentary Library, Brisbane.
Russia: Imperial Public Library, St. Petersburg.
Saxony: Konigliche Ceffentliche Bibliothek, Dresden.
Servia: Ministére des Affaires Etrangéres, Belgrade.
South Australia: Parliamentary Library. Adelaide.
Spain: Depdsito de Libros, Cambio Internacional y Biblioteca General del
Ministerio de Instruccién Publica y Bellas Artes, Madrid.
Sweden: Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm.
Switzerland: Bibliothéque Fédérale, Berne.
Tasmania: Parliamentary Library, Hobart.
Transvaal: Government Library, Pretoria.
Turkey: Department of Public Instruction, Constantinople.
Uruguay: Oficina de Deposito, Reparto y Canje Internacional de Publicaciones,
Montevideo.
Venezuela: Biblioteca Nacional, Caracas.
Victoria: Public Library, Melbourne.
Western Australia: Public Library of Western Australia, Perth.
Wiirttemberg: Konigliche Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart.
DEPOSITORIES OF PARTIAL SETS.
Alberta: Legislative Library, Edmonton.
Alsace-Lorraine: K. Ministerium fiir Elsass-Lothringen, Strassburg.
Bolivia: Ministerio de Colonizacién y Agricultura, La Paz. -
British Columbia: Legislative Library, Victoria.
Bremen: Kommission fiir Reichs- und Auswiirtige Angelegenheiten.
Bulgaria: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sofia.
Ceylon: United States Consul, Colombo.
Heuador: Biblioteca Nacional, Quito.
Egypt: Bibliothéque Khédiviale, Cairo.
Guatemala: Secretary of the Government, Guatemala.
Hamburg: Senatskommission fiir die Reichs- und Auswiirtigen Angelegenheiten.
Hesse: Grossherzogliche Hof-Bibliothek, Darmstadt.
Honduras: Secretary of the Government, Tegucigalpa.
Jamaica: Colonial Secretary, Kingston.
Liberia: Department of State, Monrovia.
Lourengo Marquez: Government Library, Lourenco Marquez.
Malta: Lieutenant-Governor, Valetta.
Montenegro: Ministére Princier des Affaires Iitrangéres, Cetinje.
Natal: Colonial Governor, Pietermaritzburg.
Newfoundland: Colonial Secretary, St. John.
New Brunswick: Legislative Library, St. John.
Nicaragua: Superintendente de Archivos Nacionales, Managua.
Northwest Territories: Government Library, Regina.
Nova Scotia: Legislative Library, Halifax.
Orange River Colony: Government Library, Bloemfontein.
Panama: Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, Panama.
Prince Edward Island: Legislative Library, Charlottetown.
Paraguay: Oficina General de Informaciones y Canjes y Commisaria General
de Inmigracion, Asuncion.
Roumania: Academia Romana, Bucarest.
Salvador: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, San Salvador.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 55
Straits Settlements: Colonial Secretary, Singapore.
Siam: Department of Foreign Affairs, Bangkok.
Vienna: Biirgermeister der Haupt- und Residenz-Stadt.
CORRESPONDENTS.
The record of exchange correspondents at the close of the year contained
62,630 addresses, being an increase of 2,507 over the preceding year. A table
showing the number of correspondents in each country at the close of 1907 will
be found in the report for that year.
LIST OF BUREAUS OR AGENCIES THROUGH WHICH BXCHANGES ARH TRANSMITTED.
Following is a list of bureaus or agencies abroad through which the distribu-
tion of exchanges is effected. Those in the larger and many in the smaller
countries forward to the Smithsonian Institution in return contributions for
distribution in the United States:
Algeria, via France.
Angola, via Portugal.
Argentina: Presidente de la Comisién Protectora de Bibliotecas Populares,
Ministerio de InstrucciOn Publica, Buenos Aires.
Austria: K. K. Statistische Central-Commission, Vienna.
Azores, via Portugal.
Barbados: Imperial Department of Agriculture, Bridgetown.
Belgium: Service Belge des Echanges Internationaux, Brussels.
Bermuda. (Sent by mail.)
Bolivia: Oficina Nacional de Inmigraci6n, Hstadistica y Propaganda Geografica,
ha Paz.
Brazil: Servico de Permutacdes Internacionaes, Bibliotheca Nacional, Rio de
Janeiro.
British Colonies: Crown Agents for the Colonies, London.?
British Guiana: Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society, Georgetown.
British Honduras: Colonial Secretary, Belize.
Bulgaria: Institutions et Bibliothéque Scientifiques de S. A. R. le Prince de
Bulgarie, Sofia.
Canada. (Sent by mail.)
Canary Islands, via Spain.
Cape Colony: Government Stationery Department, Cape Town.
Chile: Servicio de Canjes Interracionales, Biblioteca Nacional, Santiago.
China: Zi-ka-wei Observatory, Shanghai.
Colombia: Oficina de Canjes Internacionales y Reparto, Biblioteca Nacional,
Bogota.
Costa Rica: Oficina de Depdésito y Canje de Publicaciones, San José.
Cuba. (Sent by mail.)
Denmark: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Copenhagen.
Dutch Guiana: Surinaamsche Koloniale Bibliotheek, Paramaribo.
Ecuador: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Quito.
Egypt: Director-General, Survey Department, Giza (Mudiria).
France: Service Francais des changes Internationaux, Paris.
Friendly Islands. (Sent by mail.)
Germany: Karl W. Hiersemann, K6nigsstrasse 29, Leipzig.
@This method is employed for communicating with several of the British
colonies with which no medium is available for forwarding exchanges direct.
45745°—sm 1909——5
26 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Great Britain and Ireland: Messrs. William Wesley & Son, 28 Essex street,
Strand, London.
Greece: Bibliothéque Nationale, Athens.
Greenland, via Denmark.
Guadeloupe, via France.
Guatemala: Instituto Nacional de Guatemala, Guatemala.
Guinea, via Portugal.
Haiti: Secrétaire d’Etat des Relations Extérieures, Port au Prince.
Honduras: Biblioteca Nacional, Tegucigalpa.
Hungary: Dr. Julius Pikler, Municipal Office of Statistics, City Hall, Budapest.
Iceland, via Denmark.
India: India Store Department, India Office, London.
Italy: Ufficio degli Scambi Internazionali, Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Eman-
uele, Rome.
Jamaica: Institute of Jamaica, Kingston.
Japan: Department of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo.
Java, via Netherlands.
Korea. (Shipments temporarily suspended. )
Liberia: Department of State, Monrovia.
Lourengo Marquez: Government Library, Lourenco Marquez.
Luxemburg, via Germany.
Madagascar, via France.
Madeira, via Portugal.
Mexico. (Sent by mail.)
Montenegro: Ministére Princier des Affaires Htrangéres, Cetinje.
Mozambique, via Portugal.
Natal: Agent-General for Natal, London.
Netherlands: Bureau Scientifique Central’ Néerlandais, Bibliothéque de l’Uni-
versité, Leyden.
Newfoundland. (Sent by mail.)
New Guinea, via Netherlands.
New Hebrides. (Sent by mail.)
New South Wales: Board for International Exchanges, Public Library, Sydney.
New Zealand: Dominion Museum, Wellington.
Nicaragua: Ministerio de Relaciones Extericres, Managua.
Norway: Kongelige Norske Frederiks Universitet Bibliotheket, Christiania.
Paraguay: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Asuncion.
Persia: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, New York City.
Peru: Oficina de Reparto, Depdsito y Canje Internacional de Publicaciones,
Ministerio de Fomento, Lima. .
Portugal: Servico de Permutacdes Internacionaes, Bibliotheca Nacional, Lisbon.
Queensland: Board of Exchanges, Brisbane.
Roumania, via Germany.
Russia: Commission Russe des Echanges Internationaux, Bibliothéque Im-
périale Publique, St. Petersburg.
Saint Christopher. (Sent by mail.)
Salvador: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, San Salvador.
Santo Domingo. (Sent by mail.)
Servia: Department of Foreign Affairs, Belgrade.
Siam: Department of Foreign Affairs, Bangkok.
South Australia: Public Library of South Australia, Adelaide.
Spain: Depésito de Libros, Cambio Internacional y Biblioteca General del Min-
isterio de Instruceién Ptblica y Bellas Artes, Madrid,
Sumatra, via Netherlands,
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 57 -
Sweden: Kongliga Svenska Vetenskaps Akademien, Stockholm.
Switzerland: Service des Echanges Internationaux, Bibliothéque Fédérale Cen-
trale, Bern.
Syria: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, New York.
Tasmania: Royal Society of Tasmania, Hobart.
Transvaal: Government Library, Pretoria.
Trinidad: Victoria Institute, Port of Spain.
Tunis, via France.
Turkey : American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston.
Uruguay: Oficina de Depésito, Reparto y Canje Internacional, Montevideo.
Venezuela: Biblioteca Nacional, Caracas.
Victoria: Public Library of Victoria, Melbourne.
Western Australia: Public Library of Western Australia, Perth.
Zanzibar. (Sent by mail.)
Dr. Cyrus Adler resigned his position as assistant secretary in charge of
library and exchanges on September 380, 1908.
Respectfully submitted.
F. V. BERRY,
Chief Clerk, International Exchange Service.
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
APPENDIX IV.
REPORT ON THE NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK.
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the condition and
operations of the National Zoological Park for the fiscal year ending June
30, 1909.
RESOURCES.
The entire support of the park was provided for by an item in the sundry civil
act approved May 27, 1908, appropriating $95,000 for general purposes, includ-
ing the purchase, transportation, care and maintenance of animals; the care and
improvement of grounds; the construction and repair of all buildings, inclosures,
roads, walks, and bridges. A sum of equal amount has been appropriated
annually for several years past. The considerable increase in the prices of the
necessary provisions and labor has made it increasingly difficult to do any-
thing toward developing the park to the standard that such institutions usually
attain at the capitals of great nations. The expenses of maintenance alone
amounted to about $85,000, so it will be seen that there was but little margin
left for additional works.
It should be remembered that at the inception of the park the funds provided
for buildings and improvements were entirely inadequate for its proper equip-
ment and that consequently the management was forced to construct cheap,
temporary shelters, roads, walks, and inclosures. These have now arrived
at about their limit of usefulness and do not admit of further economical repair.
It is not for the interest of the Government to continue to erect structures of this
class, and it would certainly be advantageous to have sufficient appropriations
to replace them with satisfactory permanent buildings.
BUILDINGS AND INCLOSURES.
The principal improvements made during the year were the completion of a
series of bear yards and the construction of a series of 10 new yards for wolves
and foxes. i
Bear yards.—Six yards of the series had been built up to the beginning of
the year. During 1908-9 the terminal yard, 42 feet wide and 26 feet deep, at
the east end of the series, was built, and the north end of the series was com-
pleted by the construction of three yards from 32 to 36 feet deep and 382, 24,
and 40 feet wide, respectively. All of the yards have floors of rock and con-
crete except the large one at the north end, where most of the area has been
left in the original hard clay over which is spread a thick layer of sand. A
concrete walk 12 feet wide was constructed in front of all the new yards, and
a trellis of steel bars was built over the walk and in front of the cages, over
which vines will be trained, to afford shelter until trees are large enough to
give sufficient shade. The cost of the work on the bear yards during the year
was about $6,000. The steep bank adjoining the’ yards was graded and a
macadam walk with stone steps was built to furnish a convenient approach.
58
|
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 59
The completion of the series of yards made it possible to transfer all of the
bears from the temporary wooden cages that they have been occupying to their
permanent quarters. The cages were then removed, and the area which they
had occupied was graded and planted.
Wolf and fox yards.—Since the occupation of the park the wolves and foxes
have been kept in temporary yards near the lion house. This has been unsatis-
factory in several respects, the yards being of an irregular and unsightly
character, rather obtrusive, and not as secure as desirable. A better site for
them was selected at the foot of the steep acclivity, where the stream from the
beaver valley empties into Rock Creek. There were constructed here a series
of ten yards having a tota! frontage of 230 feet, with a depth varying from
16 to 36 feet. The fence was constructed of heavy wire netting with square
mesh, on steel posts, and has a height of 6 feet 6 inches. A retiring den for
each yard was excavated in the hill at the rear of the cages and arranged with
a door outside the inclosure for the keeper’s use. ‘These cages, as well as the
bear yards, were completed and occupied in the late autumn of 1908.
An entirely pleasant feature of this site is its secluded, woodland character,
enhanced by the little stream flowing down over rocks to the creek. Consider-
able planting was done here, using the material indigenous to the neighborhood
in order to retain as far as possible the original character of the forest.
The cost of this series of yards was about $2,600.
ROADS AND WALKS.
Lack of funds prevented the continued prosecution of the repair of roads
and walks in the park, only such work being done as was absolutely necessary
for the public safety. The Adams Mill road and part of the road along the
banks of the creek were treated with a coal-tar product known as “ terracolio,”
to obtain freedom from dust and prevent the washing of the roadbed during
heavy rains. This was fairly successful. Some of the walks were treated
with another coal-tar preparation known as “tarvia.” This, too, proved an
excellent preventive of dust and abrasion.
The shaded walk and stairway from the Adams Mill entrance to the lower
levels of the park was completed and a small rest house and shelter built at
the upper end. It is believed that this walk can be made one of the most
attractive features of the park. In spite of the careful watch, some difficulty
is experienced in preventing the uprooting and carrying away by visitors of
the ferns and other specimens that have been planted in profusion along its
sides. The amount expended on the walk during the present year was about
$700, while the rustic shelter, 20 by 25 feet, cost approximately $400.
ACCESSIONS AND LOSSES.
Gifts included 5 chamois from Bernese Oberland, received through the De-
partment of the Interior from the Swiss Government as a gift to the United
States Government; 3 young Alaskan brown bears from Mr. George Mixter, 2d,
of Boston, Mass.; 3 Barbados woolless sheep, from the United States Department
of Agriculture; a large grizzly bear and female black bear with 2 cubs were
received from Lieut. Gen. S. B. M. Young, superintendent Yellowstone National
Park; also 2 mule deer and 2 prong-horn antelopes from Maj. H. C Benson, who
succeeded General Young at the Yellowstone Park. Ten beavers were also
obtained in the Yellowstone Park through the cooperation of General Young.
A lioness, a pair of Sarus cranes, 2 European flamingoes, and a fishing cat
were received in exchange for surplus animals.
60 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Purchases included a pair of Rocky Mountain sheep, an Arabian camel, a
reindeer from Alaska, a cassowary, 2 South American condors, 2 jabirus, ete.
Births numbered 110, and included a Brazilian tapir, 3 American bison, a
yak, 4 tigers, 2 black bears, a llama, 6 Barbary sheep, 17 deer of 6 species,
kangaroos, armadillos, ete., also various birds.
The deaths included the Philippine water buffalo, which died from peri-
tonitis resulting from the bursting of an abscess of the rumen; a young orang,
which died from leukemia; and a leopard, which, also, died from peritonitis.
A Rocky Mountain goat, which was deposited in the park, died thirty-seven
days after its receipt, from tuberculosis, which evidently had been contracted
while it was kept in confinement near the place of capture in British Columbia.
An Huropean flamingo, a crowned pigeon, and several other birds died from
aspergillosis, and five storks from cercomonad roup.
One hundred and thirty-eight autopsies were made by the pathologists of the
Bureau of Animal Industry and two by the Laboratory of Hygiene, which gave
the following results:
Cause of death, 1908-9.
ETN TIAN OT eee ee a 20M Eiydnrophilosigi a ss =:. arene 1
TMObereulOSiS = see ts Sa eee 16 | Subcutaneous acariasis.__________ 1
Pulmonary Gonuzestion= saan 80 -Uncinariaisig, Mae ele ee 2
SER OUILOSI Se: = oo ote ae Ga SBroteus bacilosishaa ass. 3
Pnteritis (and gastro-enteritis).._._ 20 | Echinococcosis____-__-________ if!
INGDHTICIiSSe. ae swe coe Aes Dee 6 | Porocephalus infestation_________ 2
INGCCEOSIS/ OLmivier= == == seen 2) | Rapes Se We 3
PC DAbiG See 2A ee A | Vivo fibroma ste eee ee il
Parenchymatous degeneration of Goiter 222.22 952 SE ee if
iL ,C Teen EE ns AN es Se 2 oh Se ae it \WOsteomalacia= ===. se a ee 2
Fatty degeneration of liver______- 15) Simpacrionvor bowelas= === 3
PSRIhOMUG SM cure See Ne BAN ay |) IbonoeveiKorm Ort (Crtoy)en oo alt
IRERICATOIt Ses =a ate eae we a 2 | Urinary concretions in cloaca_____ 1
Fatty degeneration of heart and Brokenvecesinelod Gia =.= aa all
a ViGTire haem Sa Se ee ee PEPE were es Ll Starvation Se 5
Valvular obstruction of heart____ 1 | Starvation resulting from cystic
Septicemiial 2s es ee eee LM raboarere aloy Tdoywor ees Ve ee al
lmeukemila. 222k So ee Li) Stillbornpes = 22 ee aes = see ee 4
Cercomonad | roup ee 4") Necident=- 2b. 5 ee io
Infectious entero-hepatitis_______ i JNO cause found === 4
Coccidialityphlitis== =a aaa iL |
VISITORS.
The number of visitors to the park during the year was 564,639, a daily
average of about 1,547. The largest number in any month was 127,635, in April,
1909, a daily average of 4,254.
During the year there visited the park 148 schools, Sunday schools, classes,
ete., with 4,611 pupils, a monthly average of 384 pupils. While most of them
were from the city and the immediate vicinity, 25 of the schools were from
neighboring States, and classes came from Lowell, Warren, Boston, Fall River,
and Dover, Mass.; Portland, Augusta, and Auburn, Me.; and Wallingford, Vt.
NEEDS OF THE PARK.
Aquarium.—The present building was originally a hay shed of ordinary Vir-
ginia pine lumber. It is now in a most dilapidated condition, the foundation
PLATE 1.
Secretary's Report.
Smithsonian Report, 1909
BEAR YARDS IN NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK.
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REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 61
having sunk so much as to crack the glass of the fish tanks, thus causing them
to leak. It will be necessary to close this building temporarily unless some
means are found for totally reconstructing it. An exhibit of fish and other
marine animals is one of the most attractive that can be given in a zoological
collection, and it is very desirable that it should be maintained.
General aviary.—The need for a structure of this character is evident to any
intelligent visitor to the park. Only a part of the collection can now be exhib-
ited to the public because of lack of room. A number of outdoor shelters and
cages should also be provided for the exhibition of hardy birds.
Inclosure for sea lions and seals.—A proper pool for these animals, with suit-
able shelter, should be built as soon as possible. A good site for such an ex-
hibit would be just above the wolf and fox dens in the beaver valley.
Antelope houwse.—The inadequacy of this building has been mentioned in
previous reports. If any considerable additions of ruminant animals are re-
ceived at the park, it will be necessary to enlarge it.
Office building.—It is greatly to the disadvantage of the park to have the
superintendent’s office at so great a distance from the general working force.
A suitable structure should be built near the center of activity.
Restaurant and public comfort——The park is becoming more and more a
place of frequent resort for the public, as is shown by the number of visitors.
The present arrangements are totally inadequate. A good restaurant building
is urgently needed. Shelters and addition public comfort quarters for visitors
are also wanted. At present, whenever a quick rainstorm occurs, many visitors
are unable to get proper shelter. ‘
Roads and walks.—It is highly desirable that the construction of roads and
walks, which was commenced under the appropriation of $15,000, made in 1907,
should now be continued. .The general appropriation for the park is insufficient
for this purpose.
STATEMENT OF THE COLLECTION,
Accessions during the year:
SEES CTC Cl pee an eae re es asia aly lat ee ed eel ok Ce ee 124
RECEIV EG TMU EX CHATS Cs a= ae ae ee a ee ee ee ee ee 12
EU CHaS Cee ee e e e 307
IMB) POS TU a a ee BB ke Eee re ee Se 9
Born and hatched in the National Zoological Park__________________ 110
CapturediineYellowstonesNatlon allie ait: kee ee eee 14
PAOCG EST) le as ae Be oN ee aR EN a sees Lae aad Sate Se NE 576
Presented.
Diamond rattlesnake, Cl RR. kWwappone; Cairo) Gases). ee
Rhesus monkey, F. N. Meyer, Department of Agriculture________________
ANU OTES IY SCG EM CH Geo) asa 0 pe pee ee ete Ae ey ee ae ee a
Common canary, William J. Myatt, Sharon Hill, Philadelphia, Pa________ 27
Chapman’s curassow, C. H. Jones, Campeche, Mexico____________________
Burplishyuan CH sones: Campeche Mexicous a2. = ates eee ee
Barbados sheep, experiment station, United States Department of Agri-
UDG UIT ee ce re es ee Pe ho A a
Alaska peninsula, brown bear, George Mixter, 2d, Boston, Mass__________
Common canary, R. L. Beard, 1018 H street NW., Washington, D. C__-_--
Unidentified bird, Wm. J. Myatt, Sharon Hill, Philadelphia, Pa__________
Chickenysnake; Hen Carrico Stithton, (Ny2ese cess oneness eee eee
Bebe
pt pe
He EOD OD
62 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Etog-nosed snake, Hii. Carricoy Stiehton wy a ee ees
Capuchin monkey, Miss M. Alexander, Moorefield, W. Va__--------------
Coyote) theseresident,. Washington; Di C3=22 Se Se ee
Banded rattlesnake, Dr. Prentiss Wilson, 2024 O street NW., Washing-
Spotted lynx, Mr. Hunt, superintendent registry division, city post-office__
Blackibearstherbresident. Washington, Dy C222.
Cooper’s hawk, Russel Meredith, 1219 Girard street, Washington, D. C_-_
Hog-nosed snake, Capt. J. Walter Mitchell, the Evening Star, Washing-
Gray fox, Miss M. P. Offterdinger, 330 A street NE., Washington, D. C___
Riza Ose Ni ChOlsonee Orleana ofp Hol ee ee
Diana monkey, Nikolai Sokoloff, 14 Park lane, Jamaica Plain, Boston,
Sharp-shinned hawk, W: A. Sherman, Vienna, Va-=-===-_--__=--==-=2_—2
English rabbit, Mrs. John R. MeLean, Friendship, D. C_--------------_-
Common ferret: Mrs; John Re Mclean) briendship Ds C222 22222
Alligator, Miss Sarah Leon, 1183 Fourteenth street, Washington, D. C____
Yellow-trontedsamazon, Hy AwkWacess Cratvon, baa se eee
Rabbit, J. B. Henderson, jr., 1306 Euclid place, Washington, D. C__-___--
Brown capuchin monkey, Hon. S. B. Elkins, United States Senate-______
Pine snake, George V. Green, 304 Tenth street NW., Washington, D. C___
shea, Oyadl, Cleats Gull, A kesclave heel, Wels
Mallard duck, Mrs. L. E. Johnson, 1007 L street NW., Washington, D. C__
Red-tailed hawk, Jesse Hand, jr., Belleplain, N. J------___-____-----_--
Belgian hare, J. H. Fellows, 5504 Wisconsin avenue, Washington, D. C__-
AIMerICAnETAVeH Jepke. 2 Gates IweOkeen Viale 2 ee eee
lesen Ohyaly Hobe han J rooney ANSI Mobi eal, Weel ee a ee eee
laynraeeyel Oval TIL IK Sine INKY, Wilelslautisrearoa, ID), (C2 2
Sereech owl, W. S. Hinman, 2700 Thirteenth street NW., Washington,
Bullfinech, attaché of the Austrian embassy, Washington, D. C___-___---
Common"opossum, the President, Washington, D. ©_-2-_-—
Common opossum, W. L. McAtee, Department of Agriculture___________
Mule deer, Maj. H. C. Benson, superintendent Yellowstone National
IEE edits eau VAY © AMT Os ee ee ee ee eee
Prong-horn antelope, Maj. H. C. Benson, superintendent Yellowstone
INGGLOM ai earl aaa OMIN Ses 2 eae tee ae) eee ee
Raccoon, Charles H. Smith, Piedmont, Va____________— ie ernie te. Pape ek
RACCOON ME a Clanbkaelmvines ian.) Been Se eee ee eee
Common opossum, Pink Cherry Market Company, Atlanta, Ga___-_--___-_
Alligator, Mr. Widderfield, 1217 Connecticut avenue NW., Washington,
Commongskunk, HOM SON. Wits es CO Tey) © een ee
Great horned owl, F. Johnson, Washington, D. C_______________________
Alligator, attaché of the Austrian embassy, Washington, D. C__________
Alligator, Harry Williams, 418 E street NE., Washington, D. C_________
Bald eagle, C. F. Brock, 53 I street NE., Washington, D. C_____________
CHATHOIUS RIS WASS 4 GOVINO pst aa ee UE ae ae ee
Common canary, George Hawkins, 2316 First street NW., Washing-
11
See ee ee eee ee
Anwnrrewpore ie) Oo Se eS bo im) BP wee
ary
| REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 63
Bidckesnake wh. ©; Harley, Wasnineton Ds ©2222 202 2 es oe ee 1
Black muscovy duck, J. H. Holmead, 3531 Thirteenth street NW., Wash-
iT LC Ti pe UBD oy (0) eee sk ee epee Se a ee 1
Alligator, John H. Knight, 1410 Chapin street NW., Washington, D. C___ il
Common canary, A. L. Brandon, 2130 G street, Washington, D. C________ 1
Common goat, Louis Brandt, 400 New Jersey avenue NW., Washington,
STB 0) eee renee ts SRS ee a ea ee eh De oe le AL ee 1
CoucarmpeA. EVE roctor, News VOrki Citys 2 = 22252 ee ee eee if!
124
SUMMARY.
AANA SoMa Gh byeelis MOS 2a sxe lee le ea Pe ee 1, 402
PRECESSION Sm (iinsli Om GIN Cie yy, Cae sp a 576
ONDE em ee ae a a at EE oe 9k ea oe 1, 978
Deduct loss (by exchange, death, and returning of animals)____________ 562
OnphandyIuMe~s OOOO S ase See i ee ee ee eee 1, 416
Species pees
VATE BIS Sees alo ainiejse ore ieiaisiosre © piss Gra sisi siecle ise em Wealsiajarsiclsjnioia = ciajejeiie ciapeleissleletaiere 143 578
Bins eee a NR La ee tines he Ok Dai gu, | Wa ks wien! UC Se cc ce Pe aM ol 173 711
IRGIOHMNIGE peop case acaaseesorongoe seas peubdoSsacHoocecobasacdescs J eioie etelsiclstececis/sreic lars es 38 | 127
PING ea eae gene eteyeseie ie etcetera tale nin ie icine aie Slee arclaisicina cisteieicta lacie cise Sinieinieis 354. 1, 416
Respectfully submitted.
FRANK BAKER, Superintendent.
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
APPENDIX V.
REPORT ON THE ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY.
Str: During the past year the temporary wooden shelters used for observing
on Mount Wilson, California, in 1905, 1906, and 1908 have been torn down and
replaced by a structure of cement blocks. This was erected at a cost of $2,200
on a plot of ground 100 feet square in horizontal projection, leased for a term
of ninety-five years by the Smithsonian Institution from the Mount Wilson
Solar Observatory. The new observing shelter is shaped in plan, 36 feet long,
27 feet wide, and with the two branches of the L14 and 10 feet wide, respec-
tively. Four tall piers are provided for the future erection of a tower over the
south end of the structure. The proposed tower is intended for use as a vertical
telescope in solar observations and also as a suitable station for making meas-
urements of the brightness of the sky and clouds. Within the new building is
a chamber of constant temperature in which is the spectro-bolometrie outfit,
and also a dark room for photographie work and a small office room. ‘The site
leased is on the edge of a preciptous ridge overlooking canyons about 1,000 feet
deep on the east, south, and west. It is thoroughly isolated from disturbances
caused by electric service, gas engines, or traffic, and seems to be peculiarly
well adapted for the work in hand.
The personnel of the observatory has continued principally unchanged. Mr.
L. B. Aldrich completed his temporary service as bolometric assistant on Sep-
tember 20, 1908. Dr. L. R. Ingersoll was engaged temporarily as bolometric
assistant on Mount Wilson beginning June 21, 1909.
WORK OF THE YBAR,
i. Work at Washington.
Mr. Fowle has continued bolometric observations of the brightness of dif-
ferent parts of the sun’s image whenever conditions favored. No measure-
ments of the solar constant of radiation were attempted at Washington, as that
branch of the work can seldom be done there successfully, on account of smoke
and clouds.
A most interesting piece of experimental work on tthe transparency of air
for the long-wave rays, such as the earth radiates, had been begun by Mr. Fowle
early in 1908. Results have been obtained by him for the transmission of all
rays between wave-lengths Ju and 10y, through a column of air 400 feet long,
containing various known amounts of water vapor. Computation of the re-
sults from these experiments is so far advanced as to show their satisfactory
quality. Many additional experiments with still longer columns of air and other
amounts of water vapor, and extending as far down in the spectrum as wave-
length 17, are in preparation.
The late Secretary Langley stated,“ as a result of his Mount Whitney ob-
servations: ‘‘I consider that the temperature of the earth under direct sun-
shine, even though our atmosphere were present as now, would probably fall
“Report of the Mount Whitney Expedition, p. 128.
64
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 65
to —200° C. if that atmosphere did not possess the quality of selective absorp-
tion.” <A little later his experimental results on the temperature of the moon
led him to change this view, for he said:% ‘As between my observations and
my inferences, I hold to the former; and since later and long-continued ob-
servations * * * show that the temperature of the sunward surface of the
moon (which is certainly nearly airless) is almost certainly not greatly below
zero (centigrade), I have been led to believe myself mistaken in one of my
inferences drawn from former experiments.” Precise knowledge of the select-
ive absorption of our atmosphere for earth rays is still lacking, although two
decades have elapsed since this was written, and contradictory views are still
being expressed about this very important subject by able writers. It is hoped
that Mr. Fowle’s experiments will add much definite information, useful in the
study of the dependence of the earth’s temperature on radiation.
Computations of the results of Washington and Mount Wilson observations
have gone on steadily, but it has not been possible to keep the reductions
abreast with the numerous observations now being obtained. It has been con-
sidered desirable to make daily observations of the “solar constant of radia-
tion’ during the observing season at Mount Wilson, and the reduction of each
day’s observations requires several days of measurements and computations
at Washington.
2. Work at Mount Wilson.
Spectro-bolometric measurements of the ‘‘ solar constant of radiation ’’ were
continued by Mr. Abbot (with the assistance till September 20 of Mr. Aldrich)
on every favorable day until about November 20, 1908. The expedition was re-
newed late in the following spring by Mr. Abbot, and observations begun on
June 1, 1909. As in former years, evidences of a fluctuation of solar radiation
were found in the results of the measurements of 1908 thus far obtained.
Various improvements in the modes of observing have been made, especially
in the bolometric measurements of the ultra-violent region of the spectrum, and
also in pyrheliometry. A new and improved standard pyrheliometer was tried
repeatedly on Mount Wilson. Its action is more satisfactory than the one used
in 1906, and great confidence is felt in the results obtained with it. Appar-
ently the results published on the provisional arbitrary scale of pyrheliometry
employed in Volume II of the Annals are several per cent higher than they
would be if expressed on the scale of the standard calory. On the other hand,
the results of the year indicate that a larger allowance of increase should have
been made for solar rays in the ultra-violet and extreme infra-red regions of
the spectrum not observed in 1905 and 1906 by the bolometer, and this increase
will probably nearly or quite compensate the change of scale in pyrheliometry,
leaving the mean “solar constant” value very near to 2 calories per square
centimeter per minute, as stated in Volume II of the Annals. Great efforts
have been made this past year to carry the bolometric measurements much
further in the ultra-violet. For this purpose a large quartz prism, a large
ultra-violet glass prism, and two magnalium mirrors have been procured and
are now in use on Mount Wilson, and daily observations are now carried as far
as wave-length 0.335.
8. Mount Whitney Expeditions.
In August, 1908, with Director Campbell, of the Lick Observatory, Mr. Abbot
spent about twenty-four hours-on the summit of Mount Whitney (14,502 feet).
This mountain, which was the objective point of the famous expedition of Mr.
Langley in 1881, was recommended by him to be reserved by the Government
@ The Temperature of the Moon, p. 193.
66 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and used as the site for an observatory. The reservation was in fact made,
but no observatory has been established there. Mr. Abbot carried with him
to Mount Whitney a pyrheliometer and wet and dry thermometers, and made
observations on the summit both in the afternoon and morning hours. Both
he and Mr. Campbell were favorably impressed with the advantages of the place
for observing, and with the relative convenience of ascending the mountain,
considering its great altitude. Fine building stone, sand, and water were found
at the summit. Messrs. Campbell and Abbot, therefore, recommended to the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution that a grant from the Hodgkins fund
should be made for the purpose of erecting on the summit of Mount Whitney
a stone and steel house to shelter observers who might apply to the Institution
for the use of the house to promote investigations in any branch of science.
This recommendation was approved, and the house is now in course of con-
struction (July, 1909).
It has been held by some astronomers that measurements of the “solar
constant of radiation ”’ by high and low sun observations from a single station
at a low altitude, or even at the altitude of Mount Wilson, are subject to a
great error by reason of the impossibility of correctly allowing for loss in our
atmosphere. In order to ascertain if this objection is well founded, an expe-
dition to Mount Whitney by Mr. Abbot is planned for August, 1909. He will
earry a complete spectro-bolometric outfit, for which Mr. Kramer has con-
structed the mechanical parts in the shop of the Astrophysical Observatory at
Washington. This apparatus will point directly at the sun, so as to dispense
with reflections at a coelostat. A quartz prism and two magnalium mirrors
constitute the sole optical parts of the spectroscope, as it will generally be
used, but a glass prism and silvered mirrors will also be employed in the
examination of the water vapor bands and of the infra-red spectrum. With
the quartz and magnalium outfit it is expected to measure the energy of the
spectrum from about wave-length 0.304 in the ultra-violet to wave-length 4y
in the infra-red. Simultaneously with these “solar constant” measurements
on Mount Whitney complete observations of the same kind will be made on
Mount Wilson by Doctor Ingersoll, and if the results of the two shall agree it
is thought that there will be left no ground for reasonable doubt of the accuracy
of the method.
SUMMARY.
The principal work of the year comprises frequent spectro-bolometriec exam-
inations of the relative brightness of different parts of the sun’s disk for rays of
several different wave lengths; measurements of the transmission of long-wave
rays, such as the earth emits, through very long columns of moist air; the
steady continuation of the reduction of Mount Wilson and Washington observa-
tions; six months of almost daily observation on Mount Wilson for the deter-
mination of the variability of the sun; a preliminary observing expedition to the
summit of Mount Whitney; and the complete preparation of apparatus and ar-
rangements for a series of observations of the “ solar constant” by the spectro-
bolometric method, to be me*e simultaneously at Mount Wilson and Mount
Whitney in August, 1909.
Respectfully submitted.
C. G. ABBot, Director.
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
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APPENDIX VI.
REPORT ON THE LIBRARY.
Str: I have the honor to present the following report on the operations of the
library of the Smithsonian Institution for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909:
The retirement early last fall of Dr. Cyrus Adler, librarian of the Institution
and later assistant secretary in charge of library and exchanges, in order to
assume the presidency of the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning,
of Philadelphia, Pa., was a serious loss to the library. His loyalty, his knowl-
edge of library science at home and abroad, his love of books, and his intimate
acquaintance with the workings of this library were invaluable not only to the
Institution but to investigators at large.
The accessions recorded for the Smithsonian deposit, Library of Congress,
numbered 1,623 volumes, 11,947 parts of volumes, 2,987 pamphlets, and 777
charts, making a total of 17,284 publications.
The accession numbers run from 488,289 to 495,195. These publications were
sent to the Library of Congress as soon as received and entered, and in their
transmission 166 boxes were required, which, it is estimated, contained the
equivalent of 6,640 volumes, while the number of pieces sent, which includes
parts of periodicals, pamphlets, and volumes, was 29,679. This does not include,
however, about 3,888 parts of serial publications secured by exchange to com-
plete sets transmitted separately.
The policy of sending to the Library of Congress public documents presented
to the Smithsonian Institution, without stamping or entering, has been contin-
ued, and the number of publications given above does not include these, nor does
it include other publications sent to the Library of Congress which are received
through the International Exchanges.
The libraries of the Smithsonian office, of the Astrophysical Observatory, and
the National Zoological Park have received 294 volumes and pamphlets and
1,690 parts of volumes and charts, making a total of 1,984, and a grand total,
including the publications for the Smithsonian deposit, of 28,151.
The parts of serial publications entered on the card catalogue numbered
26,640, and 1,119 slips for completed volumes were-made, together with 477 cards
for new periodicals and annuals, which were added to the permanent record
from the periodical recording desk.
Inaugural dissertations and academic publications were received from univer-
sities at the following places:
Basel. Heidelberg. Philadelphia.
Bern. Jena. Rostock.
Bonn. Kiel. St. Petersburg.
Breslau. Konigsberg. Strassburg.
Dresden. Leipzig. Warsaw.
Hrlangen. Lund. Wurzberg.
Freiburg-im-Breisgau. Marburg. Ziirich.
Giessen. New York.
Halle-an-der-Saale. Paris.
67
68 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Similar publications have been received fiom the technical high schools at—
Budapest. Karlsruhe. Prague.
Darmstadt. Louvain. Upsala.
Hannover. Paris. Wiesbaden.
In carrying out the plan to effect new exchanges and to secure missing parts
to complete sets, 2,396 letters were written, resulting in about 477 periodicals
being added to the lists and the receipt of about 3,883 parts lacking in the sets,
which partially filled or entirely completed the various series of publications
in the Smithsonian deposit. In writing for the missing parts of publications
the library has had assistance from the International Exchanges of the Institu-
tion, but the results of these requests can not be definitely stated, as the replies
from them were still coming in at the close of the year. In addition, the
library has cooperated with the International Exchanges in sending out lists of
government documents and serial publications of that class needed to complete
the sets in the Library of Congress to the following: Argentine Republic,
Austria-Hungary, Baden, Bavaria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bremen, Province of
Buenos Aires, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Department of the Seine and city of
Paris, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Free City of Hamburg,
Grand Duchy of Hesse, Honduras, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Malta, Mexico, Monte-
negro, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru, Portugal, Prussia, Roumania, Russia, Sweden, Salvador, Saxony, city of
Vienna, Uruguay, Wurttemberg.
A decided increase has been noted in the number of persons consulting the
publications in the reading room, and in addition there were issued, for office
use, 80 bound volumes of periodicals and 3,706 parts of scientific periodicals and
popular magazines, making a total of 3,786. While the consultation has been
chiefly by members of the staff, the various bureaus of the Government have
availed themselves of the opportunity to use these publications and those in
the sectional libraries of the Institution.
The mail receipts numbered 28,059 packages. The publications contained
therein were stamped and distributed for entry from the mail desk. About
4,980 acknowledgments were made on the regular forms, which are in addition
to those for publications received in response to the requests of the Institu-
tion for exchange.
The employees’ library.—The books added numbered 19, and of these 18 were
purchased, while 110 volumes of periodicals were bound. The number of books
borrowed was 1,922, and the sending of a selected number of books from this
library to the National Zoological Park and the Bureau of American Ethnology
has been continued.
Art room.—tThe cataloguing of the collection of engravings in the art room
received attention as time would allow, but there still remains a great deal to
be done.
Bibliography of aeronautics.—The bibliography of aeronautical literature,
which includes the indexing of papers in periodicals and proceedings of aero-
nautical societies, together with books and separate pamphlets on the subject,
was completed, bringing the work up to July 1, 1909. At the close of the year
the manuscript was ready for the printer. :
American Historical Association.—The exchange of the annual reports of the
American Historical Association from the allotment agreed upon for that pur-
pose has resulted in a number of publications of historical societies throughout
the world being added to the Smithsonian deposit at the Library of Congress.
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.
The library of the Museum has received many gifts of importance during the
year. Dr. Charles A. White, Dr. William Healey Dall, and Dr. Charles W.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 69
Richmond have added scientific publications which are of value in completing
sets and filling in of the series of authors’ separates. From the estate of Dr.
Otis Tufton Mason, through the executor, Dr. E. B. Pollard, the Museum has
received Doctor Mason’s working library of anthropological publications, to-
gether with a collection of his manuscript notes. Dr. Wirt Tassin, for some
time assistant curator of the Division of Mineralogy, contributed about 1,000
pamphlets relating to mineralogy and kindred subjects. There has also been
secured by purchase from the estate of Dr. William H. Ashmead a complete
collection of his writings, together with his manuscript notes.
Acknowledgments are also due to Dr. HE. A. Schwarz, Mr. Wilfred H. Os-
good, Dr. O. P. Hay, and Dr. W. P. Hay for collections of publications which
they have presented. Additions have also been received to the William Schaus
eollection and a special bookplate engraved for it is now being placed in the
books.
In the Museum library there are now 386,244 volumes, 56,010 unbound papers,
and 110 manuscripts. The additions during the year consisted of 2,680 books,
8,671 pamphlets, and 227 parts of volumes. There were catalogued 1,280 books,
1,400 complete volumes of periodicals, and 4,218 pamphlets.
Special attention has been given to the preparation of volumes for binding,
with the result that 1,783 books were sent to the government bindery.
The number of books, periodicals, and pamphlets borrowed from the general
library amounted to 20,266, including 9,000 which were assigned to the sec-
tional libraries. This does not include, however, the large number of books
consulted in the library but not withdrawn.
The sectional libraries established in the Museum have remained the same,
the complete list now standing as follows:
Administration. History. Palzobotany.
Administrative assistant. | Insects. Parasites.
Anthropology. Invertebrate palzontol- Photography.
Biology. ogy. Physical anthropology.
Birds. Mammals. Prehistoric archeology.
Botany. Marine invertebrates. Reptiles.
Comparative anatomy. Materia medica. Superintendent.
Editor. Mesozoic fossils. Taxidermy.
Ethnology. Mineralogy. Technology.
Fishes. Mollusks.
Geology. Oriental archeology.
SUMMARY OF ACCESSIONS.
The following table summarizes all the accessions during the year except for
the Bureau of American Ethnology, which is separately administered :
Smithsonian deposit in the Library of Congress, including parts to com-
PONENTS Ss ES PR ES at Fe LT Vt a 21, 167
Office, Astrophysical Observatory, National Zoological Park, and inter-
BCT edt TT ANT ee KC aT Se GS aa ns ees a Se es Se Oe ode 1, 984
unitede States: National) Museum’ Jibraryo222-22 2-22 ee 6, 578
BTS) Teel peas oc an gs ee AAA RO a ee toe ee rie Le 29, 729
Respectfully submitted.
PauL BROCKETT,
Assistant Librarian,
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
APPENDIX VII,
REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC
LITERATURE.
Srr: I have the honor to submit the following report on the operations of the
United States Bureau of the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909.
The United States Regional Bureau is one of the 32 regional bureaus now
cooperating, through a central bureau in London, in the production of the
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature. The aim of the enterprise
is to index and classify all current published scientific papers and by means
of 17 annual volumes publish and distribute the data thus prepared to the
various subscribers to the catalogue throughout the world. The methods em-
ployed in indexing and classifying each paper result in what is practically
an analytical digest of the subject of each paper, this being accomplished by
means of references to classification schedules which are arranged to include
in systematic order each minute subdivision or subject of all the recognized
natural and physical sciences. The regional bureaus are supported by the
countries in which they are established, thus allowing all funds derived from
subscriptions to be used to defray the actual cost of printing and publishing.
The bureau in this country is supported by a direct congressional appropriation.
The allotment for the present fiscal year was $5,000, the same as for previous
years; the number of the staff has remained the same, namely, five persons.
During the year there were 34,409 classified index cards prepared by this bu-—
reau and forwarded to London as follows:
Wwiterabure: OF UOOM gar ao Se ee ed Ber a Sa Bn Seep 133
Miterature Of NWNOODS ele 2 oo a eel ale a eS a 235
Literature’ of) 19032225. 2. Se ey hie Sea 2 SEB ae
Titerature of 904i. c05. 3.1 2 a lee I 309
Literature of W905 - = 28 254 2k ee ee ae rg ee oe 1, 656
Literature of W906. 2.24 2-2 SEE Re eel Ne ee 4, 410
Titterature of 1007 ==. ee 2 a ee eee 8, 509
iteraturesote 908.22 ae eee tLe ee eee 18, 784
10D 621) La Se oR he Rae NE I Se ty gr ee 34, 409
The corresponding total for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, was 28,528,
thus showing an increase of 5,881, or over 20 per cent. There has been an in-
crease also in the number of citations furnished by other bureaus, for since the
beginning of the enterprise in 1901 the number of pages in the combined 17 an-
nual volumes has increased nearly one-third, as shown by the following table:
Pages
SU ent ME SS 0 ee la mk a Dane ap gL 7, 763
SGCONMCMRUSS UGS en ads oN ne ie ea Pe gS Ee 2 8, 826
EPUEVD TGS SS Ul Cee ee 9 etek ye aeRO ate BE ee a 8, 493
DROUIN lata SS Wl Cone oe a ea ee eee ee 8, 681
Beir SS Te asa he eae SS ee ee Oe eA 10, 785
Six threes et see Be ret Ne ek ok. EE ea 10, 049
70
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. fal
The number of cards sent from this regional bureau has increased as follows:
ime (Ggenll spear: TGA ee eee 6, 990
TBvOae tmysceendl yc TU 14, 480
iMoie (seal seni. TS ee ses Se ee 2415 213
Bare ingeal syeeliy 1180 se ee ee ee 24, 182
Par SOR Syh@RIP SIGN = ee ee eee 25, 601
Hee SColmsy.e crn OO eae ere oe ee ae ee ee ee Ue ee eee ooo 28, 629
URE SCONMBY.Ca oul OO Gere ee = ee Se he Se eee ee ee ES 28, 528
SOULS Cras Gals 1 O 0) Gise teeel. Poe eed Ree Se a es 34, 409
Should this increase continue it would add largely to the cost of publication,
and as there would be no corresponding addition to the receipts a decided
deficit would result, for the subscription price to the catalogue, namely, $85 a
year for 17 volumes, was fixed on a basis of the size and cost of the first an-
nual issue. It appears not only desirable, but necessary, to condense the refer-
ences aS much as possible, though condensation, without loss of usefulness,
necessitates much greater care on the part of the classifier in preparing a di-
gest. It can not be hoped that much change in the present methods can be
made without increasing the force of the bureau.
The following-named volumes of the catalogue were received and delivered
to subscribers in this country, as follows:
Sixth Annual Issue—Physics, Chemistry, Paleontology, General Biology,
Botany, Anthropology, Physiology, and Bacteriology, completing the issue.
Seventh Annual Issue—Mathematics, Mechanics, Physics, Astronomy, Miner-
alogy, Geology, Geography, Paleontology, and Zoology.
Through the resignation of Dr. Cyrus Adler, assistant secretary of the Smith-
sonian Institution, who was in charge of the United States branch of the Inter-
national Catalogue, both this bureau and the organization as a whole met with
a great loss, notwithstanding the fact that Doctor Adler still remains one of the
members of the International Council, the body vested with the supreme con-
trol of the catalogue. Doctor Adler was closely identified with the work from
the time the original ways and means were being discussed, and it is not too
much to say that had it not been for his interest and efforts Mr. Langley, the
late Secretary of the Institution, would not have aided the enterprise as he did
with the private funds of the Institution. Had not this aid been forthcoming
at the time the whole undertaking would have failed, for cooperation on the
part of the United States was essential, and, this Government failing at first
to lend its aid, there remained no other body than the Smithsonian Institution
in a position to become responsible for the work in this country.
It is felt that this International Catalogue of Scientific Literature is but a
beginning of what will be eventually a great cooperative international index and
digest of all records of human achievement. There is no question of the need
for such a publication and, with the satisfactory beginning already made, it
is a question of cost alone which limits the field of the present enterprise to
include only the literature of pure science to the exclusion of the extensive and
valuable literature of the applied sciences and other technical literature.
There have been no losses of property during the year, excepting those caused
by ordinary wear and deterioration.
In the sundry civil bill approved March 1, 1909, $6,000 was appropriated to
earry on the work for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910. This sum is an in-
crease of $1,000 over the appropriation for previous years.
Respectfully submitted. LEonarp C. GUNNELL,
Chief Assistant, Bureau of International
Dr. CHartes D. Watcort, Catalogue of Scientific Literature.
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
45745°—sm 1909——6
APPENDIX VIII.
REPORT ON THE PUBLICATIONS.
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the publications
of the Smithsonian Institution and its branches during the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1909:
There have been distributed a total of 757 volumes and separates in the series
of Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 15,080 in the series of Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collections, 22,991 in the series of Smithsonian Annual Reports,
and 4,022 in the series of Special Publications. In addition thereto there were
sent out by the Institution 1,313 publications not included in the Smithsonian
series, making a grand total of 44,163, a decrease of 15,732 from the previous
year. The total number of letters relating to publications received amounted
to 6,825, an increase of 280 over the previous year.
I. SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE.
In the series of Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge there appeared
during the year no original papers, but there was published in August, to meet
the increasing demand for the work, a reprint of Mr. Langley’s memoir on
The Internal Work of the Wind, originally published in 1893 in quarto form
as No. 884, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. ‘To the present edition
was added as an appendix a translation of the ‘“ Solution of a special case
of the general problem,” by Réné de Saussure, which appeared in 1893 with
“Le Travail Intérieur du Vent” in Revue de l’Aéronautique Théorique et
Appliqué, Paris, pages 58-68.
II. SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS.
In the series of Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume LII, there
were published 20 papers in the quarterly issue, volume 5, parts 2 and 3; and
in the regular series, Volume XXXYV, a fourth revised edition of the Smith-
sonian Physical Tables by Thomas Gray; and in Volume LIII of the regular
series, 3 papers by Charles D. Walcott.
In the quarterly issue the following papers were published :
1813. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. Quarterly issue. Volume 5,
part 2 (containing Nos. 1814-1823). Octavo. Pages 121-276, with Plates
IX-XVIII.
1814. The Nettelroth Collection of Invertebrate Fossils. By R. S. Bassler.
Published September 23, 1908. Octavo. Pages 121-152, with Plates IX—XI.
1815. A New Opuntia from Arizona. By J. N. Rose. Published October 6,
1908. Octavo. Page 153, with Plate XII.
1816. The Story of the Devil-Fish. By Theodore Gill. Published October 15,
1908. Octavo. Pages 155-180.
1817. Indians of Peru. By Charles C. Eberhardt, American consul at Iquitos,
Peru. Published October 24, 1908. Octavo. Pages 181-194, with Plates XIII,
XIV.
1818. On Opuntia Santa-Rita, a Species of Cactus of Ornamental Value. By
J. N. Rose, associate curator, division of plants, United States National Museum.
Published December 29, 1908. Octavo. Pages 195, 196, with Plate XV.
72
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 73
1819. Two New Species of Abronia. By Anton Heimer], University of Vienna,
Austria. Published December 23, 1908. Octavo. Pages 197, 198.
1820. Preliminary Notice of a Collection of Recent Crinoids from the Philip-
pine Islands. By Austin Hobart Clark, collaborator, department of marine
invertebrates, United States National Museum. Published December 23, 1908.
Octavo. Pages 199-234.
1821. The Relation of Richard Rush to the Smithsonian Institution. By
Cyrus Adler. Published January 16, 1909. Octavo. Pages 235-251, with
Plate XVI.
1822. Descriptions of Some New Species and a New Genus of American
Mosquitoes. By Harrison G. Dyar and Frederick Knab, of the United States
Department of Agriculture. Published January 12, 1909. Pages 253-266.
1823. Notes to Quarterly Issue. Volume 5, part 2. Octavo. Pages 267-273,
with Plates XVII, XVIII.
1860. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. Quarterly issue. Volume 5,
part 3 (containing Nos. 1861-1868). Octavo. Pages 277-401, with Plates XIX-—
XXXVITI.
1861. The Archer-Fish and Its Feats. By Theodore Gill. Published March
25, 1909. Octavo. Pages 277-286.
1862. The Peoples of Formosa. By Julean H. Arnold, American consul to
Formosa. Published March 25, 1909. Octavo. Pages 287-293, with Plates
XIX-XXIT.
1863. Our Present Knowledge of Canal Rays: A Detailed Bibliography. By
Gordon Scott Fulcher. Published March 25, 1909. Octavo. Pages 295-324.
1864. Observations on Living White Whales (Delphinapterus Leucas) ; with
a Note on the Dentition of Delphinapterus and Stenodelphis. By Frederick W.
True, head curator of biology, United States National Museum. Published
April 28, 1909. Octavo. Pages 325-830, with Plate XXIII.
1865. Some Recent Contributions to Our Knowledge of the Sun. Hamilton
Lecture. By George E. Hale, director of solar observatory of Carnegie Insti-
tution of Washington, at Mount Wilson, California. Published May 8, 1909.
Octavo. Pages 331-860, with Plates XXIV-XXXVI.
1866. Some New South American Land Shells. By William H. Dall, curator,
division of mollusks, United States National Museum. Published May 11,
1909. Octavo. Pages 361-364, with Plate XXXVII.
1867. The American Ferns of the Group of Dryopteris Opposita contained in
the United States National Museum. By Carl Christensen, Copenhagen. In
Press. Octavo. Pages 365-396.
1868. Notes to Quarterly Issue. Volume 5, part 38. Octavo. Pages 397-3899.
In the regular series of Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections the following
have been published:
1038. Smithsonian Physical Tables. Fourth revised edition. By Thomas
Gray. Octavo. Pages xxxv, 301. Part of Volume XXXV.
In this edition, published on account of the increased demand for the tables,
Professor Gray made a few corrections, particularly in the tables of equivalents
of metric and British imperial weights and measures, which were here brought
up to date.
1810. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology. No. 3, Cambrian Brachiopoda:
Descriptions of New Genera and Species. By Charles D. Walcott. Published
October 1, 1908. Octavo. Pages 538-187, with plates 7-10. Part of Volume
1ONUOE
1811. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology. No. 4, Classification and Ter-
minology of the Cambrian Brachiopoda. By Charles D. Walcott. Published
October 18, 1908. Octavo. Pages 139-165, with plates 11, 12. Part of Vol-
ume LIII,
74 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
1812. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology. No. 5, Cambrian Sections of the
Cordilleran Area. By Charles D. Walcott. Published December 10, 1908.
Octavo. Pages 167-230, with plates 138-22. Part of Volume LIII.
Publications numbered 1810, 1811, and 1812 were in continuation of the
studies of Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, by Charles D. Walcott, the
series of which began with Nos. 1804 and 1805, Nomenclature of Some Cambrian
Cordilleran Formations and Cambrian Trilobites.
There were in press in the regular series of Smithsonian Miscellaneous Col-
lections at the close of the fiscal year, publication No. 1869, The Mechanics of
the Earth’s Atmosphere (a collection of translations), second collection, by
Cleveland Abbe, and No. 1870, Landmarks of Botanical History, Part I, by
Dr. Edward L. Greene. There were in manuscript form, approved for publi-
cation, a Bibliography of the Occurrence and Distribution of Tin, by Frank L.
and Eva Hess, and a Bibliography of Aeronautics, by Paul Brockett, assistant
librarian of the Institution.
Ill. SMITHSONIAN ANNUAL REPORTS.
The Annual Report for 1907 was largely in type at the beginning of the fiscal
year, but owing principally to a delay in the securing of paper the report was
not finally published until late in the fall:
1824. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
showing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the Institution for the
year ending June 30, 1907. Octavo. Pages lvii, 726, with 79 plates.
The following papers, included in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents
for 1907, and enumerated in the report on publications for 1908, were issued
separately in pamphlet form:
1825. Proceedings of Board of Regents for the year ending June 30, 1907.
Report of Executive Committee, Acts and Resolutions of Congress. Octavo.
Pages xi-Ivii.
1826. The Steam Turbine on Land and Sea. By Hon. Charles A. Parsons,
C. B., M. A., D. Se, F. R. S., M. R. I. Octavo. Pages 99-112, with 8 plates.
1827. The Development of Mechanical Composition in Printing. By Prof. A.
Turpain, University of Poitiers. Octavo. Pages 113-129, with 3 plates.
1828. Some Facts and Problems Bearing on Electric Trunk Line Operation.
By Frank J. Sprague. Octavo. Pages 131-161, with 7 plates.
1829. Recent Contributions to Electric Wave Telegraphy. By Prof. J. A.
Fleming, M. A. D. Se., F. R. S., M. R. I., Pender professor of electrical engineer-
ing in the University of London. Octavo. Pages 163-198.
1830. On the Properties and Natures of Various Hlectric Radiations. By
W. H. Bragg, M. A., F. R. 8., elder professor of mathematics and physics in the
University of Adelaide. Octavo. Pages 195-214.
1831. Progress in Electro-Metallurgy. By John B. C. Kershaw. Octavo.
Pages 215-230, with 10 plates.
18382. Advances in Color Photography. By Thomas W. Smillie, F. R. P. S.
Octavo. Pages 231-237, with 1 plate.
1883. The Structure of Lippmann Heliochromes. By S. R. Cajal. Octavo.
Pages 2389-259.
1834. Bronze in South America before the Arrival of the Europeans. By
Adrien de Mortillet, honorary president of the Société Préhistorique de France.
Octavo. Pages 261-266.
1835. Some Opportunities for Astronomical Work with Inexpensive Appara-
tus. By Prof. George E. Hale, director of the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 15
of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Octavo. Pages 267-285, with 6
plates.
1836. The Progress of Science as Illustrated by the Development of Meteor-
ology. By Cleveland Abbe. Octavo. Pages 287-809.
1837. Geology of the Inner Earth.—Igneous Ores. By Prof. J. W. Gregory,
D. Se, F. R. S. Octavo. Pages 311-830.
1888. The Salton Sea. By F. H. Newell, Director United States Reclamation
Service. Octavo. Pages 331-345, with 9 plates.
1839. Inland Waterways. By George G. Chisholm. Octavo. Pages 347-370.
1840. The Present Position of Paleozoic Botany. By D. H. Scott, F. R. S.,
lately honorary keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Octavo. Pages 371-405, with 2 plates.
1841. The Zoological Gardens and Establishments of Great Britain, Belgium,
and the Netherlands. By Gustave Loisel, director of the Laboratory of General
Embryology at the School of Hautes Etudes, professor of zoology in the second-
ary courses of the Sorbonne, Paris. Octavo. Pages 407-448, with § plates.
1842. Systematic Zoology: Its Progress and Purpose. By Theodore Gill.
Octavo. Pages 449-471, with 14 plates.
1843. The Genealogical History of the Marine Mammals. By Prof. O. Abel.
Octavo. Pages 473-496. :
1844. The Mediterranean Peoples. By Theobald Fischer, University of Mar-
burg. Octavo. Pages 497-521.
1845. Prehistoric Japan. By Dr. HB. Baelz, 1876-1902, professor Imperial
Japanese University of Tokyo. Octavo. Pages 523-547, with 2 plates.
1846. The Origin of Egyptian Civilization. By Edouard Naville, D. C. L.,
LL. D., ete. Octavo. Pages 549-564.
1847. The Fire Piston. By Henry Balfour, M. A., curator of Pitt-Rivers
Museum, Oxford. Octavo. Pages 565-593, with 5 plates.
1848. The Origin of the Canaanite Alphabet. By Franz Praetorius. Octavo.
Pages 595-604.
1849. Three Aramaic Papyri from Elephantine, Egypt. By Prof. Eduard
Sachau. Octavo. Pages 605-611, with 2 plates.
1850. The Problem of Color Vision. By John M. Dane. Octavo. Pages
613-625.
1851. Immunity in Tuberculosis. By Simon Flexner, M. D., Rockefeller Insti-
tute for Medical Research, New York City. Octavo. Pages 627-645.
1852. The Air of the New York Subway Prior to 1906. By George A. Soper.
Octavo. Pages 647-667.
1858. Marcelin Berthelot. By Camille Matignon, professor of mineral chem-
istry at the Collége de France; former assistant professor to Berthelot at the
Collége de France. Octavo. Pages 669-684, with 1 plate.
1854. Linnean Memorial Address. By Edward L. Greene. Octavo. Pages
685-709, with 1 plate.
The Report of the Executive Committee and Proceedings of the Board of
Regents of the Institution, as well as the Report of the Secretary for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1908, both forming part of the Annual Report of the
Board of Regents to Congress, were printed in pamphlet form and published at
the December meeting of the Board of Regents, as follows:
1855. Report of the Executive Committee and Proceedings of the Board of
Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the year ending June 30, 1908.
Octayo. Pages 3-18.
1856. Report of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution for the year
ending June 30, 1908. Octavo. Pages iii, 86.
76 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The greater part of the Smithsonian Report for 1908 was in type at the close
of the fiscal year. The General Appendix contains the following papers:
The Present Status of Military Aeronautics. By Maj. George O. Squier,
U.S. Army.
Aviation in France in 1908. By Pierre-Roger Jourdain.
Wireless Telephony. By R. A. Fessenden.
Phototelegraphy. By Henri Armagnat.
The Gramophone and the Mechanical Recording and Reproduction of Musical
Sounds. By Lovell N. Reddie.
On the Light Thrown by Recent Investigation on Electricity on the Relation
between Matter and Ether. By J. J. Thomson.
Development of General and Physical Chemistry During the Last Forty Years.
By W. Nernst.
Development of Technological Chemistry During the Last Forty Years. By
O. N. Witt.
Twenty Years’ Progress in Explosives. By Oscar Guttmann.
Recent Research in the Structure of the Universe. By J. C. Kapteyn.
Solor Vortices and Magnetism in Sun Spots. By C. G. Abbot.
Climatic Variations, Their Extent and Causes. By J. W. Gregory.
Uranium and Geology. By John Joly.
An Outline Review of the Geology of Peru. By George I. Adams.
Our Present Knowledge of the Earth. By H. Wiechert.
The Antarctic Question. By J. Machat.
Some Geographical Aspects of the Nile. By Capt. H. G. Lyons.
Heredity and the Origin of Species. By Daniel Trembly MacDougal.
Cactaceae of Northeastern and Central Mexico, together with a Synopsis of
the Principal Mexican Genera. By William Edwin Safford.
Angler Fishes, their Kinds and Ways. By Theodore Gill.
The Birds of India. By Douglas Dewar.
The Evolution of the Hlephant. By Richard S. Lull.
Excavations at Boghaz-Keui in the Summer of 1907. By Hugo Winckler and
O. Puchstein.
Malaria in Greece. By Ronald Ross.
Carl von Linné as a Geologist. By A. G. Nathorst.
Life and Work of Lord Kelvin. By Sylvanus P. Thompson.
The Work of Henri Becquerel. By André Broca.
Owing to the unusual demand for the paper, there was published in March
a reprint of number 1688, Parental Care among Fresh-water Fishes, by Theo-
dore Gill, which appeared originally in the Annual, Report of the Board of
Regents for 1905.
IV. SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS.
Five special publications were issued during the year, as follows:
1808. Catalogue of the Botanical Library of John Donnell Smith, presented in
1905 to the Smithsonian Institution. Compiled by Alice Cary Atwood. Im-
perial octavo. Pages 94.
The catalogue was printed in an edition of 200 copies on Old Stratford paper,
imperial octavo size, from the original stereotype plates used in its first publi-
cation by the National Museum as Part I of Volume XII of Contributions from
the National Herbarium.
1809. Researches and Experiments in Aerial Navigation. By S. P. Langley.
Reprinted from the Smithsonian Reports for 1897, pages 169-181, with 1 plate;
1900, pages 197-216, with 6 plates; 1901, pages 649-659, with 7 plates; 1904,
pages 118-125, with 1 plate. Octavo.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. ie
The occasion for this reprint of Mr. Langley’s papers, which was issued in
August, is stated in the introduction. The articles were as follows:
I. Story of Experiments in Mechanical Flight. By Samuel Pierpont Lang-
ley. From the Smithsonian Report for 1897, pages 169-181 (with PI. I).
Published originally in the Aeronautical Annual, 1897.
II. The Langley Aerodrome. From the Smithsonian Report for 1900. pages
197-216 (with Pls. I-VI). Slightly abridged from an article published origi-
nally in McClure’s Magazine, June, 1897.
Ill. The Greatest Flying Creature. By S. P. Langley (introducing a paper
by F. A. Lucas). From the Smithsonian Report for 1901, pages 649-659 (with
Pls. I-VI1).
IV. Experiments with the Langley Aerodrome. By 8S. P. Langley. From the
Smithsonian Report for 1904, pages 1138-125 (with Pl. I).
1858. Contributions to the Life Histories of Fishes. By Theodore Gill.
Volume I. 1904-1907. Reprints from Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections,
Smithsonian Annual Report, and Proceedings United States National Museum.
Octavo. 323 pages (pagination as in originals), with 28 plates (numbered as
in originals).
The contents of this volume is as follows:
I. A Remarkable Genus of Fishes—the Umbras. April 11, 1904. Smiths.
Mise. Coll., Vol. 45, No. 14538.
II. The Sculpin and its Habits. January 31, 1905. Smiths. Mise. Coll., Vol.
47, No. 1552.
III. The Life History of the Angler. May 6, 1905. Smiths. Mise. Coll., Vol.
47, No. 1569.
IV. The Tarpon and Lady-fish and their Relations. May 18, 1905. Smiths.
Misc. Coll., Vol. 48, No. 1576.
VY. The Life History of the Sea-horse. July 6, 1905. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus.,
Vol. 28, No. 1408.
VI. The Family of Cyprinids and the Carp as its Type. September 8, 1905.
Smiths. Mise. Coll., Vol 48, No. 1591.
VII. Flying Fishes and their Habits. October 5, 1905. Rep. Smiths. Inst.,
1904, No. 1629.
VIII. Parental Care among ITresh-water Fishes. January 21, 1907. Rep.
Smiths. Inst., 1905, No. 1688.
IX. Some Noteworthy Extra-European Cyprinids. February 4, 1907. Smiths.
Mise. Coll., Vol. 48, No. 1662.
X. Life Histories of Toadfishes (Batrachoidids) compared with those of
Weevers (Trachinids) and Stargazers (Uranoscopids). May 4, 1907.
Smiths. Mise. Coll., Vol. 48, No. 1697.
1859. Classified List of Smithsonian Publications Available for Distribution
March, 1909. Octavo. Pages 39.
1871. Smithsonian Mathematical Tables. Hyberbolic Functions. Prepared
by George F. Becker and C. E. Van Orstrand. Octavo. Pages li, 321.
The advertisement explains the purpose and scope of this publication:
“Among the early publications of the Smithsonian Institution was a very
important volume of meteorological tables by Dr. Arnold Guyot. They were
so widely used by geographers and physicists, as well as by meteorologists,
that when the fourth edition was exhausted it was decided to recast the entire
work and publish three separate volumes—Meteorological Tables, Geographical
Tables, and Physical Tables—each of which have now passed through several
editions.
“Tn the application of the data of these volumes to the study of natural phe-
nomena certain mathematical fables beside those included in ordinary tables
78 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
of logarithms are urgently needed in order to save recurrent computation on the
part of observers and investigators. It was therefore decided to publish the
present volume of Mathematical Tables on ‘ Hyperbolic functions.’
“ Hyperbolic functions are extremely useful in every branch of pure physics
and in the application of physics, whether to observational and experimental
sciences or to technology. Thus whenever an entity (such as light, velocity,
electricity, or radioactivity) is subject to gradual extinction or absorption the
decay is represented by some form of Hyperbolic functions. Mercator’s pro-
jection is likewise computed by Hyperbolic functions. Whenever mechanical
strains are regarded as great enough to be measured they are most simply
expressed in terms of Hyperbolic functions. Hence geological deformations
invariably lead to such expression, and it is for that reason that Messrs. Becker
and Van Orstrand, who are in charge of the physical work of the United States
Geological Survey, have been led to prepare this volume.”
VY. PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNITED STATDPS NATIONAL MUSEUM.
The publications of the National Museum are: (@) The annual report, form-
ing a separate volume of the Report to Congress by the Board of Regents of
the Smithsonian Institution; (0) The Proceedings of the United States National
Museum; (c) The Bulletin of the United States National Museum; and (d) the
Contributions from the United States National Herbarium. The editorship of
these publications is in charge of Dr. Marcus Benjamin.
The publications issued during the year are enumerated in the Report on
the National Museum. ‘These included Volume XXXIV of the Proceedings,
containing Museum papers numbered 1610 to 1630; Volume XXXV, papers
numbered 1631 to 1658; and Volume XXXVI, papers numbered 1659 to 1694.
Three bulletins were issued:
62. Catalogue of the Type Specimens of Mammals in the United States Na-
tional Museum, including the Biological Survey Collection. By Marcus Ward
Lyon and Wilfred H. Osgood.
638. A Monographie Revision of the Coleoptera belonging to the Tenebrionids
Tribe Eleodiini inhabiting the United States, Lower California, and Adjacent
Islands. By Frank H. Blaisdell, sr.
64. A Critical Summary of Troost’s Unpublished Manuscript on the Crinoids
of Tennessee. By Elvira Wood.
In the series of Contributions from the United States National Herbarium
there appeared:
Volume XII, part 4. The Mexican and Central American Species of Sapium,
by Henry Pittier; Volume XII, part 5, New or Noteworthy Plants from Colom-
bia and Central America, by Henry Pittier; Volume XII, part 6, Catalogue of
the Grasses of Cuba, by A. S. Hitchcock; Volume XII, part 7, Studies of Mexi-
can and Central American Plants, No. 6, by J. N. Rose; Volume XII, part 8,
The Allionacee of the United States, with notes on Mexican Species, by Paul C.
Standley; Volume XII, part 9, Miscellaneous Papers, by J. N. Rose, N. L.
Britton, and William Maxon; and Volume XIII, part 1, Studies of Tropical
American Ferns, No. 2, by William Maxon.
VI. PUBLICATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN BTHNOLOGY.
The publications of the bureau are discussed in detail in another appendix
of the Secretary’s report. The editorial work is in charge of Mr. J. G. Gurley.
The Twenty-sixth Annual Report was issued during the summer, together with
the usual number of separates of the accompanying papers, and also Bulletins
34, Physiological and Medical Observations Among the Indians of Southwestern
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 719
United States and Northern Mexico, by AleS Hrdliéka, and 42, Tuberculosis
Among Certain Indian Tribes, by AleS Hrdli¢éka. At the close of the fiscal year
there were largely in type or at the bindery the Twenty-seventh Annual Report,
and Bulletins 38, 39, 40, part 1, 41, 48, 46, and 47.
VII. PUBLICATIONS OF THD SMITHSONIAN ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY.
As an addenda to the Annals of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory,
Volume II, a short note on the Reflecting Power of Clouds was issued, as
follows:
1738a. Note on the Reflecting Power of Clouds. By C. G. Abbot and F. E.
Yowle, jr. (Addenda to Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory, Smithsonian
Institution, Vol. II.) Octavo. Pages 3.
VIII. REPORT OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
Volumes I and II of the Annual Report of the American Historical Associa-
tion for the year 1906, by law approved and communicated to Congress by the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, were published in August, 1908.
Volume I contained the following: Report of Proceedings of Providence
Meeting, by Charles H. Haskins; Report of Proceedings of Pacific Coast Branch,
by Max Farrand; The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, by D. C. Munro; A
Medizval Humanist, by H. O. Taylor; Report of Conference on Teaching of
History in Schools, by J. A. James; Report of Conference on History in Col-
lege, by Max Farrand; Third Report of Conference on State and Local His-
torical Societies, by F. H. Severance; Comparison of Virginia Company with
Other English Trading Companies, by Susan M. Kingsbury ; The Colonial Policy
of Great Britain, by G. L. Beer; William Penn, by Edward Channing; Some
Aspects of the English Bill for the Admission of Kansas, by F. H. Hodder;
The Attitude of Thaddeus Stevens Toward the Conduct of the Civil War, by
J. A. Woodburn; History of Indian Consolidation West of the Mississippi, by
Annie H. Abel.
Volume II contained the Seventh Report of the Public Archives Commission,
with discussions of the following subjects: Summary of present state of legis-
lation of States and Territories relative to the custody and supervision of
the public records, by Robert T. Swan; public archives of Arkansas, by John
Hugh Reynolds; public archives of Connecticut, by N. P. Mead; state and county
archives of Delaware, by Edgar Dawson; state archives of Florida, by David
Y. Thomas; archives of Augusta, Ga., and of Richmond County, by Julia A.
Flisch; state archives of Ohio and of Ross County, by R. C. Stevenson; local
archives of Tennessee, by St. George L. Sioussat; bibliography of public archives
of the thirteen original States to 1789, by Adelaide R. Hasse.
The manuscript of Volumes I and II of the Annual Report for 1907 was sent
to the Public Printer September 10, 1908, but the work had not been published
at the close of the fiscal year. The manuscript of Volume I for 1908 was trans-
mitted on June 17, 1909.
IX. REPORT OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
The Hleventh Report of the Daughters of the American Revolution was re-
ceived from the society in accordance with section 8 of the act of incorporation,
which reads that “said society shall report annually to the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution concerning its proceedings, and said Secretary shall
communicate to Congress such portions thereof as he may deem of national
interest and importance.” After revision the report was communicated to
Congress on June 1, 1909.
80 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
X. SMITHSONIAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON PRINTING AND PUBLICATION.
The editor has continued to serve as secretary of the Smithsonian advisory
committee on printing and publication. To this committee have been referred
the manuscripts proposed for publication by the various branches of the Insti-
tution as well as those offered for printing in the Quarterly Issue of the
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections.
Upon the resignation of Dr. Cyrus Adler, chairman of the committee, as
assistant secretary of the Institution, the Secretary on October 21 reorganized
the committee as follows: Dr. Frederick W. True, chairman; and Messrs. C. G.
Abbot, W. I. Adams, Frank Baker, A. Howard Clark, F. W. Hodge, Otis T.
Mason, George P. Merrill, and Leonhard Stejneger. At the same time the Mu-
seum advisory committee on printing and publication was discontinued and the
responsibilities theretofore devolving upon it were transferred to the Smith-
sonian committee.
Twenty-seven meetings were held during the year and 110 papers and 6
printed forms were reported on.
: XI. PRESS ABSTRACTS OF PUBLICATIONS.
Although the pressure of routine editorial work claimed most of the time
of the editorial staff, abstracts of a number of the more popular publications,
as well as articles on the work of the Institution and its branches, were fur-
nished to a large number of newspapers, in continuance of the policy inau-
gurated in March, 1907.
Respectfully submitted.
A. Howarp CuarKk, Hditor.
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
APPENDIX IX.
REPORT ON ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION.
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report of the participation of
the Smithsonian Institution and National Museum in the Alaska-Yukon-Pacifie
Exposition at Seattle, Washington:
The act of Congress approved May 27, 1908, authorizing an exhibit by the
departments and bureaus of the Government at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacifiec Expo-
sition appropriated the sum of $200,000, to be expended under the direction of
the United States Government board of managers, composed of three persons
in the employ of the Government, one to be designated by the President as
chairman, and one as secretary and disbursing officer. This board was charged
with the selection, purchase, preparation, transportation, arrangement, safe-
keeping, exhibition, and return of such articles and materials as the heads of
the several departments and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, respec-
tively, should decide to be embodied in the government exhibit thus author-
ized. There was also appropriated the sum of $125,000, to be expended under
the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, to aid the people of the district
of Alaska and the Territory of Hawaii in providing and maintaining appro-
priate and creditable exhibits of the products and resources of Alaska and
Hawaii; and $25,000 was appropriated, to be expended under the Secretary of
War, to aid the people of the Philippine Islands in providing and maintaining
an appropriate exhibit of the products and resources of the Philippine Islands.
In addition to this, the Secretary of the Treasury was directed to erect suitable
buildings for the government exhibit, including an irrigation and biograph
building; also a fisheries building, and buildings for the exhibits of the district
of Alaska, the Territory of Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands, for which an
appropriation of $250,000 was made. Mr. Jesse H. Wilson, Mr. W. de C.
Ravenel, and Mr. W. M. Geddes were appointed members of the government
board of managers; Mr. Wilson, chairman; Mr. Ravenel, vice-chairman; and
Mr. Geddes, secretary and disbursing officer.
The act also provided that the Smithsonian Institution and National Museum
should exhibit such articles of material of an historical nature as would impart
a knowledge of our national history, especially that of Alaska, Hawaii, and
the Philippine Islands, and that portion of the United States west of the
Rocky Mountains. The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution designated
Mr. W. de C. Ravenel, administrative assistant, United States National Museum,
as representative of the Institution and National Museum. Of the total appro-
priation, $24,000 was allotted to the Smithsonian Institution and National
Museum and about 10,000 square feet of space in the main government building.
The preparation of this exhibit was begun as soon as possible after the board
was organized, in accordance with plans submitted by the representative, and
was practically installed in the government building by June 1, when the
exposition opened.
In the preparation of the exhibits by the Institution and the Museum the
principal idea kept in view was to present an outline of our national achieve-
ments and progress, and of the facts connected with the development of the
81
82 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
western part of the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippine IsJands.
The exhibits were classified as follows:
1. Portraits of eminent persons associated with the discovery and history of
America.
2. Portraits of eminent persons connected with the history of the Pacific coast
Alaska.
3. Portraits of eminent persons connected with the history of the Hawaiian
Islands.
. Portraits of eminent persons connected with the history of the Philippine
Islands. ‘
tS
5. Historic scenes and landmarks.
6. History of the Capitol.
7. Historie vessels.
8. Early American steamboats.
9. History of land transportation.
10. History of the contributions of Henry and Morse to electricity and the
telegraph.
11. Medallic history of the United States.
12. History of American cartography.
13. History of the territorial expansion of the United States.
14, History of the Pacific coast and Alaska:
The Spanish missions in California.
The Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska.
The Church of Latter-day Saints.
Modern pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico.
Ancient pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico.
The aborigines of California.
The aborigines of the North Pacific coast and Alaska.
Paintings and photographs of Alaska.
15. The Philippines:
Civilized and uncivilized peoples.
Series of photographs.
16. Hawaii:
Model of village.
Series of photographs.
Emerson ethnographic collection.
Chureh mission work in Hawaii.
17. Samoa:
The natives.
Paintings and photographs.
18. The Mariannes:
Series of photographs.
19. The history of photography.
20. The history of medicine in America.
The portion of the exhibit representing persons prominently connected with
the discovery and history of America, Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, and of
the Philippine Islands consisted of 190 portraits, and there were also portraits
and paintings representing historic scenes and landmarks.
Models of historic vessels were exhibited, including a Viking ship, the Santa
Maria, the Half Moon, the Mayflower, and the Constitution; also models illus-
trating the development of the steam vessel, including John Fitch’s steamboat,
which plied on the Delaware in 1786; the Clermont, first used by Fulton in
1807 on the Hudson; the Phoenix, the Savannah, and others of great public
interest.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 83
In the exhibit of land transportation were shown the various early methods
of transporting passengers and supplies, arranged in sequence and including
models of the early locomotives, such as the John Bull and the Stourbridge
Lion.
The collection of electrical and telegraphic apparatus was designed to demon-
strate some of the more important features connected with Prof. Joseph Henry’s
researches in electrical science, and included five of his original instruments
and reproductions of other pieces of apparatus.
The medallic history of the United States was portrayed by a series of bronze
eopies of 23 medals which were struck in honor of the Presidents of the United
States frem Thomas Jefferson to Theodore Roosevelt, and other medals com-
memorating special acts and events of historical importance in the development
of the country.
American cartography and the story of the territorial expansion of the
United States were illustrated by maps and by facsimiles of a number of
treaties.
The history of the Pacific coast and Alaska was shown by means of paintings,
by a model of the Santa Barbara mission building, relics from the different
missions, and other interesting objects, an excellent model of St. Michael’s
Cathedral in Sitka, a large number of photographs of churches, clergy, and a
collection of primers, liturgies, manuals, and other religious works connected
with Russian missionary efforts in Alaska.
The history of the Mormon Church was illustrated by a collection of portraits
of more than 40 persons conspicuous in its establishment and growth; albums
containing pictures of Mormon temples and other buildings; and models of the
temple and tabernacle in Salt Lake City; also a chart showing the migrations
from Vermont to Illinois and other points.
An exhibit which attracted much attention consisted of models and paintings
of ancient pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico. The style of buildings adopted
by the ancient people of southern Arizona was graphically illustrated by a
painting presenting a bird’s-eye view of the prehistoric ruin of Casa Grande,
situated in the desert about 50 miles southeast of Phoenix. The ruin com-
prises blocks of buildings, reservoirs, and ditches, fortified inclosures, and other
constructions. The original settlement was composed of rectangular structures
known as “compounds,” illustrated by models A, B, and C. Some of these
buildings were used for the performance of sacred rites and as habitations for
medicine men and chiefs. The Smithsonian Institution has made extensive
excayations and repairs of the Casa Grande ruin.
The characteristics of cliff-dwelling architecture were well portrayed in the
model of Mummy Cave, a ruin in northeastern Arizona, and a painting of the
Cliff Palace, the largest known of the cliff dwellings, situated in southeastern
Colorado. Modern pueblo family life and dwellings were depicted by a group
of Zuni Indians of New Mexico, and by the well-known Hopi pueblo of Walpi,
Ariz. A life-sized family group of Hupa Indians engaged in their customary
occupations was selected to illustrate the aborigines of California.
The culture of the aborigines of the North Pacific coast and southeastern
Alaska was represented by objects carved in wood, such as chests, totem poles,
and humerous other specimens.
The industries of the western Eskimo of southeastern Alaska were represented
by a model of a log house, lay figures of a man and woman, a collection of
Spears, harpoons, snowshoes, and boats; also specimens of basketry and other
objects connected with their domestic pursuits.
A number of historical paintings lent by Mr. T. J. Richardson, and photo-
graphs by Lieut. George T. Emmons, U. S. Navy, portrayed the early history
of Alaska.
84 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The groups and other objects showing the life and habits of the Philippine
Islanders formed a most attractive exhibit. Among these was a family group
of the Negritos of Zambales, a small, black people inhabiting several isolated
places in various islands of the Philippines. Their houses are nothing but
rude shelters, and are scattered throughout the country. There was also ex-
hibited a typical collection of specimens showing the arts and industries of this
tribe.
The Igorot of Bontoe were represented by a family group of four figures.
This people is of Malayan stock and pursue agriculture and other peaceful
vocations. Until quite recently, in contrast to their pacific dispositions, they
were addicted to the barbarous practice of head-hunting. Their arts were
represented by a number of objects, including articles of personal adornment
and carved wooden figures.
The arts and industries of the Moro and Bagobo tribes of Mindanao were
shown by specimens of baskets, shellwork, ornaments, metal work, and
costumes.
The Tagal, the most progressive of the native tribes, having been in contact
with Spanish civilization for several centuries, were represented by articles
of pottery, cups, bowls, cloth, costumes, arms, and a lay figure of a weaver
at work.
The general history of the Philippine Islands at the close of the war with
Spain was portrayed by a series of photographs of the natives, family life,
occupations, dwellings, churches, and of historic scenes.
The exhibit illustrating the history of the Hawaiians comprised a model of
a village of the early Hawaiians, who formerly lived in grass-thatched houses,
grouped into villages, constituting the home of a clan, presided over by a chief
and a priest. The exhibit also included a large series comprising several hun-
dred ethnological objects collected by Mr. N. B. Emerson, and of photographs
representing buildings, ancient and modern, and various data illustrative of
ehurch, settlement, and school work.
The Samoans, who are a robust and active people, living in comfortable
palm-roofed houses, were represented by a family group. Oil painting of a
Samoan man and woman and photographs of native houses formed a part of
the exhibit, as well as a number of objects connected with their social life.
The Guam and Marianne Islands exhibit embraced photographs of some
of the natives and their houses.
The evolution and history of photography was well illustrated by a collection
prepared by Mr. Thomas W. Smillie, beginning with the earliest permanent
photographs, and including examples of nearly all of the most important dis-
coveries and inventions up to the present time. Many of the specimens were
made by the inventors of the processes and others in the Museum laboratory.
The collections of color photographs are especially fine, beginning with the
tinting and then an elaborate coloring of the photograph by hand, and the
patented processes for transferring the film to a colored base, which finally
led to the almost perfect photographs in color, as made by Ives, Wood, Lippman,
Miley, and the autochromes made in our own laboratory.
The history of medicine, prepared by Dr. ¥. M. Flint, consisted mainly of
photographs and biographical sketches of noted doctors, beginning with the
Physician who accompanied Capt. John Smith to America and covering the
twentieth century up to and including experiments conducted by Major Reed
for the prevention of yellow fever in Cuba in 1891.
These exhibtis by the Institution and the Museum were prepared by the
representative, with the assistance of Mr. W. H. Holmes, of the Bureau of
American Ethnolgoy; Dr. Walter Hough, acting head curator of anthropology;
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 85
Dr. I. M. Casanowicz; Mr. T. T. Belote; Mr. T. W. Smillie; Mr. G. C.-Maynard;
and Dr. J. M. Flint, U. S. Navy. The groups were designed by Mr. Holmes
and modeled by Mr. U. S. J. Dunbar. The models of Casa Grande were made
by Mr. H. W. Hendley, under the direction of Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, and the
model of the Hawaiian village by Mr. I. B. Millner. :
The Museum is indebted to Mr. George Wharton James for the assembling
of the exhibits from the California missions; to Rev. A. P. Kashevaroff for
designing and collecting the exhibit of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska ;
to a committee of the Church of Latter-day Saints, of which Mr. O. F. Whit-
ney was chairman, for an exhibit illustrating the history of that church; to the
Board of Hawaiian Evangelical Association for a series of photographs show-
ing mission work in Hawaii; and to Mr. H. W. Henshaw, Lieut. G. T. Emmons,
U. S. Navy; Mr. T. J. Richardson; Dr. C. H. Townsend; and Mr. W. EH. Safford
for the loan of photographs and paintings.
Special acknowledgement is made of the cordial assistance rendered by the
Department of State, the War Department, the Signal Corps, the Bureau of
Fisheries, and the American Museum of Natural History.
The exhibit as a whole has attracted much attention, being of especial
interest to students of history, and one of the most creditable sent out by the
Institution. 'The exposition will close October 15, 1909.
Respectfully submitted.
W. DE C. RAVENEL,
Representative Smithsonian Institution
and National Museum.
Dr. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
APPENDIX X,
THE FIRST PAN-AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS, HELD IN SAN-
TIAGO, CHILE, DECEMBER 25, 1908-JANUARY 6, 1909.
By W. H. HoLMEs,
Delegate of United States Government representing the Smithsonian Institution.
The first Latin-American Scientific Congress, which was convened in Buenos
Aires in 1898, was projected by the Argentine Scientific Society of that city and
successfully carried out. It was attended by representatives of twelve Latin-
American republics, and yielded results of such importance that a second con-
gress was convened at Montevideo in 1901; and this was followed by a third at
Rio de Janeiro in 1905. Arrangements were made for a fourth meeting at San-
tiago, Chile, in 1908, and the Chilean organization committee,” feeling that the
activities of the congress, which had been limited to the discussion of the Latin-
American problems and interests chiefly, should be extended to a fully Pan-
American scope, decided that the Santiago meeting should be known as ‘* The
First Pan-American Scientific Congress.”
The organization committee, through the medium of the Chilean Government,
extended to the Government of the United States an invitation to participate.
Secretary Root brought the matter to the attention of President Roosevelt,?
@The organization committee was constituted as follows: Honorary presi-
dent, Marcial Martinez; President, Valentin Letelier ; vice-presidents, Manuel EH.
Ballestros and Miguel Cruchaga; general secretary, Eduardo Poirier; assistant
secretary, Augusto Vicuna §.; treasurer; Octavio Maira; Alejandro Alvarez,
José Ramon Gutierrez, Alejandro del Rio, Miguel Varas, Luis Espejo Varas,
Anselmo Hevia Riquelme, Vicente Izquierdo, Domingo V. Santa Maria.
o’THE PRESIDENT: The Government of Chile has invited the Government of
the United States to join in and to be represented by delegates at the Pan-
American Scientific Congress, which is to assemble under its auspices at the
eapital city of Santiago during the ten days beginning December 25, 1908.
The work of the congress will comprehend nine sections, devoted, respectively,
to pure and applied mathematics, physical sciences, natural sciences, engineer-
ing, medicine and hygiene, anthropology, jurisprudence and sociology, peda-
gogics, and agriculture and animal industry.
Latin-American scientific congresses were held in 1898 at Buenos Aires, in
1901 at Montevideo, and in 1905 at Rio de Janeiro. Growing out of these pre-
vious conferences the congress of 1908 will be for the first time Pan-American.
It will study and discuss many great subjects in which all the American re-
publics have in common special interests; and its aim is to bring together the
best scientific thought of this hemisphere for the scrutiny of many distinctively
American problems and for an interchange of experience and of views which
should be of great value to all the nations concerned.
It is therefore eminently appropriate that the United States should be ade-
quately represented at this important First Pan-American Scientific Congress
86
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 87
and the President transmitted the invitation to Congress, accompanied by a
commendatory message.* In due course the invitation was officially accepted
and a liberal sum appropriated for the purposes of the congress. The com-
mittee of organization also extended invitations, through the Department of
State at Washington, to a number of universities and other institutions and
societies. AS a result a large delegation was accredited to the congress. The
membership of the delegation and the institutions represented are as follows:
Government delegates.
L. S. Rowe, University of Pennsylvania.
Paul 8. Reinsch, University of Wisconsin.
Hiram Bingham, Yale University.
A. C. Coolidge; Harvard University.
and should embrace this opportunity for cooperation in scientific research with
the representatives of the other American republics. It is worthy of con-
sideration that, in addition to the purely scientific interests to be subserved by
such a congress and in addition to the advantages arising from an interchange
of thought and the intercourse of the scientific men of the American countries
and the good understanding and friendly relations which will be promoted,
there are many specific relations arising from the very close intercourse be-
tween the United States and many Latin-American countries, incident to our
expanding trade, our extending investments, and the construction of the
Panama Canal, which make a common understanding and free exchange of
opinion upon scientific subjects of great practical importance.
To make our representation possible I have the honor to recommend that the
Congress be asked to appropriate the sum of $35,000, or so much thereof as
may be necessary, to enable the United States to send a number of delegates
corresponding to the number of sections into which the congress is to be di-
vided, together with a secretary and disbursing officer, and to pay other neces-
sary expenses.
Inasmuch as it is desired that all communications or scientific works to be
presented to the congress be received before September 30, it is much to be
hoped that provision for the participation of this government may be made at
an early date and that the appropriation be made immediately available.
Respectfully submitted.
Exinvu Root.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, December 19, 1907.
“To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith for the consideration of the respective Houses of the
Congress a report of the Secretary of State representing the appropriateness
of early action in order that in response to the invitation of the Government
of Chile the Government of the United States may be enabled fittingly to be
represented at the First Pan-American Scientific Congress, to be held at San-
tiago, Chile, the first ten days of December, 1908.
The recommendations of this report have my hearty approval, and I hope that
the Congress will see fit to make timely provision to enable the Government to
respond appropriately to the invitation of the Government of Chile in the
Sending of delegates to a congress which can not fail to be of great interest
and importance to the governments and peoples of all the American republics.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
THE WuitEe House, December 21, 1907.
45745°—sm 1909——7
88 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Col. William C. Gorgas, U. S. Army.
W. H. Holmes, Smithsonian Institution.
Bernard Moses, University of California.
George M. Rommel, Bureau of Animal Industry.
W. R. Shepherd, Columbia University.
W. B. Smith, Tulane University.
University and society delegates.
C. H. Hall, University of Minnesota.
Bernard Moses, University of California.
Albert A. Michelson, University of Chicago.
J. Lawrence Laughlin, University of Chicago.
W. R. Shepherd, Columbia University.
Thomas Barbour, Harvard University.
A. C. Coolidge, Harvard University.
J. B. Woodworth, Harvard University.
Adolph Hempel, University of Illinois.
W. H. Holmes, George Washington University.
Orville A. Derby, Cornell University.
H. D. Curtis, University of Michigan.
W. F. Rice, Northwestern University.
L. 8S. Rowe, University of Pennsylvania.
Webster E. Browning, Princeton University.
William B. Smith, Tulane University.
Paul S. Reinsch, University of Wisconsin.
Hiram Bingham, Yale University.
D. EF. Salas, National Education Association.
In June, 1908, meetings of the government delegates were held at the State
Department, Washington, under the tutelage of Secretary Root, who conveyed
to them such instructions as were deemed necessary. Arrangements were made
for the preparation and translation of papers dealing with appropriate subjects
for presentation at the congress, and for the disposal of the sum allotted by the
Department for the purposes of the congress. The organization of the delega-
tion was completed by the selection of Dr. L. S. Rowe as chairman and Prof.
Paul 8. Reinsch as vice-chairman.
Under the guidance of Doctor Rowe a number of the delegates assembled in
Buenos Aires early in December, where they were the recipients of the hospi-
tality af the President of the Republic and the members of his cabinet, and of
the ministers of the United States and Chile. Visits were made to numerous
institutions of learning, hospitals, municipal buildings, parks, etc., and the visit
to the University of La Plata was signalized by an exceptionally cordial inter-
change of courtesies. On December 10 the party crossed the Andes and estab-
lished headquarters in the Hotel Oddo in Santiago. Here, before and during the
sittings of the congress, the delegation held frequent meetings to plan and dis-
cuss their work in the congress. Meantime other delegations, representing seven
North American and Central American and nine South American republics, were
on hand; and the meeting for the selection of officers for the congress was held
at the University of Chile on December 24.4 It is a noteworthy fact that the
@ The result was as follows: President, Enrique R. de Lisboa, Brazilian minis-
ter; vice-presidents, Lorenzo Anadon, Argentine minister; Federico Surveila S.
Quash, delegate from Uruguay, and Matias Manzanilla, delegate from Peru;
secretaries, Emilio Fernandez, delegate from Bolivia; Melchior Lazo de la Vega,
delegate from Panama; and Enrique Martinez Sobral, delegate from Mexico.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 89
president and vice-president of the congress were the envoys of their respective
countries to Chile, thus giving to the congress a somewhat political aspect. This
aspect was also imparted in a measure by the naming of representatives of a
number of the governments in Chile as chairmen of the national delegations in
the congress.
At 10 p. m. on Christmas Day the opening session was held in the spacious
Municipal Theater, and proved a most impressive ceremony. The President of
the Republic, SeNor Pedro Montt, was present, and addresses were made by
various officials of the congress and by chairmen of the various national delega-
tions. The address of Doctor Rowe, chairman of the American delegation, deliv-
ered in Spanish, was enthusiastically received.@
@ ADDRESS OF DR. L. S. ROWE AT THE OPENING SESSION.
Your EXCELLENCY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: This congress possesses an his-
torical significance which it is difficult for us to appreciate at the present time.
It marks an epoch in the intellectual development of the American Continent.
Complete isolation from one another has characterized the situation of the coun-
tries of this continent. This isolation has been one of the greatest obstacles to
progress. The failure to develop a spirit of intellectual cooperation has resulted
in a great loss of energy and has been one of the most important obstacles to
the solution of many problems which would long ago have been solved had we
been able to unite our energies and profit by each other’s experience. The true
scientific spirit has a far deeper significance than the mere desire to conduct
investigations. It can not reach its highest expression if there exist petty rival-
ries or jealousies. For this reason the development of the scientific spirit con-
tributes so much to the growth of a true international fraternal spirit. A vig-
orous spirit of cooperation, developed amongst the scientists of the American
Continent, will enable us to destroy the last traces of the epoch in which the
words ‘“‘stranger” and ‘“ enemy” were synonymous.
The industrial development of the last century offers lessons of much im-
portance to the scientific world. A study of the economic growth of modern
countries clearly shows that the principle of competition is gradually giving way
to the principle of cooperation.
The formation of trusts as well as the growth of trades’ unions constitutes
the concrete expression of these new tendencies. The eighteenth century and a
considerable portion of the nineteenth were dominated by a spirit of individual-
ism. During more than four generations, it was taken for granted that human
pregress is dependent on the struggle for existence and the conflict between indi-
vidual and individual. During the nineteenth century the application of bio-
logical _ rinciples to human society strengthened this idea. It is the mission of
the twentieth century to demonstrate that we must regard the principle of
cooperation rather than that of competition as the fundamental principle of
social pregress.
In this congress it is our high privilege to inaugurate a new epoch giving con-
erete form to the idea of intellectual cooperation. In the International Bureau
of American Republics we have a central organization admirably adapted to
contribute toward the realization of this idea. We need such a center in order
to place investigators in different portions of the American Continent in con-
tact with one another, and in order that the results of such investigations may
be made the common property of all the nations of America.
In the name of the delegation of the United States of America, I desire to
express our sincere thanks for this opportunity to take part in the deliberations |
of this congress. No better opportunity could have been offered to become ac-
quainted with our colleagues and fellow-investigators. The ties here formed
90 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The committee on organization was prompt in the preparation of the pro-
gramme of meetings, and the press of the city was most generous and helpful
in its treatment of the congress. The sectional meetings, which continued dur-
ing eight days, were held separately under the following heads:
1. Mathematics, pure and applied.
. Physical and chemical sciences.
Natural sciences—biology, paleontology, geology, anthropology, ete.
. Engineering.
. Medicine and hygiene.
. Jurisprudence.
Social sciences.
. Pedagogie sciences.
. Agriculture and zootechny.
The programme was followed, with necessary modifications from day to day.
The majority of the papers were read in full or in extended abstracts, and dis-
cussion was free and often spirited. Naturally, popular interest centered largely
about the sections dealing with practical problems, as education, sanitation,
social science, and engineering; but the more abstract sciences were not neglected.
Owing to the great range of the work of the congress and the multiplicity of
papers presented in the various sections, no attempt can be made in this place
to present the work and results in detail. The list of papers presented by mem-
bers of the American delegation and forwarded by the other contributors from
the United States is as follows: @
Astronomical Problems of the Southern Hemisphere. By H. D. Curtis.
The Electronic Theory of Matter. By W. B. Smith.
Recent Progress in Spectroscopy. By A. A. Michelson.
Statistics of the Use of Nitrate of Soda in the United States. By Charles
EK. Munroe.
The Economy of Fuels. By William Kent.
Recent Studies in Experimental Evolution. By Thomas Barbour.
Notes on the Origin of the North American Prairies. By C. H. Hall.
Origin of the Minnesota Iron Ores. By C. H. Hall.
The Peopling of America. By W. H. Holmes.
The Newer Geological Views Regarding Subterranean Waters. By James F.
Kemp.
The Mineral Wealth of America. By W. R. Ingalls and R. W. Raymond.
The Shaler Memorial Expedition. By J. B. Woodworth.
The Application of Electricity to Railways. By Frank J. Sprague.
Sanitation in the Tropics with Relation to Malaria and Yellow Fever. By
W. C. Gorgas. $
Frequency and Prevention of Yellow Fever. By C. J. Finlay.
Notes on the Sanitation of Yellow Fever and Malaria from Isthmian HWxpe-
rience. By H. R. Carter.
Plagues: Methods of Control. By J. C. Perry.
America in the Pacific. By A. C. Coolidge.
9
ONMNADUA WD
possess a significance far deeper than the personal satisfaction they imply. This
visit can not help but enlarge our mental horizon, broaden our scientific: activ-
ity, and strengthen the influence of our university instruction. We congratu-
late ourselves on the privilege of being present, and desire also to express our
appreciation of the great service performed by this Republic in giving such vig-
orous impulse to the spirit of scientific solidarity.
@7This list is in part a translation from the Spanish, and may be somewhat
imperfect.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 91
America’s Contributions to International Law. By Paul S. Reinsch.
Public Opinion as a factor in our American Democracies. By L. 8S. Rowe.
Reasons why the English Colonies on Achieving their Independence Became a
Single State, whereas the Latin-American Colonies did not Form a Federation
or even a Confederation. By Hiram Bingham.
Geological Work in Brazil. By Orville A. Derby.
Foundations of the Spanish and English Colonial Civilization in America.
By Bernard Moses.
Gold and Prices. By J. Lawrence Laughlin.
Uniformity and Conformity in the Census Methods of the Republics of the
American Continent. By S. N. D. North.
The Influence of Urban Environment on the Life and Thought of the People.
By L. S. Rowe.
The Treatment of Indian Tribes of the United States. By Francis E. Leupp.
Race Degeneration. By W. B. Smith.
The Reclaiming of Arid Lands in the United States. By F. H. Newell.
Instruction in Animal Husbandry in the Agricultural Colleges of the United
States. By George M. Rommel.
National Sanitary Animal Police in the United States. By George M. Rommel.
The Tendencies of Female Education and its Bearing on the Social Mission
of the Women of America. By Wm. F. Rice.
Standard Time System. By Prof. David Todd.
Adaptation of Instruction to the American Social Medium. By W. R.
Shepherd.
Nurses as Assistants in the Medical Inspection of Schools. By Dora Keen.
Recent Advances in the Study of Typhoid Fever. By M. J. Rosenau.
Pensioning Mothers who Depend on the Labor of their Sons, to Enable the
Latter to Pursue their Studies. By Dora Keen.
Plans and Gauges of Intercontinental Railways. By Wm. J. Wilgus.
Some Phases of the Early History of Mexico and Central America. By Alcée
Fortier.
The Writing of History in the United States. By W. M. Sloane.
The Value of Gas Power. By Charles KE. Lucke.
Uniformity of Commercial Law throughout the American Continent. By
Roscoe Pound.
Pan-American Terminology. By C. O. Mailloux.
Car Lighting in America. By R. M. Dixon.
Reinforced Concrete Construction for South America. By Wm. H. Burr.
The New Philippine Currency System. By H. W. Kemmerer.
Water Supply of Cities and Towns. By Allen Hazen.
Use of Tertiary Coals in General Metallurgy and in the Manufacture of
Coke. By Wm. Hutton Blauvelt.
The Supply of Potable Water. By Rudolph Hering.
An Analysis of Five Hundred Cases of Epidemic Meningitis Treated with the
Antimeningitis Serum. By James W. Jobling and Simon Flexner.
American Agriculture in its Relation to Chilean Nitrate. By Wm. 8. Myers.
The Processes for the Concentration of Ore. By Robert H. Richards.
Future Supply of Iron Ore. By Henry M. Howe.
These papers, with the exception of a small number which did not arrive in
time to find a place in the programme, were presented in Spanish, which was
the almost exclusive language of the congress.
The concluding session of the congress was held at the university in the
forenoon of January 5, and various matters of general interest were disposed of.
These included a discussion of methods of procedure, policy, and scope of future
92 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
congresses, relation of the congress to government and science, etc. A number
of resolutions, passed by the sections or presented by the delegations, were offered
and adopted. An agreement was reached to urge upon the legislative bodies
of the various countries represented the adoption of uniform laws dealing with
commerce, citizenship, etc., and a plan providing for such uniformity was
adopted and will be submitted to the several governments.
By a practically unanimous vote it was decided to hold the next meeting in
Washington in October, 1912. This action was cabled to the State Department,
and Secretary Root responded in the following message:
“Please express to the Pan-American Scientific Congress the satisfaction with
which this Government receives the announcement that Washington has been
selected as the meeting place of the congress in 1912.”
A committee of five members ° was appointed to arrange with the Department
of State at Washington for the appointment of a permanent organization com-
mittee for the prospective meeting.
A. farewell session was held in the Municipal Theater on the afternoon of
January 5, at which fitting addresses were made by officials and delegates; ¢
“ Resolution, extending to the governing board and director of the Interna-
tional Bureau of the American Republics the thanks of the Pan-American Sci-
entific Congress for the offer of cooperation :
Whereas the Pan-American Scientific Congress has received with much satis-
faction the cordial message of greetings from the Bureau of the American Re-
publics and the kind offer of cooperation; be it
Resolved, That the formal thanks of the congress be transmitted to the govern-
ing board and director of the bureau, and that it be recommended to the mem-
bers of the organization committee of the next Scientific Congress to avail them-
selves in every possible way of the valuable services which the bureau can
render.
Resolution, recommending the establishment of a section of American bibli-
ography in the International Bureau of the American Republics:
Recognizing the importance of establishing closer relations between investi-
gators throughout the American continent and of disseminating the results of
scientific investigations, the Pan-American Scientific Congress
Resolves, To recommend to the governing board of the International Bureau
of the American Republics:
1. That a special section be established in the International Bureau of the
American Republics to be known as the ‘Section of American Bibliography.”
2. That the director of the bureau invite authors and investigators to send
their publications to the bureau, on receipt of which notice thereof will be pub-
lished in the Bulletin, which notice shall include at least a brief summary of the
contents of such publication and the price thereof.
8. That the bureau secure for investigators any such publications at a price
to be indicated in the Bulletin.
4. That the bureau endeavor so far as practicable to secure official publica-
tions for investigators.
5. That the bureau keep a record of the published progress of larger schemes
of scientific investigations of Pan-American bearing; and that it strive to bring
into closer contact investigators in the same or related fields.
oL. S. Rowe, George H. Rommel, W. H. Holmes, John Barrett, director of the
Bureau of American Republics, and Elmer H. Brown, commissioner of education.
C CLOSING ADDRESS OF DR. L. S. ROWE.
Mr. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The honor conferred upon my coun-
try through the designation of Washington as the next meeting place of this
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 93
and at night a dinner was given in the hall of the university, at which there was
a generous expression of good feeling and a striking display of oratory.
great assembly is the more significant because of its spontaneous character.
For this demonstration of confidence, good will, and fraternal solidarity I want
to thank you, not only in the name of the delegation of the United States of
America, but also on behalf of that larger body of scientists and investigators
who are imbued with the same spirit that has actuated this congress, and who
now look forward to the privilege of welcoming to our shores the men upon
whose efforts the progress of this continent depends. We can not hope to surpass
the hospitality of this great republic, but we can assure you that the welcome
will be no less sincere, and the determination to place every possible facility at
your disposal, no less effective than has been the case here in Chile.
Viewed in its proper perspective, this congress has been one of the most
extraordinary assemblages of modern times; more extraordinary in many re-
spects than either The Hague or the Pan-American conferences. That a large
group of men, representatives of every section of a great continent, should be
able to get together and, casting aside all petty prejudices, freely and frankly
exchange the results of their careful investigations and ripe experience, is not
only a tribute to the culture of this continent, but is also an indication of the
extent to which our ideas have advanced beyond those which we inherited from
our European mother countries.
The fact that we have met to place the results of the best scientific thought
at the disposal of all the countries here represented, and through them at the
service of the civilized world, contains a lesson of deep and lasting import
which no other assembly of modern times has been able so clearly to impress
upon the civilized world.
The historian of the intellectual development of the American continent, in
reviewing the work of these assemblies, will probably give to the Santiago
congress the honor of having clearly demonstrated that the republics of the
American continent, because of their geographical position; because of the
peculiar conditions under which they were settled; and because of the special
racial problems which they present, are confronted by a series of problems
distinctively American. The mere fact of the existence of these problems in-
volves an obligation not only to ourselves, but to the civilized world to concen-
trate our efforts upon their solution. Through their solution we can make that
contribution to the progress of mankind which the world has the right to
expect of us.
We can best hope to do this by carrying to our respective countries the
spirit that has hovered over this congress—that of service in its broadest and
highest sense. This spirit of Service must be made the keynote of our national
and of our international relations. The republics of the American continent
must demonstrate to the civilized world that the willingness and determination
to be of service to our fellow-men is the corner stone of a philosophy which the
nations of this continent are determined to make the guiding principle of their
conduct.
I can see a time, not far distant, when with each conquest of science the
question will immediately arise in the mind of every American, “ How can
these results be made of service to the democracies of this continent? ”’—a time
when in every field of endeavor the American republics may call upon one
another for counsel in the solution of their problems, and be certain to receive
the best expert advice. Then, and not till then, shall we have developed a real
continental spirit; then, and not till then, shall we have fulfilled the obligations
94 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The social features of the congress were most noteworthy. The President of
the Republic, besides giving the usual official reception, entertained the foreign
delegates at dinner, invitations being extended to a limited number each day
during the congress. Receptions were given under government auspices at the
principal social clubs. The American minister, the French, Brazilian, and
Argentine ministers, and numerous prominent citizens entertained the delegates.
Members of the American and other delegations were guests at a number of
charming haciendas in the vicinity of Santiago; and the American delegation
entertained at dinner members of the organization committee, chairmen of
various national delegations, and others. Visits were made to institutions of
learning, museums, art galleries, hospitals, and manufacturing establishments,
and no effort was spared by the officials of the congress to make the visit of
the foreign delegates enjoyable and profitable. The writer wishes to express
his personal appreciation of these courtesies and attentions, and to say that he
approached South America somewhat oppressed by the thought that he should
find himself a stranger in a strange land, but that, on the contrary, there was
not a day of the two months spent in the Latin-American countries on which
he was not made to feel entirely at home and among appreciative and generous
friends.
The universal feeling at the close of the congress was that the meeting had
fully justified the plans of its projectors; and the story is not entirely told
when it is stated that the elaborate programme, covering nearly every branch
of science, was successfully carried out. The more thoughtful find in this and
in kindred assemblages much that is of significance for the future of the
American republics. This congress was a decided step in the direction of bring-
ing about a better understanding among the nations represented. It was a step
toward a fuller appreciation of the common interests of each and every Ameri-
ean nation. It was an appreciable forward step in the development of the
means and methods of promoting the common interests of the continent. It
was a step toward making the experience and the accumulated wisdom of each
people represented the experience and wisdom of all. In the section of peda-
gogy the best that has been developed in the theory and practice of teaching
was made the common property of all the American republics. In the section
of sanitary and medical science the latest achievements of each nation in the
battle with disease were made familiar to every participant. In the section of
agriculture and zootechnics steps were taken in the direction of properly utiliz-
ing and conserving the resources of the continent in these important realms. In
the section of engineering the best methods of overcoming the various physical
obstacles to progress and of winning the riches of the earth were explained for
the benefit of all America. In the section of government and law the principles
of statecraft and the administration of justice were discussed for the benefit of
every American government. In the section of the fiscal sciences practical
methods of conducting the monetary affairs of the nations were presented and
which our privileged position in the world’s affairs has placed upon us. I can
imagine no greater distinction for the next congress than the possibility of
marking a further step in the development of this spirit of service and of con-
tinental solidarity.
And, now, in closing, let me again extend the thanks of the delegation of the
United States of America to you, the members of the organizing committee, for
your broad grasp of the purposes of the congress and the skill with which these
purposes have been made real and effective; to you, our colleagues, for your
cordial reception of newcomers in your midst, and finally to the Government
and people of Chile for the warm-hearted hospitality which we have enjoyed.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 95
explained. And in every other branch of science, practical and abstract, the
various forces and agencies that contribute toward progress and enlightenment
were in a measure the subject of serious attention. The congress was an initial
step toward making the best of all the peoples of the Western Hemisphere. It
was an initial step in making the best, for to-day and for all time, of the
resources of the continent. It was an initial step which in many ways must
make for the peace and prosperity of the continent. It was a noteworthy step
in conformity with manifest destiny as expressed in the phrase “America for
Americans.”
The success of the congress of 1912 depends upon the interest displayed in it
by the scientific world, and on the support accorded by the Pan-American goy-
ernments. The time is ample, and the appointment of an organization commit-
tee representative of a wide range of scientific interests is the first step in
making the Washington meeting an event worthy of the nation and its capital.
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REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF
REGENTS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
For THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1909.
To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian stitution:
Your executive committee respectfully submits the following
report in relation to the funds, receipts, and disbursements of the
Institution, and a statement of the appropriations by Congress for
the National Museum, the International Exchanges, the Bureau of
American Ethnology, the National Zoological Park, the Astro-
physical Observatory, and the International Catalogue of Scientific
Literature for the year ending June 30, 1909, together with balances
of previous apprcpriations.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
Condition of the fund July 1, 1909.
The permanent fund of the Institution and the sources from which
it has been derived are as follows:
DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Pee OU STAT GNSON SI SAG oo era c.ais's cine aisisciad - smie & sels ole Geiss wa eelelenes $515, 169. 00
Pe esemary lesacy Of Smithson, 1867.02 .2<002%552 ences cece e esses teens 26, 210. 63
mapusittrom savings of income, 1867 ......2..5 <5 ese ot eee Seances 108, 620. 37
Bequest of James Hamilton, 1875.. See See Se 1 OOONO0
Accumulated interest on Hamilton ead 1895. Recetas sti acumen ve etree 1, 000. 00
——§ 2,000.00
Beemeniousuncon Habel, 1SSO0s. . ccc. ccccciese cic ovece cave sajs-mecneess 500. 00
Deposits from proceeds of sale of bonds, 1881.............------------- 51, 500. 00
Peeaiubnomasts. Hodgkins, 18915... 2... l.52 52-5. ecseseecesssoesee 200, 000. 00
Part of residuary legacy of Thomas G. Hodgkins, 1894....-...-..-------- 8, 000. 00
Bepocimironlsavines-oL income, JO0Sss2..c562 a0 = co he cec ts Soe eke ee 25, 000. 00
Peeetauary legacy of Thomas G. Hodekins.......22-2-22--.c0cnse220--- 7, 918. 69
Total amount of fund in the United States Treasury............--- 944, 918. 69
OTHER RESOURCES.
Registered and guaranteed bonds of the West Shore Railroad Company,
part of legacy of Thomas G. Hodgkins (par value)............-----.-- $42, 000. 00
Maem METI GHINGe oer ar ase as Se es olan Ses At ara, cieie cies wes 986, 918. 69
Also four small pieces of real estate bequeathed by Robert Stanton Avery, of Wash-
ington, D. C. se
98 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
That part of the fund deposited in the Treasury of the United States
bears interest at 6 per cent per annum under the provisions of the
act of August 10, 1846, organizing the Institution, and act of Congress
approved March 12, 1894. The rate of interest on the West Shore
Railroad bonds is 4 per cent per annum. ‘The real estate received
from Robert Stanton Avery is exempt from taxation and yields only
a nominal revenue from rentals.
Statement of receipts and disbursements from July 1, 1908, to June 30, 1909.
RECEIPTS.
Cash on deposit in the U.S. Treasury July 1, 1908. ...........-....-.-- $18, 766. 41
Interest on fund deposited in the U.S. Treasury, due July 1,
AQOS anid emery ls, WOOD seen ee aye carers my mee ene ye $56, 695. 12
Interest on West Shore Railroad bonds to January 1, 1909.... —_1, 680. 00
Repayments, rentals, publications, etc.................---.- 6, 144. 70
Contributions from various sources for specific purposes... .. . 20, 250. 00
——— 84, 769. 82
103, 536. 23
DISBURSEMENTS.
Boaldines, carevand -Tepalts £9... seme jee eee oe Oe oe eee $4, 445. 31
Peanibonerand txctures. 2523. 6So he one haa eee ae cocince peeks 512. 38
General expenses:
SAIC Sars core) SE se co aero elec a Iie ee nL a $14, 468. 19
IMC Gio GS Se ise ros 2 aco ese Myatt ca en ee ee ES 305. 00
IOUCDY 3 orice ayt) title oes cee ieee aera oe ae 664. 21
Postage, telegraph, and telephone...............-..---- 324. 02
Precio een oe ee eae t= ile Oc e ete ree cae eee 124. 55
imercdentalls eee ceesaemeace sere ns cakes Seo elie eetine 1, 153. 59
(CPE eee Se eine ne Sty Sere Peers ieee Meee yee ees er te @ 4, 342.77
21, 382. 33
BUI oo oo cox iti neiai ciara ep aarcic oe oss vale isk ea ee ORE aCe 1, 938. 64
Publications and their distribution:
Miscellancoustcollections=--eaeee oc eee tee see eeee eee 2, 430. 79
NE PONIS Sie Gree ke © kate pawapia> Se heceereccen eee cee 496. 89
Special publeations..< 250 5c soe sels c Sse seinen seh eeS 3, 260. 75
Publication sipples ss o.2<e sel. ose Sask ens ee eae oe 206. 26
Dalaricsusnsee wea eisai hE ote lee eae 5, 884. 58
_ ————— 12,279.27
Hxplorations; researches, and collections) ...-2..2-222 4.022228 0n2 - shs62 20, 810. 43
Hodgkins specific fund, researches and publications...........-.-.------ 3, 053. 50
feinomational Mxehanees: ai. dclscne cose eee See eee ere ec re eee 4, 216. 78
ere MPCNSES® 2 cic oma ae peters woe Bae See eae eee rece ein eee 2ST deoe
JOT CI TSE pace baasoebaeee copes sesS4 266 15a 5ias th aa oect sedis ns cease ee 3. 27
71, 359. 53
Balance June 30, 1909, deposited with the Treasurer of the United States. 32,176.70
103, 536. 23
@ Includes purchase of automobile in February, 1909, and marntenance, and also
expenses of stable until abolished.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 99
By authority, your executive committee employed Mr. William
L. Yaeger, a public accountant of this city, to audit the receipts and
disbursements of the Smithsonian Institution during the period
covered by this report. His certificate of examination supports
the foregoing statement and contains the following, which is hereby
approved:
402 Westory BuILpING,
Washington, D. C., September, 1, 1909.
The Executive Commirrrce, Boarp or REGENTs,
Smithsonian Institution.
Sirs: I have examined the accounts and vouchers of the Smithsonian Institution
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, and certify the following to be a correct
statement:
PE MBLC CCEMESers. 2 scjsces ese ek sees 222s ne ee we tees es ese $84, 769. 82
NOTGUSHUTSEMTeMESes- 5.52 sc 502 a0 c02e. be sa anemenesesss see 71, 359. 53
Hixeess of receipts over disbursements..........--.-+------2--+-+-+-00-- $13, 410. 29
momount trom. July 1, 1908.........---...-..- 2 EI a Neo te eer 18, 766. 41
Basnee-on hand June sO) 1909. 2 2. fess oe es se cence scans 32, 176. 70
Balance shown by Treasury statement June 30, 1909.......- $34, 804. 91
menemimistandine Checks. .-- 22... cccce ese sc oe sctecn sects ee PWS aA
32, 051. 70
Cash overdrawn on pay roll June 30, 1909..............-....- 125. 00
MTT eR pakance UME! SOs LOOkO=s see me eran ee ee oe eee Oe liGs10
The vouchers representing payments from the Smithsonian income during the
year, each of which bears the approval of the secretary, or, in his absence, of the
acting secretary, and a certificate that the materials and services charged were applied
to the purposes of the Institution, have been examined in connection with the books
of the Institution and agree with them.
Yours, respectfully, Witiiam L. YAEGER,
Public Accountant and Auditor.
All moneys received by the Smithsonian Institution from interest,
sales, refunding of moneys temporarily advanced, or otherwise, are
deposited with the Treasurer of the United States to the credit of
the Institution, and all payments are made by checks signed by the
secretary.
The expenditures made by the disbursing agent of the Institution
and audited by the Auditor for the State and other departments are
reported in detail to Congress, and will be found in the printed
document.
Your committee also presents the following summary of appro-
priations for the fiscal year 1909, intrusted by Congress to the care
of the Smithsonian Institution, balances of previous appropriations
at the beginning of the fiscal year, and amounts unexpended on
June 30, 1909.
{jo427
100 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Summary of appropriations.
Available
after July 1, Balance June
1908. 30, 1909.
Smithsonian Institution, balance July 1, 1908...............0..---<eseercece $18,766.41 |. oc emcees
Smithsonian Institution, receipts to June 30, 1909...--.........-.......--.-- 84,769. 82)... seca
103, 536. 23 $32,176.70
Appropriations committed by Congress to care of the Institution:
Internationaliexchan ges) (O08 ee sce acme cece ae eee cece econ aeee cease 2, 667.88 nal
Intermationallexchanpes, 19002 joecsnaseeaseeee esate ee eee ce eeeerecer 32, 000. 00 2, 23251
PmericangethnOlogys1 90 t/<\o. class ae een eee eee eee ae ace oae 10. 26 @ 10.26
American Chn ology O08 Naja sias seen asercice maa ceeecine besassneee ne ceeee 947. 64 1.78
PAGnenic aml thn O10 pry) 909 ees eee eee eee a 42, 000. 00 1,175.47
AStrophysicaliObsenvatony,d90d ans sas -ceee aber an eee eae seeene eset eres 36. 50 @ 34.35
Astropiysical/ Obsernvatony, 1908S. - ses saaeae sae eeenee ees eee eee 2,155.35 81.19
Astrophysical: Observatory, 1909s. esse ese tae ieee seers coe 13, 000. 00 1,571.01
infermational Catalopuewlo0ta=--eaas=c sere ee een escre eens eeeaencececeee 11.24 a 11.24
international! Catalogue 1908s-eee oe aac sccc aces co oer aero eee ee 145. 37 6. 44
TntemationaliCataloguesl909!sssac-e-2 se eseseaemocmce sect eCe oe Pelee eens 5,000. 00 75.11
RuiniofCasaGrandexlo0y ste - occeesnewene seco anise ae mace cieeseoee eee «53 @ 53
Ruiniofi Casa} Grande; Q0Sesce Ses ace eee se ae reo ese sie serene esis 7.98 7.98
National Museum:
Humifure andehixbures wl OO fone acces ceecesceere oe ca ceacee teoneee aes 133.79 @ 133.79
lopina bee Haye ib qabieetsy 1S ROA e Mae a aa oroeannee scooeecdasocaecue sone 1,813.83 30.98
Hurniture and axXtuEes; A G09 san. ace ee ieee se meee arenes eee 50, 000. 00 22,397.16
Heating andy lehbin gO. sass salen cat sooo mee epee aaceinaos 137.70 a 137.70
iHeatingiandilightinp; dQ08s22./55co- has senianaece ceeceec on oe eescee eee 1,345.14 43. 80
TECeio bales ha Vol MYA OYRbONES NEO soe bode ssodcasaupdsaubacacknesssoasenose 22, 000. 00 2, 967. 48
iPreservationionecollections 90% sescseene see eee eee een ace een eee 471.89 a 409. 28
Preservation Oncolections, p1908c1.- <6. 25 a-ctsa dee seen ee anesee ene 4, 767.33 496.78
Preservation Of collections 791 909|-yv a =)--1 ae ae =e oie =i eateries eee 190, 000. 00 4,869.31
BOOKS 190 fiers, yess nants aoe eine ates Oe see bee oe Aerie sans cee er eS 31.31 a 15.81
BOOKS 1908 cre weaaa eee emote dae eee sae ouee See een sere se 935. 04 92.21
BOOKS #1900 = eo sea acose merece ceteris cee meee see eae ee 2,000. 00 1,083.34
Postage, 909. entice ete ets cisrsieiasteisiaiaicie ele nis wile nie cision cemasueinee 500.00) [222 ececee seers
Building repairs MOO i concmia se soc secar ei ewe sewerc cee acs aeneeaeee 35. 88 a 35.88
Building repairs 908 cc... sas aeecccecee ese see ce tock cochicas teens 555.90 5.83
Building we pairs 1909 paeceesossce cece ace se caterer nee eee cee nee 15, 000. 00 6, 028. 68
Rentiolworksh opssy1 90 f2s-- stance neeecose ne see ne oe eee eee eee 08 a .08
RentiOfworkShops;;19082s. cc ec ascn ce scien se = ncree Sack Pen reais ee ee - 08 -08
RentOLWOLksShops sl 909 sacte ss seckaes os oe ae eo eee ee ee a eee 4, 580. 00 08
printing and bindings 1000: ..sese2. sas. -. 228s eek ee see lus 72, 600. 00 9,398. 58
NationallZoological Park: 1907 ecemsses eee ee cee an eee el ae eee 1.82 a 1.82
National 7oolocical Park, 1O08 Enea cane anon eee eee nee eee oes 4,821.57 11. 41
INational:Z oological Park: (1909 oer na. asec sole ease ee eee 95, 000. 00 2, 443. 69
Temporary occupancy of government buildings for tuberculosis congress. 40, 000. 00 15, 678. 92
Transfer of Greenough statue of Washington..............-.........---- 5, 000. 00 409.74
713 ;250534 pa eee eee 3
a Balance carried June 30, 1909, to the credit of surplus fund, Treasury Department, under provisions of
section 3691, Revised Statutes,
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 101
Statement of income from the Smithsonian fund and other revenues, accrued and pro-
spective, available during the fiscal year ending June 80, 1910.
Bel aime@ Imes) AY 0S esate cee sieve ee er Se eee $32, 176. 70
i ermec pestis 10r Specific PUrPOSeS....-- 2 <- 222. eee cee eee secs seee esos 1, 000. 00
31, 176. 70
Interest on fund deposited in the U. S. Treasury, due July 1, 1909, and
ELIE Lhe, LISI 8 SSR ea Oca a tg Ra a ee ee ee 56, 695. 00
Interest on West Shore Railroad bonds, due July 1, 1909, and January 1,
© coe bee ECE Sa ea 1, 680. 00
Exchange repayments, sale of publications, rentals, etc.................. 4,245.00
Total available for year ending June 30, 1910....... RS ae een os 93, 796. 70
Respectfully submitted.
J. B. HENDERSON,
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL,
JOHN DALZELL,
Executive Committee.
Wasuineton, D. C., November 8, 1909.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE SMITH-
SONIAN INSTITUTION FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 380, 1909.
At the annual meeting of the Board of Regents held on January
22, 1908, the following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That hereafter the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution shall
hold an annual meeting on the Tuesday after the second Monday in December and
another meeting on the second Wednesday in February.
In accordance with this resolution the board met at 10 o’clock a. m.
on December 15, 1908, and on February 10, 1909.
ANNUAL MEETING, DECEMBER 15, 1908.
Present: Hon. M. W. Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States
(chancellor), in the chair; Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, Vice-President
of the United States; Senator S. M. Cullom, Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge, Senator A. O. Bacon, Representative James R. Mann, Rep-
resentative William M. Howard, Hon. John B. Henderson, Dr. James
B. Angell, Dr. Andrew D. White, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Mr.
Charles F. Choate, jr., and the secretary, Mr. Charles D. Walcott.
APPOINTMENT OF REGENT.
The secretary announced the appointment, by joint resolution
approved by the President February 24, 1908, of Mr. Charles F.
Choate, jr., of Massachusetts; as a Regent to succeed Mr. Richard
Olney, resigned.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT FROM MR. RICHARD OLNEY.
The secretary read the following letter from Mr. Richard Olney
in acknowledgment of the action of the Board of Regents upon his
resignation as a Regent:
Boston, January 25, 1908.
Hon. CHar.es D. WALcort,
Secretary Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
My Dear Sir: I beg to acknowledge your favor of the 23d instant and to thank
the Board of Regents through you for the complimentary terms of the resolution,
copy of which you inclose.
I am also greatly obliged to you personally for your courteous and friendly expres-
sions and remain,
Faithfully, RIcHARD OLNEY.
102
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 103
RESOLUTION RELATIVE TO INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.
Mr. Henderson, chairman of the executive committee, offered the
following resolution, which was adopted:
Resolved, That the income of the Institution for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1910, be appropriated for the service of the Institution, to be expended by the secre-
tary, with the advice of the executive committee, with full discretion on the part
of the secretary as to items.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE,
Mr. Henderson submitted the report of the executive committee —
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, which, on motion, was
adopted.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PERMANENT COMMITTEE.
Mr. Henderson, chairman of the permanent committee, presented
the following report:
Hodgkins fund.—In addition to the sum of $100,000 bequeathed
to the Institution by Thomas G. Hodgkins upon condition that the
income be devoted to the increase and diffusion of knowledge regard-
ing the nature and properties of atmospheric air, which sum is on
deposit in the Treasury of the United States, there is now deposited
in the Treasury to the credit of the Smithsonian fund the sum of
$157,918.69 received from the Hodgkins estate, the income from
which is, in accordance with the direction of the testator, devoted
to the general purposes of the Institution. Besides the regular
income of 6 per cent per annum on these portions of the fund,
the Institution has received semiannually a dividend of 4 per cent
on the West Shore Railroad bonds, of the par value of $42,000,
accruing to the Institution from the Hodgkins estate. A number
of grants have been authorized from the Hodgkins fund during the
year for the promotion of researches relating to subjects embraced
within the expressed purposes of the foundation, and a prize of
$1,500 has been offered, in connection with the recent International
Congress on Tuberculosis, for the best treatise ‘On the relation
of atmospheric air to tuberculosis.”
Andrews estate—The decision of the supreme court of New York,
appellate division, in April, 1907, affirming the decree below, which
gave the residue of the estate of Mr. Wallace C. Andrews to the
Andrews Institute for Girls, at Willoughby, Ohio, was, upon appeal
by the Smithsonian Institution, affirmed on February 25, 1908, by
the New York court of appeals. On motion of Mr. Frank W.
Hackett and Mr. Edmund Wetmore, counsel for the Smithsonian
Institution, a writ of error has been allowed by Mr. Justice Peckham,
45745°—sm 1909——8
104 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
of the Supreme Court of the United States, to the supreme court of
the State of New York, the contention of counsel being that the
court of appeals did not give full faith and credit to the constitution
of Ohio in respect to prohibiting the general assembly of that State
from passing special acts conferring corporate powers.
Avery estate——The Institution has continued in possession of four
parcels of real estate in Washington City, received under the bequest
of Mr. Robert Stanton Avery. Three of these parcels are improved
with frame dwellings, under rental.
Sprague and Reid bequests—As has been previously stated to the
board, the residual legacies accruing to the Institution under the
wills of Mr. Joseph White Sprague and Mr. Addison T. Reid are sub-
ject to the demise of certain enumerated legatees, and it is probable
that no actual income will be received from these bequests for some
years to come.
On motion, the report was accepted.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.
The secretary presented his report for the fiscal year ending June
30, 1908, explaining that it had been already transmitted to the
members of the board.
On motion, the report was accepted.
NATURAL HISTORY EXPEDITION TO AFRICA.
The secretary read the following letter:
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON,
Oyster Bay, New York, June 20, 1908.
My Dear Doctor Watcort: About the 1st of April next I intend to start for Africa.
My plans are of course indefinite, but at present I hope they will be something on the
following order:
By May 1 I shall land at Mombasa and spend the next few months hunting and
traveling in British and German East Africa; probably going thence to or toward
Uganda, with the expectation of striking the Nile about the beginning of the new year,
and then working down it, with side trips after animals and birds, so as to come out
at tide water, say, about March 1. This would give me ten months in Africa. As you
know, I am not in the least a game butcher. I like to do a certain amount of hunt-
ing, but my real and main interest is the interest of a faunal naturalist. Now, it seems
to me that this opens the best chance for the National Museum to get a fine collection
not only of the big game beasts, but of the smaller mammals and birds of Africa; and
looking at it dispassionately, I believe that the chance ought not to be neglected. I
will make arrangements to pay for the expenses of myself and my son. But what I
would like to do would be to get one or two professional field taxidermists, field natural-
ists, to go with me, who should prepare and send back the specimens we collect. The
collection which would thus go to the National Museum would be of unique value.
It would, I hope, include specimens of big game, together with the rare smaller animals
and birds. I have not the means that would enable me to pay for the field naturalists
or taxidermists and their kit, and the curing and transport of the specimens for the
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 105
National Museum. Of course the actual hunting of the big game I would want to do
myself, or have my son do; but the specimens will all go to the National Museum, save
a very few personal trophies of little scientific value which for some reason I might
like to keep. Now, can you, in view of getting these specimens for the National
Museum, arrange for the services of the field taxidermists, and for the care and trans-
port of the specimens? As ex-President, I should feel that the National Museum is
the museum to which my collection should go.
With high regard, sincerely yours,
THEODORE RoosEVELT?.
Hon. CHartes D. WALcorTT,
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D. C.
The secretary went on to say: “A copy of this letter was forwarded
to me in Montana, and I telegraphed that we would endeavor to
provide the necessary funds. On my return to Washington I put
myself in communication with several public-spirited men who are
friends of the Institution, and succeeded in obtaining sufficient money
to equip and send the expedition to Africa; and there are assurances
of additional sums to meet the further expenses that will necessarily
be incurred.
‘As to the personnel of the expedition, the following gentlemen
have been selected by the Institution to accompany the President:
“Maj. Edgar A. Mearns, a retired officer of the Medical Corps of the
Army, will be in charge of the Smithsonian party. He will be the
physician of the trip; he has had twenty-five years’ experience as
an army doctor, and is also well known as a naturalist and collector
of natural history specimens; while on service in the Philippine
Islands, he made large collections of birds, mammals, and other
material for the National Museum.
“Mr. Edmund Heller, a graduate of Stanford University, is a
thoroughly trained naturalist, whose special work will be the prepara-
tion and preservation of specimens of large animals. His former
experience, when associated with Mr. D. G. Eliot and Mr. Ackley, of
the Field Columbian Museum, in collecting big game animals in
the same portions of Africa which Mr. Roosevelt will visit, will be
a valuable asset to the expedition. Mr. Heller has had large expe-
rience in animal collecting in Alaska, British Columbia, United States,
Mexico, Central America, and South America. In the year 1898 he
made a collecting trip of eleven months to Galapagos Islands, start-
ing from San Francisco. He is a born and enthusiastic collector
and a well-equipped naturalist. He is also the author of scientific
papers on mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes. At present he is
assistant curator of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the Uni-
versity of California.
“Mr. J. Alden Loring is a field naturalist whose training comprises
service in the biological survey of the Department of Agriculture
106 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and in the Bronx Zoological Park, New York City, as well as on
numerous collecting trips through British America, Mexico, and the
United States. He is of ardent temperament and intensely energetic.
In August, September, and October, 1898, he made the highest
record for a traveling collector, having sent to the United States
National Museum 900 well prepared specimens of small mammals in
the three months journey from London through Sweden, Germany,
Switzerland, and Belgium.”
In regard to the matter of funds for the expedition, the secretary
said that in addition to the statement he had just made he would
read the following notice which had appeared in the public press:
“President Roosevelt decided last spring upon the proposed hunt-
ing trip to Africa, and during the summer Secretary Walcott learned
that the President was willing to have one or two naturalists accom-
pany him from the Smithsonian Institution, provided their expenses
could be met; and also that the collections made by the President
and these naturalists were to come to the Smithsonian Institution
and be deposited in the United States National Museum.
“Mr. Roosevelt will pay all the expenses of himself and his son,
Kermit, in connection with the proposed trip, including outfitting
and transportation.
“The expenses of the three naturalists sent out from the Smith-
sonian Institution will be paid by funds provided for the purpose, no
part of which is derived from any government appropriation or from
the income of the Smithsonian fund. |
“Mr. Roosevelt will not receive one penny of the fund for his own
or his son’s use or expenses; on the contrary, he makes a gift to the
Government of specimens worth many thousands of dollars, and
possibly of a value that can hardly be expressed. He will get nothing
from the Government; he will give much of value to the Govern-
ment; the Government’s share will be limited to receiving the gift.”
After discussion, the Vice-President offered the following resolu-
tion, which was adopted:
Resolved, That the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution express to
Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, its appreciation of his very
generous offer contained in his letter of the 20th of June, 1908, to the secretary of
the Institution, with respect to his expedition to Africa, and that it accept the same.
Doctor White said that he thought it might be well to complete the
resolution which had been offered by the Vice-President by adopting
another, in which the secretary should be requested to return the
thanks of the board to the gentlemen who had so generously con-
tributed to relieve the Smithsonian Institution of the expenses of
the expedition. He spoke of the misunderstanding that had arisen
by reason of the first published statement that the expedition would
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 107
be outfitted by the Institution, and he thought a resolution of thanks
due the gentlemen who had displayed such public spirited citizenship.
On motion, the following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That the thanks of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution
be conveyed by the secretary of the Institution to the donors who have so generously
contributed funds to meet the expenses of naturalists who will accompany Mr. Theo-
dore Roosevelt upon his expedition to Africa, the results of which will be presented
by the President to the Smithsonian Institution for the National Museum.
PROPOSED LANGLEY MEDAL AND TABLET.
The secretary read the following letter:
Beinn BureaGuH, NEAR Bappeck, Nova Scorta,
December 5, 1908.
Hon. C. D. Watcort,
Secretary Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
Dear SECRETARY WatcotT: The Wright brothers are being deservedly honored in
Kurope. Can not America do anything for them? Why should not the Smithsonian
Institution give a Langley medal to encourage aviation?
Yours, sincerely,
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL.
The secretary ‘said that Secretary Langley was undoubtedly the
founder of the present school of aviation; that all the students of the
subject were now adopting the principles which he announced, and
it would appear to be a proper action on the part of the Board of
Regents to recognize his work in this subject by the establishment of
such a medal.
After discussion, the following resolution was adopted on motion
of Senator Cullom:
Resolved, That the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution establish a
medal to be known as the ‘‘Langley medal,’’ to be awarded for specially meritorious
investigations in connection with the science of aerodromics and its application to
aviation.
Senator Bacon said that further recognition should be given Sec-
retary Langley by the erection in the Smithsonian building of a
memorial tablet setting forth his services in this important subject,
and, after discussion, Senator Lodge offered the following resolution,
which was adopted:
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution be requested to report
to the Board of Regents as soon as practicable upon the erection in the Institution
building of a tablet to the memory of Secretary Langley, setting forth his services in
connection with the subject of aerial navigation.
-
SECRETARY'S STATEMENT.
Resignation of Assistant Secretary Adler.—I greatly regret to report
to you that Dr. Cyrus Adler, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, in charge of the library and exchanges, resigned that
108 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
position on October 1, 1908, removing to Philadelphia to assume the |
presidency of The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning.
Doctor Adler entered the service of the Institution in 1888 as an
assistant curator in the National Museum. In 1892 he was appointed
librarian of the Institution, and in 1905 became assistant secretary.
His service of twenty years was marked by a wonderful grasp of detail, |
and he was an invaluable aid to the secretary in all matters pertain-
ing to the scope of the Institution’s work as well as to its administra- |
tion. He was a man of keen judgment and wide culture and an |
exceedingly useful member of the Institution’s executive force.
Death of Prof. Otis T. Mason.—It is with deep regret that I have |
to announce the death, on November 5, 1908, of one of our strong |
men, Prof. Otis T. Mason, who had been associated with the Institu-
tion since 1873, first as a collaborator in ethnology, next as curator |
of that branch, and finally as head curator of the department of
anthropology. Professor Mason was born in 1838, so that his life has
been almost contemporaneous with the Smithsonian Institution, and
he bears an honorable share in its history. His agreeable qualities
as a man, his earnestness in his work, and his contagious enthusiasm
render this loss a most severe one to the Institution.
Tuberculosis Congress —In compliance with the direction of the
President, the new building for the National Museum was selected for
the meetings and exhibits of the International Congress on Tubercu-
losis, $40,000 being placed at the disposal of the secretary for the
requisite arrangements in this connection.
The plans for the adaptation of the building to this purpose were
put in the hands of the superintendent of construction, Mr. Bernard R.
Green. About 100,000 square feet of the building on the first and
second floors, exclusive of the south wings, were used for the congress,
and indebtedness is acknowledged to the War, Navy, and Treasury
departments, and also to the Bureau of American Republics, which
supplied the flags of the United States and of foreign nations for deco-
rating the halls.
The congress opened on September 21 and adjourned on October
12. By November 3 all traces of the convention had been removed
and the building was again ready for the resumption of construction
operations. The amount expended in fitting up the building for the
congress: was $24,321.08.
Thirty-one independent nations and 45 States of the Union
were represented. There were 438 contributors, of whom 312 were
citizens of the United States. The total attendance to the congress
was approximately 148,000.
Among the contributors to the exhibits, the Smithsonian Institu-
tion presented the results of an investigation among certain of the
Indian tribes, for the Department of the Interior, with a view to
| \
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 109
showing the actual amount of tuberculosis existing. This work was
prepared by Dr. Ales Hrdlitka, of the National Museum, who visited
the Menominee, Sioux, Quinault, Hupa, and Mohave tribes. The
congress expressed its appreciation of it by awarding the Institution
a gold medal.
The secretary added that the prize of $1,500 offered by the Institu-
tion for the best essay ‘“‘On the relation of atmospheric air to tuber-
culosis”’ had aroused widespread interest among the students on this
subject, and had resulted in the receipt by the Institution of eighty-
one papers submitted in competition. All of these had been referred
to a committee for consideration, but the award had not yet been
made.
Use of B street north of National Museum as a market place-—The
secretary stated that the new building for the National Museum
would be occupied during the coming summer; that the occupation of
B street north of this building as a market place was a serious ob-
jection and that it was very desirable that the street be vacated by
hucksters and market men. On behalf of the executive committee he
offered the following resolution, which, after discussion, was adopted:
Resolved, That in the judgment of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, provision should be made at the earliest practicable moment for the abolition of
the use of B street north of the National Museum, between Ninth and Twelfth streets,
as a market place.
Tt was suggested that the Commissioners of the District of Columbia
be communicated with before calling the attention of Congress to the
matter.
Prize essay on fisheries —In response to an invitation from the
International Fishery Congress, the fourth session of which was held
in Washington, September 22 to 26, 1908, the Institution made an
allotment of $200 from the Smithsonian fund for the best essay or
treatise on ‘‘ International regulation of the fisheries on the high seas;
their history, objects, and results.”
As announced by the general secretary of the congress, the award
was made to Mr. C. H. Stevenson, statistician, U.S. Bureau of Fish-
eries, and the amount has been paid to him.
Transfer of Greenough’s Washington statue to the Smithsonian
Institution —The secretary said that on January 31, 1908, Repre-
sentative James R. Mann introduced in the House a joint resolution
(H. J. Res. 124) for the presentation to the Smithsonian Institution
of the Greenough statue of Washington, located in the Capitol
grounds, “to aid that Institution in its efforts to establish a national
gallery of art in the city of Washington.” The resolution was referred
to the Committee on the Library, from which it was reported, striking
out the reference to the national gallery of art. The joint resolution
was agreed to in the House on March 17, 1908, and later reported
110 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
from the Senate Committee on the Library, with amendments,
changing the words ‘presented to’’ to “transferred to the custody
of,” and modifying the title accordingly. The amendments were
agreed to by the House and the measure received the President’s
approval in this form May 22, 1908.
The general deficiency act as approved May 30, 1908, appropriates
$5,000 for the transfer of the statue from the plaza in front of the
Capitol to the Institution, under the direction of the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution and the Superintendent of the Capitol
Building and Grounds. The expense of construction of a foundation
and a marble base is to be provided from the sum named.
The statue has been moved to the lawn to the south of the west
wing of the Smithsonian building, where it is now temporarily housed.
It will be permanently placed as soon as the necessary foundation
has been constructed in the hall at the end of the west wing of the
building.
Freer collection —The secretary stated that in response to a sugges-
tion from him, Mr. Charles L. Freer had sent him a condensed list
of art objects, the title to which had already been passed by him to
the Smithsonian Institution. The list follows:
Pictures by D. W. Tryon in oil, water color, and pastel............-....-...- 33
Pictures by Thomas W. Dewing in oil, water color, pastel, and silver point... . 24
Pietures by Abbott-H:.. Thayer in-oiland watercolors coe. 5.225522. seeeeee 10
Pictures by J. McNeill Whistler in oil, water color, pastel, pen and pencil
drawings, engravings, etchings, and lithographs. ....... Jacdecitd soeunieee 1, 079
Oriental paintings:
DCLCCUSS os sicr a owiesdee eise,t se aime eiels aie teo asieie eres a ies eto esse Cr area peer 148
Pamelaue. sas aeh, Shee en accord aie ete et ota ee ena ae eet eet eee, rao 64
Keikemono de seater ie aes Coes emiock Geta a het a ee eee 309
Makimon oss Sey cranes sehen ee ot hice fee emis cea ee eae en ee 13
PAGS URIS Son A ko Be yO I ote aa oe ea et = Ss 4
SibetamspakMtIN GS ees sem. oe aes ore eer oie eee eee 13
OriemtAlMUL bey se enee toe oe eects Seve echt ers Sree eae ee 1, 140
[ERO WAGERS ese A SONS then Uae ae ae ee ena been aon Ae tae adits 13
Miscellanéous:Heypiian and other objects:-.-.22-55.25 2 esa 22 2 28
Totalnumber ovo ectsscectcie sere. Sea ee ee ere eee eee eee 2, 873
The secretary continued that during the past year Mr. Freer had
secured a great deal of valuable material that would be added to the
collection, and it was very probable that with these additions the
entire collection at present represented a total cost to the donor of
about $1,000,000.
Use of Smithsonian building for national gallery of art—The secre-
tary said that in the coming spring and summer it was expected to
begin the removal of material to the new building for the National
Museum, which would be devoted to the natural history collections.
The present Museum building would be assigned to the industrial art
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. Lt
exhibits, and the Smithsonian building would be used for the fine
arts, if suitable provision for the reception of the paintings could be
made.
At its last meeting the board recommended that an appropriation of
$60,000 be asked of Congress to be used in adapting the large anthro-
pological hall of the Smithsonian building to this purpose. The
estimate was submitted but had not been acted upon by Congress.
It was hoped that the matter would be taken up at an early day, as
it was becoming more and more necessary to make adequate provision
for the collections that were being presented to the national gallery
of art.
REGULAR MEETING, FEBRUARY 10, 1909.
Present: Hon. M. W. Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States
(chancellor), in the chair; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Representa-
tive James R. Mann, Dr. James B. Angell, Hon. George Gray, and
the secretary, Mr. Charles D. Walcott.
AWARD OF LANGLEY MEDAL.
The secretary stated that since the adoption of the resolution es-
tablishing the Langley medal he had appointed a committee of award
composed of the following gentlemen of recognized attamments in
the science of aerodromics:
Mr. Octave Chanute, of Chicago, chairman.
Dr. Alexander Graham Bell.
Maj. George O. Squier, U. S. Army.
Mr. John A. Brashear, Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
Mr. James Means, formerly editor of the Aeronautical Annual, Bos-
ton, Massachusetts.
Senator Lodge said that the results attained by the Wright broth-
ers would certainly entitle them to the Langley medal. He had been
in Paris last summer during the flights of Wilbur Wright and had
noticed the great interest aroused by them and the marked recogni-
tion given Wright by foreign nations. He thought that the United
States should also honor these citizens for their great work in this
science, and he was very anxious that they should be the first recip-
ients of the Langley medal. Therefore, while he did not desire to
interfere with the committee of award appointed by the secretary,
he was anxious that immediate action be taken, and he thought that
the committee’s hands might be strengthened by a formal expression
of the board. He therefore offered the following resolution, which,
after discussion, was adopted:
Resolved, That the Langley medal be awarded to Wilbur and Orville Wright for ad-
vancing the science of aerodromics in its application to aviation by their successful
investigations and demonstrations of the practicability of mechanical flight by man.
112 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
CHANGE OF DAY FOR MEETING.
The secretary spoke of the practical impossibility of getting a full
attendance of the Congressional Regents on Wednesday, owing to
committee engagements. It was then suggested that Thursday be
substituted for Wednesday, and Senator Lodge offered the following
resolution, which was adopted:
Resolved, That hereafter the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution shall
hold their annual meeting on the Tuesday after the second Monday in December, and
another meeting on the second Thursday in February.
DARWIN CELEBRATION.
The secretary stated that in June next the University of Cam-
bridge would celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Charles Darwin, and that he had thought of attending the com-
memoration as the representative of the Smithsonian Institution.
Doctor Angell suggested that it would be appropriate for the
board to formally designate the secretary as the representative of the
Institution at the Darwin celebration, and he offered the following
resolution, which was adopted:
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution be designated the
special representative of the Institution at the commemoration of the centenary of
Charles Darwin’s birth, to be held at the University of Cambridge, England, June 22
to 24, 1909.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The secretary spoke briefly upon the progress in the several de-
partments of work under the direction of the Institution since the
last meeting of the board.
ACTS AND RESOLUTIONS OF CONGRESS RELATIVE TO THE
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AND ITS BRANCHES,
{Continued from previous Reports. ]
[Sixtieth Congress, first session. ]
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
SMITHSONIAN GROUNDS: For improvement, care, and maintenance of Smith-
sonian grounds, three thousand dollars. (Approved March 4, 1909; Statutes
XXAVI, 994.)
WAICHMEN, SMITHSONIAN GROUNDS: For day watchmen as follows: One in
Franklin Park; one in Lafayette Park; two in Smithsonian grounds; one in
Judiciary Park; ore in Lincoln Park and adjacent reservations; one at Iowa
Circle; one at Thomas Circle and neighboring reservations; one at Washington
Circle and neighboring reservations; one at Dupont Circle and neighboring
reservations; one at McPherson and Farragut parks; one at Stanton Park and
neighboring reservations; two at Henry and Seaton parks; one at Mount Ver-
non Park and adjacent reservations, one for the greenhouses and nursery; two
at grounds south of Executive Mansion; one at Garfield Park; one at Monu-
ment Park; and one at Monument Park Annex (Potomac Park) ; twenty-one in
all, at seven hundred and twenty dollars each, fifteen thousand one hundred
and twenty dollars.
For night watchmen as follows: Two in Smithsonian grounds; one in Ju-
diciary Park; two in Henry and Seaton parks; one in grounds south of Execu-
tive Mansion; one in Monument Park; one at Monument Park Annex (Potomac
Park) ; and two in Garfield Park; ten in all, at seven hundred and twenty dol-
lars each, seven thousand two hundred dollars. (Approved March 4, 1909;
Statutes XXXVI, 881.)
PRINTING AND BINDING: For the Smithsonian Institution, for printing and
binding the Annual Reports of the Board of Regents, with general appendixes,
ten thousand dollars; under the Smithsonian Institution, for the Annual
Reports of the National Museum, with general appendixes, and for printing
labels and blanks and for the Bulletins and Proceedings of the National
Museum, the editions of which shall not exceed four thousand copies, and bind-
ing, in half turkey or material not more expensive, scientific books and pam-
phlets presented to and acquired by the National Museum Library, thirty-four
thousand dollars; for the Annual Reports and Bulletins of the Bureau of Ameri-
ean Ethnology, and for miscellaneous printing and binding for the bureau,
twenty-one thousand dollars; for miscellaneous printing and binding for the
International Exchanges, two hundred dollars; the International Catalogue
of Scientific Literature, one hundred dollars; the National Zoological Park,
two hundred dollars; the Astrophysical Observatory, two hundred dollars; and
for the Annual Report of the American Historical Association, seven thousand
dollars; in all, seventy-two thousand seven hundred dollars. (Approved March
4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 1022-3.)
113
114 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
APPORTIONING ALLOTMENTS FOR PRINTING AND BINDING: Except the appropria-
tions for salaries in the office of the superintendent of documents, and for
stores and general expense for the office of the superintendent of documents,
all appropriations made herein under ‘ Government Printing Office” shall be
considered in apportioning the allotments for printing and binding to the
Congress and the several executive departments, bureaus, and independent
offices of the Government: Provided, That no other fund appropriated by this
act, or any other act, shall be used for services or other purposes in the
Government Printing Office, or in the office of the superintendent of docu-
ments, of the character specified in the foregoing paragraphs, except in cases
of emergency arising after the passage of this act, and then only on the written
order of the Public Printer; and the aggregate of all salaries or other expenses —
thus paid, in addition to those specifically appropriated for above, shall be
reported to Congress each year in connection with the annual estimates. (Ap-
proved March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 1021.)
SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS): For custodian, one thousand
five hundred dollars; assistant, one thousand four hundred dollars; messenger,
seven hundred and twenty dollars; messenger boy, three hundred and sixty
dollars; in all, three thousand nine hundred and eighty dollars. (Approved
March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 857.)
IMPORTATION OF CERTAIN INJURIOUS BIRDS AND ANIMALS:
* * ¥ * * * *
Sec. 241. The importation into the United States, or any Territory or Dis-
trict thereof, of the mongoose, the so-called ‘ flying foxes” or fruit bats, the
English sparrow, the starling, and such other birds and animals as the Secre-
tary of Agriculture may from time to time declare to be injurious to the inter-
ests of agriculture or horticulture, is hereby prohibited; and all such birds
and animals shall, upon arrival at any port of the United States, be destroyed
or returned. at the expense of the owner. No person shall import into the
United States or into any Territory or District thereof, any foreign wild
animal or bird, except under special permit from the Secretary of Agriculture:
Provided, That nothing in this section shall restrict the importation of natural
history specimens for museums or scientific collections, or of certain cage
birds, such as domesticated canaries, parrots, or such other birds as the Sec-
retary of Agriculture may designate. The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby
authorized to make regulations for carrying into effect the provisions of this
section. -
Sec. 242. It shall be unlawful for any person to deliver to any common Car-
rier for transportation, or for any common carrier to transport from any
State, Territory, or District of the United States, to any other State, Territory,
or District thereof, any foreign animals or birds the importation of which is
prohibited, or the dead bodies or parts thereof of any wild animals or birds,
where such animals or birds have been killed or shipped in violation of the laws
of the State, Territory, or District in which the same were killed, or from which
they were shipped: Provided, That nothing herein shall prevent the transporta-
tion of any dead birds or animals killed during the season when the same. may
be lawfully captured, and the export of which is not prohibited by law in the
State, Territory, or District in which the same are captured or killed: Pro-
vided further, That nothing herein shall prevent the importation, transporta-
tion, or sale of birds or bird plumage manufactured from the feathers of
barnyard fowls,
ACTS AND RESOLUTIONS OF CONGRESS. 115
Src. 243. All packages containing the dead bodies, or the plumage, or parts
thereof, of game animals, or game or other wild birds, when shipped in inter-
state or foreign commerce, shall be plainly and clearly marked, so that the
name and address of the shipper, and the nature of the contents, may be
readily ascertained on an inspection of the outside of such package. (Approved
March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 1137.)
REARRANGEMENT OF ESTIMATES WHEN NOT TRANSMITTED IN PROPER FORM :
* * * * * * * *
Src. 4. When estimates hereafter transmitted to the Treasury for submission
to Congress do not in form and arrangement comply with the provisions of
section four of the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation act, ap-
proved June twenty-second, nineteen hundred and six, they shall, under direc-
tion of the Secretary of the Treasury, be rearranged so as to comply with said
requirements of law. (Approved, March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 907.)
MEMORIAL TO JOHN WESLEY POWELL: For the purpose of procuring and erect-
ing on the brink of the Grand Canyon, in the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve in
Arizona, a memorial to the late John Wesley Powell, with a suitable pedestal,
if necessary, in recognition of his distinguished public services as a soldier,
explorer, and administrator of government scientific work, five thousand
dollars: Provided, That the design for said memorial and the site for the same
shall be approved by the Secretary of the Interior. (Approved March 4, 1909;
Statutes XXXVI, 992.)
ALASKA-YUKON-PAcIFIC EXxPosITION: The United States Government Board
of Managers of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition is authorized to rent such
workshops, storage and office rooms in the District of Columbia as may be
required in connection with the preparation, safe-keeping, and return of the
government exhibit authorized by act of Congress, approved May twenty-
seventh, nineteen hundred and eight. (Approved March 4, 1909; Statutes
XXXVI, 9638.)
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES.
For expenses of the system of international exchanges between the United
States and foreign countries, under the direction of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, including salaries or compensation of all necessary employees, and the
purchase of necessary books and periodicals, thirty-two thousand dollars. (Ap-
proved March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 964.)
TRANSMISSION OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS THROUGH SMITHSONIAN EXCHANGE SERY-
Ice: For repairs to buildings, fixtures, and fences, furniture, gas, chemicals,
and stationery, freight (including transmission of public documents through
the Smithsonian exchange), foreign postage, and expressage, plants, fertilizers,
and all contingent expenses, three thousand dollars. (Approved March 4,
1909; Statutes XXXVI, 885.)
DISTRIBUTION OF CONGRESSIONAL RECORD THROUGH INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES
TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES: Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That for the purpose
of more fully carrying into effect the provisions of the convention concluded
at Brussels on March fifteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, and pro-
claimed by the President on January fifteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-
nine, the Public Printer is hereby authorized and directed to supply to the
Library of Congress such number as may be required, not exceeding one hun-
dred copies, of the daily issue of the Congressional Record for distribution,
through the Smithsonian Institution, to the legislative chambers of such foreign
116 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
governments as may agree to send to the United States current copies of their
parliamentary record or like publication, such documents, when received, to
be deposited in the Library of Congress. (Approved March 4, 1909; Statutes
XXXVI, 1169.)
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY.
For continuing ethnological researches among the American Indians and the
natives of Hawaii, under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, in-
cluding salaries or compensation of all necessary employees and the purchase
ef necessary books and periodicals, forty-two thousand dollars, of which sum
not exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars may be used for rent of
building. (Approved, March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 964.)
For removing the office furniture, records, manuscripts, documents, and
other appurtenances from the present quarters to the space to be assigned in
the Smithsonian Building, one thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be
necessary. (Approved March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 964.)
ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY,
For maintenance of Astrophysical Observatory, under the direction of the
Smithsonian Institution, including salaries of assistants, the purchase of neces-
sary books and periodicals, apparatus, making necessary observations in high
altitudes, repairs and alterations of buildings, and miscellaneous expenses,
thirteen thousand dollars. (Approved March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 964.)
INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.
For the cooperation of the United States in the work of the International
Catalogue of Scientific Literature, including the preparation of a classified index
eatalogue of American scientific publications for incorporation in the Interna-
tional Catalogue, the expense of clerk hire, the purchase of necessary books and
periodicals, and other necessary incidental expenses, six thousand dollars, the
same to be expended under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution. (Ap-
proved March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 964.)
NATIONAL MUSEUM,
For cases, furniture, fixtures, electrical and other appliances required for the
exhibition and safe-keeping of the collections of the National Museum, includ-
ing salaries or compensation of all necessary employees, two hundred thousand
dollars.
For expense of heating, lighting, electrical, telegraphic, and telephonic service
for the National Museum, sixty thousand dollars.
For continuing the preservation, exhibition, and increase of the collections
from the surveying and exploring expeditions of the Government, and from other
sources, including salaries or compensation of all necessary employees, and all
other necessary expenses, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, of which sum
five thousand five hundred dollars may be used for necessary drawings and illus-
trations for publications of the National Museum.
For purchase of books, pamphlets, and periodicals for reference in the Na-
tional Museum, two thousand dollars. :
For repairs to buildings, shops, and sheds, National Museum, including all
necessary labor and material, fifteen thousand dollars.
For postage stamps and foreign postal cards for the National Museum, five
hundred dollars.
For moving collections, furniture, and other property of the National Museum
in connection with the occupancy of the new building for the National Museum,
ACTS AND RESOLUTIONS OF CONGRESS. bl 4
including all expenses incidental thereto, to be immediately available, four
thousand dollars. (Approved March 4, 1909; Statutes XXXVI, 964.)
DEFICIENCY APPROPRIATION, 1909: For preservation of collections, National
Museum, one dollar and nineteen cents. (Approved March 4, 1909; Statutes
MXXVI, 942.)
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK.
For continuing the construction of roads, walks, bridges, water supply, sewer-
age, and drainage; and for grading, planting, and otherwise improving the
grounds; erecting and repairing buildings and inclosures; care, subsistence, pur-
chase, and transportation of animals; including salaries or compensation of all
necessary employees, and general incidental expenses not otherwise provided
for, including purchase, maintenance, and driving of horses and vehicles re-
quired for official purposes, and not exceeding one hundred dollars for the pur-
chase of necessary books and periodicals, ninety-five thousand dollars; one half
of which sum shall be paid from the revenues of the District of Columbia and
the other half from the Treasury of the United States. (Approved March 4,
1909; Statutes XXXVI, 965.)
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GENERAL APPENDIX
TO THE
SMITHSONIAN REPORT FOR 1909
45745°—sm 1909——_9 119
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ADVERTISEMENT.
The object of the Genrrat Appenprx to the Annual Report of the
Smithsonian Institution is to furnish brief accounts of scientific dis-
covery in particular directions; reports of investigations made by
collaborators of the Institution; and memoirs of a general character
or on special topics that are of interest or value to the numerous
correspondents of the Institution.
It has been a prominent object of the Board of Regents of the
Smithsonian Institution, from a very early date, to enrich the annual
report required of them by law with memoirs illustrating the more
remarkable and important developments in physical and biological
discovery, as well as showing the general character of the operations
of the Institution; and this purpose has, during the greater part of
its history, been carried out largely by the publication of such papers
as would possess an interest to all attracted by scientific progress.
In 1880 the secretary, induced in part by the discontinuance of an
annual summary of progress which for thirty years previous had been
issued by well-known private publishing firms, had prepared by com-
petent collaborators a series of abstracts, showing concisely the prom-
inent features of recent scientific progress in astronomy, geology,
meteorology, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, zoology, and
anthropology. This latter plan was continued, though not altogether
satisfactorily, down to and including the year 1888.
In the report for 1889 a return was made to the earlier method of
presenting a miscellaneous selection of papers (some of them original)
embracing a considerable range of scientific investigation and discus-
sion. This method has been continued in the present report for 1909.
121
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THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS.
By Henri PoINncars®,
Member of the Académie des Sciences and the Académie Francaise, Professor
at the Sorbonne.
(Translated by permission from Revue générale des Sciences pures et appli-
quées, Paris, 19th year, No. 28, December, 1908.)
The true method of forecasting the future of mathematics lies in
the study of its history and its present state.
And have we not here, for us mathematicians, a task in some sort
professional? We are accustomed to extrapolation, that process
which serves to deduce the future from the past and the present and
so well know its limitations that we run no risk of being deluded with
its forecasts.
In the past there have been prophets incapable of seeing progress,
those who have so willingly affirmed that all problems capable of
solution have been solved and that nothing remains for future glean-
ing. Happily the example of the past reassures us. Often enough,
already, it has been believed that all problems capable of solution
have been solved or at least stated. Then the sense of the word
solution becomes broadened and the insolvable problems become the
most interesting of all and undreamed-of problems have arisen. ‘To
the Greeks a good solution must employ only the rule and compass;
later it became that obtained by the extraction of roots; still later
that obtained by the use of algebraic or logarithmic functions.
These prophets of no advance thus always outflanked, always
forced to retreat, have, I believe, been forced out of existence.
As they are dead I will not combat them. We know that mathe-
matics still develops and our task is to find in what sense. Some
one replies, “in every sense;” and in part that is true. But, if abso-
lutely true, it would be somewhat startling. Our riches would soon
¢ Address delivered April 10, 1908, at the general session of the Fourth Inter-
national Congress of Mathematicians (Rome, April 6-11, 1908); previously
published in pamphlet form by and at the expense of the Mathematical Society
of Palermo. M. Poincaré was unable to deliver this lecture and M. Darboux
graciously undertook the task. To M. Guecia we express our gratitude for the
authority which he has courteously extended for its reproduction.
123
124 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
become an incumbrance and their increase produce an accumulation
as incomprehensible as all the unknown truth is to the ignorant.
The historian, the physicist himself, must make his selection from
among the facts; the brain of the scholar—but a small corner of the
universe—could never contain this entire universe; so among the
countless facts which nature presents, some must be passed by, others
retained. It is as true, a fortiori, in mathematics for neither may
the mathematician himself gather pellmell all the facts which come
before him. Rather it is he—I was going to say his caprice—which
creates them. It is he who constructs from the facts a new combina-
tion. Nature does not in general bring this to him ready-made.
Doubtless it happens sometimes that the mathematician ap-
proaches a problem set by the needs of physics, as when the physicist
or the engineer asks of him the calculation of some number in view
of an application. Shall we say, we mathematicians, that we must
content ourselves to await these commands and, instead of cultivating
our science for our pleasure, to have no other care than accommodat-
ing ourselves to the tastes of our clients? If there were no other ob-
jects for mathematicians than to come to the aid of those who are
studying nature it would be from them then that we must await the
word of command. Yet is this the right point of view? Certainly
not; if we had not cultivated the exact sciences for themselves our
mathematical machine would not have been created, and on the day
when the word of command came from the physicist we would have
been without arms.
Nor do the physicists, before studying some phenomenon, wait
until some urgent need of life has made the study a necessity, and
they are right; had the scientists of the eighteenth century neglected
the study of electricity because in their eyes it was but a curiosity
of no practical interest we would not have in the twentieth century
either the telegraph, or electro-chemistry, or our electrical machinery.
The physicist, when forced to choose, is not guided in his selection
solely by utility. What brings about then his selection from among
the facts of nature? We can not easily say. The phenomena which
interest him are those which may lead to the discovery of some
law. Those facts interest him which bear some analogy to many
other phenomena, which do not appear as isolated facts but closely
grouped with others. An isolated fact can be observed by all eyes;
by those of the ordinary person as well as of the wise. But it is the
true physicist alone who may see the bond which unites several facts
among which the relationship is important though obscure. The
story of Newton’s apple is probably not true, but it is symbolical; so
let us think of it as true. Well, we must believe that many before
Newton had seen apples fall, but they made no deduction. Facts are
sterile until there are minds capable of choosing between them and
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. 125
discerning those which conceal something and recognizing that which
is concealed ; minds which under the bare fact see the soul of the fact.
That is exactly what we do in mathematics; out of the various
elements at our disposal we could evolve millions of different com-
binations, but one of these combinations by itself alone is absolutely
void of value. Oftentimes we take much trouble in its construction,
but that serves absolutely for naught, unless possibly to give a task
for further consideration. But it will be wholly different on the
day that that combination takes its place in a class of like results
and we have noted this analogy. We are no longer in the presence
of a bare fact but of a law. And the true inventor is not the work-
man who has patiently built some few of these combinations, but
he who has shown their relationships, their parentage. The former
saw only the mere fact, the other alone felt the soul of the fact.
Oftentimes for the indication of this parentage it has served the
inventor’s purpose to invent a new name and this name becomes
creative; the history of science will supply us with innumerable such
instances.
The celebrated Viennese philosopher, Mach, states the réle of
science to be the production of economy of thought just as a machine
produces economy of labor. And that is very just. The savage
counts with his fingers or with his assemblage of pebbles. By teach-
ing the children the multiplication table we spare them later in-
numerable countings of pebbles. Someone, sometime, has discovered
with his pebbles, or otherwise, that 6 times 7 makes 42; it occurred
to him to note the fact and he thus spared us the necessity of doing
it over again. He did not waste his time even though his calcula-
tion was only for his own pleasure; his operation cost him but two
minutes; it would have cost two thousands of millions of minutes
had a thousand of million of men to recompute it after he had.
The importance of a fact is known by its fruits, that is to say,
by the amount of thought which it enables us to economize.
In physics, the facts of great fruitage are those which combine
into some very general law, because they then allow us to predict
a great number of other facts, and it is just the same with mathe-
matics. I have devoted myself to a complicated calculation and
have come laboriously to a result; but I will not feel repaid for my
pains if I am not now able to foresee the results of other analogous
calculations and to pursue such calculations with sure steps, avoiding
the hesitations, the gropings of the first time. I shall not have
wasted my time, on the contrary, if these gropings have ended in
revealing to me in the problem which I have just treated some
hidden relationship with a far more extended class of problems. If
at the same time they have shown me resemblances and differences;
if, in short, they have made me forsee the possibility of a gen-
126 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
eralization, then it is not merely a new answer which I have acquired ;
it is a new force.
An example which comes at once to mind is the algebraic formula
which gives us the solution of a class of numerical problems when
its letters are replaced by numbers. Thanks to the formula, a sin-
gle algebraic demonstration spares us the pains of going over the
same ground time after time for each new calculation. But this
gives us only a very rough illustration. Everyone knows that there
are analogies, some most valuable, which can not be expressed by a
formula,
If a new result has value it is when, by binding together long-
known elements, until now scattered and appearing unrelated to
each other, it suddenly brings order where there reigned apparent
disorder. It then allows us to see at a glance the place which each
one of these elements occupies in the ensemble. This new fact is
not alone important in itself, but it brings value to all the older facts
which it now binds together. The brain is as weak as the senses,
and it would be lost in the complexities of the world were there
not harmony in that complexity. After the manner of the short-
sighted, we would see only detail after detail, losing sight of each
detail before the examination of another, unable to bind them
together. Those facts alone are worthy of our attention which bring
order into this complexity and so render it comprehensible.
Mathematicians attach great importance to the elegance of their
methods and results; nor is this pure dilettanteism. Indeed, what
brings to us this feeling of elegance in a solution or demonstration ?
It is the harmony among the various parts, their happy balancing,
their symmetry; it is, in short, all that puts order among them,
all that brings unity to them and which consequently gives us a
certain command over them, a comprehension at the same time both
of the whole and of the parts. But as truly it is that which brings
with it a further harvest, for, in fact, the more clearly we compre-
hend this assemblage, and at a glance, the better we will realize its
relationships with neighboring groups, the greater consequently will
be our chances of divining further possible generalizations. Ele-
gance may arise from the feeling of surprise in the unexpected asso-
ciation of objects which we had not been accustomed to group to-
gether; it occurs frequently from the contrast between the simplicity
of the means employed and the complexity of the given problem; we
consequently reflect as to the reason of this contrast and almost with-
out fail we find the cause not in pure hazard, but in some unexpected
law. In a word, the sentiment of mathematical elegance is naught
else than the satisfaction due to some, I know not just what, adapta-
tion between the solution just found and the needs of our mind, and
it is because of this adaptation itself that the solution becomes an
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. Loy
instrument to us. This esthetic satisfaction is therefore connected
with the economy of thought. Thus the caryatides of the Erech-
theum engender in us the same feeling of elegance, for example,
because they carry their heavy load with such grace, or we might
-say so cheerfully, that they produce in us a feeling of economy of
effort.
It is for the same reason that when a somewhat long calculation
has led us to a simple and striking result we are not fully satisfied
until we have shown that we could have foreseen, if not the whole
result, at least its most characteristic details. Why? What is it
that prevents our satisfaction with this accomplished calculation
giving all which we seemed to desire? It is because our long calcu-
lation would not again serve in another analogous case and because
we have not used that mode of reasoning, often half intuitive, which
would have allowed us to foresee our result. When our process is
short we may see at a glance all its steps, so that we may easily
change and adapt it to whatever problem of the same nature may
occur, and then, since it allows us to foresee whether the solution
of the problem will be simple, we can tell at least whether the prob-
lem is worth undertaking.
What we have just said suffices to show how vain would be any
attempt whatever to replace by any mechanical process the free initia-
tive of the mathematician. To obtain a result of real worth it will
not suffice to grind it out or to have a machine for putting our facts
in order. It is not alone order but the unexpected order which is
of real worth. The machine may grind upon the mere fact, but the
soul of the fact will always escape it.
Since the middle of the last century mathematicians have been
more and more anxious for the attainment of absolute rigor in their
processes; they are right, and that tendency will increase more and
more. In mathematics rigor is not everything, but without it there
would be nothing; a demonstration which is not rigorous is void.
I believe no one will contest this truth. But to take this too literally
would bring the conclusion, for example, that before 1820 there
Was no mathematics. That is surely going too far; then the geome-
tricians assumed willingly what we explain by a prolix discussion.
This does not mean that they did not realize their omission, but they
passed it over too rapidly, and for greater surety they would have
had to go through the trouble of giving this discussion.
But is it necessary to repeat every time this discussion? Those who,
first in the field, had to be preoccupied with all this rigor have given
us demonstrations which we could try to imitate; but if the demon-
strations of the future must be built upon this model our mathe-
matical treatises would become too long, and if I fear this length
it is not only because I dread the incumbrance of our libraries, but
128 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
also because I fear that in this lengthening of our demonstrations
they will lose that appearance of harmony of which I have just
shown the so serviceable role.
We should always aim toward the economy of thought. It is not
enough to give models for imitation. It must be possible to pass
beyond these models and, in place of repeating their reasoning at
length each time, to sum this in a few words. And this has now and
then been already accomplished; for instance, there was a whole
type of demonstrations which were perfectly similar and repeatedly
occurring; they were perfectly rigorous, but tedious; one day some
one thought of applying the word convergence and that word has
taken their place. There is now no need of repeating these proc-
esses, for they are understood. Those who have cut our difficulties
in quarter have rendered us double service—first, they have taught
us to do as they have done when there is need, but above all to
avoid this process as often as we can without the loss of this rigor.
We have just seen, through an example, the importance of words
in mathematics, but I could cite many more cases. It is scarcely
credible, as Mach said, how much a well-chosen word can economize
thought. I do not know whether or not I have said somewhere that
mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
We must so understand it. It is meet that things different in sub-
stance but like in form should be run in the same mold, so to speak.
When our language is well chosen it is astonishing to see how all
the demonstrations made upon some known fact immediately become
applicable to many new facts. Nothing has to be changed, not even
the words, since the names are the same in the new cases.
There is an example which comes at once to my mind; it is
quaternions, upon which, however, I will not dwell. A word well
chosen very often causes the disappearance of exceptions to rules as
announced in their former forms; it was for this purpose that the
terms negative quantities, imaginary quantities, infinite points, have
been invented. And let us not forget that these exceptions are per-
nicious, for they conceal laws.
Very well then, one of those marks by sane we recognize the
pregnancy of a peat is In that it permits a happy innovation in our
language. The mere fact is oftentimes without interest; it has been
noted many times, but has rendered no service to science; it becomes
of value only on that day when some happily advised thinker per-
celves a relationship which he indicates and symbolizes by a word.
The physicists also do just the same way. They invented the
term energy, a word of very great fertility, because through the
elimination of exceptions it established a law; because it gave the
same name to things differing in material but similar in form.
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. 129
Among the words which have had this happy result I will mention
the group and the invariant. They make us perceive the gist of many
mathematical demonstrations; they make us realize how often mathe-
maticians of the past must have run across groups without recogniz-
ing them and how, believing these groups such isolated things, they
have found them in close relationship without knowing why.
To-day we would say that they were looking right in the face
of isomorphic groups. We feel now that in a group the substance
interests us but very little; it is the form alone which matters, and
so, when we once know well a single group, then we know through it
all the isomorphic groups; thanks to the words groups and isomor-
phism, which sum in a few syllables this subtle law and make it at once
familiar to us all, we take our step at once and in so doing economize
all effort of thought. The idea of group, moreover, is bound up with
that of transformation. Why then do we attach so much value to
the invention of a new transformation? Because from a single
theorem we may deduce ten or twenty; it has a value similar to the
addition of a zero at the right of an integral number.
We now realize what has determined the direction of the advance
of mathematics in the past and the present and it is as certain what
will determine it in the future. But the nature of the problems
which come up will contribute equally. We must not forget what
should be our goal; according to me that end is double. Our science
confines itself at the same time to philosophy and to physies, and it is
for these two neighbors that we work. And so we have always seen
and always will see mathematics progressing in two opposite
directions.
In one sense mathematics must return upon itself and that is use-
ful, for in returning upon itself it goes back to the study of the human
mind which has created it rather than to those creations which bor-
row the least bit from the external world. That is why certain
mathematical speculations are useful, such as those whose aim is the
study of postulates, of unusual geometries, of functions having
peculiar values. The more these speculations depart from our com-
mon conceptions and consequently from nature or practical applica-
tions, the better they show us the working of the human mind which
constructs them when it becomes freed from the tyranny of the exter-
nal world, and the better, in consequence, it comes to know itself.
But it is to the opposite side—the side of nature—against which we
must direct the main corps of our army.
There we meet the physicist or the engineer who says to us: “ Can
you integrate for me such a differential equation? I must have it
within eight days because of a certain construction which must be
finished by that time.” “That equation,” we reply, “is not of an
integrable type; you know there are many like it.” “ Yes, I know
130 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
that; but of what use are you then?” More often, however, there is
a better understanding. The engineer does not need his integral in
finite terms. He needs only a rough value of the integral function, or
perhaps only a certain numerical result which he could easily deduce
from such a value of the integral if he had it. Ordinarily we could
get this numerical result for him if we knew just how accurate it
must be—that is, with what approximation.
Formerly an equation was not considered solved except when the
solution was expressed by means of a finite number of known func-
tions; but that is possible scarcely once in a hundred times. What we
can always do, or rather what we may always try to do, is to solve
the problem qualitatively, so to speak—that is, to find the general
shape of the curve which the unknown function represents.
It remains, then, to find the quantitative solution of the problem;
but if the unknown can not be determined as a finite result it can
always be represented by means of an infinite convergent series which
will allow the numerical calculation. May we regard this as a true so-
lution? It is related that Newton once communicated to Leibnitz an
anagram something lke this:
aaaaabbbeeeeti, ete.
Leibnitz naturally was wholly at a loss as to its meaning; but we who
have the key know the signification of that anagram and translat-
ing it into ordinary language it becomes: I know how to integrate all
differential equations; and we are led to say to ourselves that Newton
had strange good luck with such a singular illusion. He would have
said all simply, that he could form (by the method of undetermined
coefficients) a series of powers satisfying formally the given equation.
Such an apparent solution would no longer satisfy us to-day; and
that for two reasons, because its convergence would be too slow and
because the terms would follow one another according to no definable
law. On the other hand, the series © seems to us to leave nothing to
be desired, first, because it converges very rapidly (and that because the
engineer wishes his result as quickly as possible), and then because
we may see at a glance the law of its terms (that, for the satisfaction
of the esthetic needs of the mathematician).
But there are no longer some problems which are solved and others
which are not; there are only problems more or less solved accordingly
as they are represented by a series converging more or less rapidly and
following a law more or less harmonious. It occurs sometimes that
an imperfect solution leads to a better one. Sometimes the series con-
verges so slowly that calculations from it are impracticable, and we
have shown only the possibility of a solution. And then the engineer
thinks the solution only derisory, and he is right, as it will not allow
him to finish his construction on the given date. He cares little
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. Neil
whether the solution will be useful to the engineer of the twenty-
second century; we feel otherwise, and are sometimes as happy if
we have saved for our grandson as for our contemporaries.
Sometimes, trying this way and that, empirically, we might say,
we happen upon a formula sufficiently convergent. “ What more do
you want?” we ask the engineer; and yet, despite that, we are not
satisfied ourselves. Why? Could we have foreseen it the first time,
we might a second. We have reached a solution; that is a small
matter to us if we have no sure hope of getting it a second time.
As a science grows it becomes more and more difficult to know it
all. Then we cut it up into bits and each one contents himself with
a bit; in a word, we specialize. If this process continues it will
become a vexatious obstacle to the progress of our science. We have
said that it is the unexpected bringing together of diverse parts of
our science which brings progress. Too much specialization prevents
this. Let us hope that a congress like this, bringing us into closer
relationships with each other and spreading before the eyes of each
his neighbor’s fields, obliging us to compare these fields, so that we
set forth for awhile from our own little villages, will annul this
danger to which I have just called attention.
But I have stopped too long over generalities. Let us pass in re-
view the diverse parts which form the whole science of mathematics,
let us see what each branch has done, whither each tends and what
we may hope from each. If the views we have just expressed are
right, the great advances of the past will be found where two of
these branches have approached each other, where the similarity of
their forms despite the dissimilarity of material has become evident,
where one has been modeled upon the other in such manner that each
takes profit from the other. At the same time we should foresee the
progress of the future in interlockings of the same nature.
I. ARITHMETIC.
The progress of arithmetic has been slower than that of algebra
or analytical geometry, and the reason is very evident. Arithmetic
does not present to us that feeling of continuity which is such a
precious guide; each whole number is separate from the next of its
kind and has in a sense individuality; each in a manner is an excep-
tion and that is why general theorems are rare in the theory of num-
bers; and that is why those theorems which may exist are more hid-
den and longer escape those who are searching for them.
But if arithmetic is less developed than algebra and analytical
geometry it may well model itself upon those branches and take profit
by their advances. The arithmetician must take for his guide the
analogies with algebra. These analogies are many, and if often they
132 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
have not so far proved very useful yet they have at least been known
for some time; the language itself of the two branches shows this;
for instance when we speak of transcendental numbers and when we
take into account that the future classification of these numbers
images that of transcendental functions; still it is difficult to see
how we can pass from one classification to the other; however, the
step has already been taken, so it is no longer the task of the future.
The first example which comes to mind is the theory of congruents
where we find a perfect parallelism with that of algebraic equations.
And we will certainly complete this parallelism which must exist
between the theory of algebraic curves and that of congruents of two
variables, for instance. And when the problems relative to con-
gruents of several variables are solved we shall have taken the first
step toward the solution of many of the questions of indeterminate
analysis.
Another example where the analogy has not always been seen at
first sight is given to us by the theory of corpora and ideals. For a
counterpart let us consider the curves traced upon a surface; to the
existing numbers correspond the complete intersections, to the ideals
the incomplete intersections, and to the prime ideals the indecompos-
able curves; the various classes of ideals thus have their analogs.
There can be no doubt that this analogy can throw light upon the
theory of ideals, or upon that of surfaces, or perhaps on both at the
same time.
The theory of forms, and in particular that of quadratic forms, is
intimately bound with that of ideals. Among the theories of arith-
metic this was one of the first to take shape and it came when the
arithmeticians introduced unity through the considerations of groups
of linear transformations.
These transformations permitted classification and consequently the
introduction of order. Perhaps we have obtained all the fruit which
could be hoped for; but if these linear transformations are the parents
of geometrical perspectives, analytical geometry may furnish many
other transformations (as, for example, the birational transforma-
tions of an algebraic curve) for which it may be well worth our while
to look for arithmetical analogs. Doubtless these will form discon-
tinuous groups of which we must first study the fundamental parts
as the key to the whole. I have no doubt that in this study we will
make use of Minkowski’s Geometrie der Zahlen (Geometry of Num-
bers).
An idea from which we have not yet taken all that is possible is
the introduction by Hermite of continuous variables in the theory of
numbers. Let us start with two forms F and F’, the second quadratic
determinate, and apply to both the same transformation; if the form
F’ transformed is reduced, we will say that the transformation is
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. 133
reduced and also that the form F transformed is reduced. It then
follows that if the form F can be transformed to itself it can have
many reductions; but this inconvenience is essential and can be
avoided by no subterfuge. On the other hand these reductions do
not prevent a classification of the forms. It is clear that this idea
which has hitherto been applied only to limited classes of forms and
transformations can be extended to groups of nonlinear transforma-
tions and we may yet hope to have a harvest greater than has ever
been reaped from it.
An arithmetical domain where unity seems absolutely absent is
found in the theory of prime numbers; the laws of asymptotes have
been found and we must not hope for others; but these laws are
isolated and are reached only by different paths which seem to have
no intercommunication. I believe that I have a glimpse of the
wished for unity, but I see it only vaguely; all leads back without
doubt to the study of a family of transcendental functions which,
through the study of singular points and the application of the
method of M. Darboux, will permit the calculation asymptotically of
certain functions of very great numbers.
Il. ALGEBRA.
The theory of algebraic equations will still hold for a long while
the attention of geometricians; the sides from which it may be ap-
proached are numerous and diverse; the most important is that of the
theory of groups, to which we will return. But there is also the ques-
tion of the calculation of the numerical value of roots and the discus-
sion of the number of real roots. Laguerre has shown that not all
was said upon this point by Sturm. Then there is the study of the
system of invariants which do not change sign when the number
of real roots remains the same. We may also form series of powers
representing functions which may have for singular points the
various roots of an algebraic equation (for instance, rational func-
tions of which the denominator is the first member of this equation) ;
the coefficients of the terms of high order will furnish one of the
roots with an approximation more or less close; there is here the
germ of a process of numerical calculation to which a systematic
study could be given.
During a period of forty years the study of invariants of algebraic
forms seems to have absorbed all algebra; they are to-day laid aside,
although the subject has not been exhausted; but we must no longer
limit the study to the invariants of linear transformations; it is to be
extended to those referring to any group whatever. The theorems
acquired in the past have suggested others more general which are
grouping about them much as a crystal grows from a solution. And
as to the theorem of Gordan that the number of distinct invariants
134 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
is limited, the demonstration of which Hilbert has so happily sim-
plified, it seems to me that it leads to a problem much more general:
If we have an infinity of whole polynomials, depending algebraically
from a finite number among them, can we always deduce them from a
finite number among them by addition and multiplication ?
We must not believe that the task of algebra is finished because we
have found rules for all the possible combinations. We have still to
search out the interesting combinations, those which satisfy such and
such conditions. Thus there will be established a sort of indeter-
minate analysis in which the unknowns will not be whole numbers
but polynomials. Then in this case algebra will model itself upon
arithmetic and take as a guide the analogy of the whole number,
either as a whole polynomial of any coefficients whatever or as a
whole polynomial of whole coefficients.
IiI. DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.
Much has already been done for linear differential equations and
it remains to perfect what has been commenced. But with nonlinear
differential equations there has been much less advance. The hope of
an integration by the aid of known functions has been given up long
since; therefore we must study for themselves the functions defined
by these differential equations and then attempt a systematic classi-
fication; the study of the mode of change in the neighborhood of
singular points doubtless will furnish the first elements of such a
classification, but we will be satisfied only when we shall have found
a group of transformations (for instance, the transformations of
Cremona) which will play with respect to the differential equations
the same role as the group of birational transformations does for
the algebraic equation. We can then group in the same class all the
transformations of the same equation. We shall have for our guide
the analogy with a theory already made—that of birational trans-
formations and the genus of an algebraic curve.
We may propose to lead back the study of these functions to
that of uniform functions, and this in two ways: We know that if
y=f(«), we can, whatever may be the f/(#), express y and # by
uniform functions of an auxiliary variable ¢; but, if f(a) is the solu-
tion of a differential equation, in what case will the uniform auxil-
iary functions themselves satisfy the differential equation? We do
not know; neither do we know in what cases the general integral can
be put in the form F (a, y)=arbitrary constant, where F (a, y)
is a uniform function.
I will urge the qualitative discussion of the curves defined by dif-
ferential equations. In the simplest case, that in which the equation
is of the first order and the first degree, this discussion leads to the
.
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. 135
determination of the number of limited cycles. It is very sensitive
and what will help us is the analogy with the method of the deter-
mination of the number of real roots of an algebraic equation; when-
ever any step whatever shows the real status of this analogy we may
be sure of a very great advance.
IV. EQUATIONS WITH PARTIAL DERIVATIVES.
Our knowledge of equations containing partial derivatives has
taken recently a very considerable step in advance by means of the
discoveries of M. Fredholm. If we examine closely the basis of these
discoveries we will find- that this difficult theory is modeled upon an-
other more simple, that of determinants and of systems of the first
degree. In the greater part of the problems of mathematical physics
the equations to be integrated are linear; they serve to determine un-
known functions of several variables, functions which are continuous.
Why? Because we have made the equations in conformity with the
supposition that matter is continuous. But matter is not continuous;
it is formed of atoms; had we wished to write equations as they
should be for an observer whose sight is sufficiently keen to see these
atoms, we would not have had a small number of differential equa-
tions serving to determine certain unknown functions; we would
have had a very great number of algebraic equations for determining
a great number of unknown constants. And these algebraic equa-
tions would have been linear and of such a nature that with infinite
patience we could have applied directly to them the methods of
determinants.
But, since the brevity of our lives will not allow us this luxury
of infinite patience, we must proceed otherwise; we must pass to the
limit and suppose matter continuous. There are two ways of gen-
eralizing the theory of equations of the first degree in passing to
the limit. We can consider an infinity of separate equations with
an infinity, equally independent of unknowns. This has been done,
for example, by Hill in his theory of the moon. We will then have
infinite determinants which are to ordinary determinants as series
are to finite sums.
We can take an equation of partial derivatives representing, we
may say, a continuous infinity of equations, and use them to de-
termine an unknown function representing a continuous infinity of
unknowns. We then have other infinite determinants which are to
ordinary determinants as integrals are to finite sums. Fredholm
used this method; his success moreover came from his utilization of
the following fact: If, in a determinant, the elements of the prin-
cipal diagonal are equal to unity and the other elements are
homogeneous and of the first order, we can arrange the development
45745°—sm 1909——10
136 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
of the determinant by combining in a single group all the homoge-
neous terms of the same degree. The infinite determinant of Fred-
holm may be so arranged and it happens that we thus obtain a con-
verging series.
Has this analogy which certainly guided Fredholm given us all it
ought to?, Certainly not. If his success came from the linear form
of the equations we should be able to apply ideas of the same nature
to all problems having equations of linear form, and, indeed, to
ordinary differential equations, since their integration may be al-
ways reduced to that of linear equations of partial derivatives of the
first order.
Recently the problem of Dirichlet and those connected with it have
been approached by another method, returning to the original one of
Dirichlet and searching for the minimum of a definite integral except
that this is now done by rigorous processes. I do not doubt that
_ these two methods without much difficulty will be made comparable
and advantage taken of their mutual relationships. Nor do I doubt
that both will have much to gain by such a comparison. Thanks to
M. Hilbert, who has been doubly an initiator, we are already on that
path.
V.—THE ABELIAN FUNCTIONS.
The principal question remaining to us for solution concerning
Abelian functions we know. The Abelian functions begot by the
integrals relative to an algebraic curve are not the most general ones;
they belong only to a particular case, so we may call them special
Abelian functions. What is their relationship to the general func-
tions and how shall we classify these latter? But a short time ago
the solution of these problems seemed far distant. I believe that it
is virtually solved to-day, now that MM. Castelnuovo and Enriques
have published their recent memoir upon the integrals of total differ-
entials of the varieties of more than two dimensions. We know now
that there are Abelian functions belonging to a curve and others to
a surface, and that it will never be necessary to extend them to more
than two dimensions. Combining this result with what we may ob-
tain from the works of M. Wirtinger we will doubtless reach the
end of all our difficulties.
VI. THE THEORY OF FUNCTIONS.
It is especially with regard to functions of two and of several
variables that I wish to speak. The analogy with the functions of
a single variable gives a valuable but insufficient guide; there is an
essential difference between the two classes of functions, and every
time a generalization is attempted by passing from one to the other
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. 7
an unexpected obstacle has been encountered which has sometimes
been overcome by special artifices, but which so far has more often
remained insurmountable. We must therefore search for facts from
first principles to make clear to us this difference between functions
of one variable and those containing several. We should look first
more closely at the devices which have brought success in certain
cases to see what they may have in common. Why is a conformal
representation more often impossible in the domain of four dimen-
sions and what shall we substitute for it? Does not the true general-
ization of functions of one variable come in the harmonic functions
of four variables of which the real parts of the functions of two
variables are only particular cases? Can we make use of what we
know of algebraic or rational functions in the study of transcendental
functions of several variables? Or, in other words, in what sense
may we say that the transcendental functions of two variables are
to transcendental functions of one variable as rational functions of
two variables are to rational functions of one variable?
It is true that if z=f (wv, y) we can, whatever the function 7 may
be, express w, y, 2, respectively, as uniform functions of two auxiliary
variables, or, to employ an expression which has become common for
this process, can we make uniform the functions of two variables
as we do those of one? I limit myself to the setting of the problem,
the solution of which may perhaps come in the future.
Vil. THE THEORY OF GROUPS.
The theory of groups is an extensive subject upon which there
is much to be said. There are many kinds of groups, and whatever
classification may be adopted we will always find new groups which
will not fit it. J wish to limit myself and will speak here only of the
continuous groups of Lie and the discontinuous ones of Galois, both
of which we are now wont to classify as groups of finite order, al-
though the term does not apply to both groups in the same sense.
In the theory of the groups of Lie we are guided by a special
analogy; a finite transformation is the result of the combination of
an infinity of infinitessimal transformations. The simplest case
is that where the infinitessimal transformation is equivalent to the
multiplication by 1-++e, where « is very small. The repetition of
these transformations gives rise to the exponential function; that was
Neper’s method of procedure. We know that an exponential func-
tion can be expressed by a very simple and very convergent series,
and analogy should then show us what path to follow. Moreover,
that analogy may be expressed by a special symbolism upon which
you will excuse me from dwelling. We are already well advanced
along this path, thanks to Lie, Killing, and Cartan; it remains only
138 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
to simplify the demonstrations and to coordinate and classify the
results.
The study of the groups of Galois is much less advanced, and for
a very simple reason, that same reason which makes arithmetic be-
hindhand to analytical geometry, that lack of continuity which is
of such great use for our advances. But happily there is a manifest
parallelism between the two theories and we must try to put this
more and more in evidence. This analogy is exactly parallel to
that which we have noted between arithmetic and algebra and we
should derive from it similar aid.
VIII. GEOMETRY.
It seems at first sight as if geometry could contain nothing which
is not already presented to us in algebra and analytical geometry;
for the facts of geometry are nought else than the facts of algebra
_ and analytical geometry expressed in another language. One might
think then, after the review which we have just made, that there
would remain nothing further to say specially about geometry.
But we would then be unmindful of a well-built language, mode of
argument, of something which adds to the things themselves a mode
of expressing them and consequently of grouping them.
And, moreover, geometrical considerations lead us to propose new
problems; they are, indeed, if you so choose to call them, analytical
problems, but they would never have been proposed through ana-
lytical geometry alone. Meanwhile analytical geometry profits from
these just as it has profited from the problems it has been called upon
to solve for physics.
Common geometry has a great advantage in that the senses may
come to the help of our reason and aid it in finding what path to
follow, and many minds prefer to put their problems of analytical
geometry in the ordinary geometrical form. Unfortunately our senses
can not lead us so very far, and they fail us when we try to escape
from the classical three dimensions. Must we say that, departing
from the limited domain where our senses seem to wish to confine us,
we must no longer count upon pure analysis and that all geometry of
more than three dimensions is vain and useless? In the generation
which preceded us the greatest masters would have replied “ yes.”
We have nowadays become so familiar with this notion of more than
three dimensional space that we may speak of it even in the university
without arousing astonishment.
But what purpose can geometry serve? It gives us, close at hand,
a most convenient language which can express very concisely what
the language of analytical geometry can express only in very prolix
phraseology. Moreover, its language gives the same name where
THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS—POINCARE. 139
there are resemblances and affirms analogies so that we do not forget
them. And even more, it guides us into that space which is too vast
for us and which we may not see; it does this by ever bringing to mind
the relationship of the latter space to our ordinary, visible space,
which without doubt is only a very imperfect image, but which never-
theless is an image. Here further, as in all the preceding instances,
this analogy with what is simple allows us to comprehend that which
is complex.
This geometry of more than three dimensions is not a simple
analytical geometry; it is not purely quantitative; it is also qualita-
tive, and it is in the latter sense that it becomes especially interesting.
The importance of the Analysis Situs is very great; I can not insist
too much on that; the advance which it has taken from Riemann,
one of its chief creators, is enough to indicate this. It is essential
that it should be constructed completely in hyperspace. We would
be then furnished with a new sense, one capable of seeing really into
hyperspace.
The problems of the Analysis Situs would perhaps not have been
thought of had there been only the language of analytical geometry ;
or rather, I am wrong, they would certainly have been set, since their
solution is necessary for many of the questions of analytical geom-
etry; but they would have been set one after another with no indi-
cation of a common bond between them.
It is the introduction of the ideas of transformations and groups
which has contributed especially to the recent progress in geometry.
We owe to these that geometry is no longer an assemblage of more or
less curious theorems which follow each other with no resemblances;
they have now acquired a unity; and, furthermore, we must not forget
in our history of science that it was for the sake of geometry that
a systematic study was started of continuous transformations, so that
pure geometry has contributed its part to the development of the idea
of the group so useful in the other branches of mathematics.
The study of groups of points upon an algebraic curve, according
to the method of Brill and Noether, has given us also fruitful
results either directly or as serving as models for analogous theories.
We have thus seen develop a whole chapter of geometry where the
curves traced upon a surface play a role similar to that of a group
of points upon a curve. And from this very day on, we may hope
to see in this way light thrown on the last mysteries which exist in
the study of surfaces and which have been so difficult to solve.
The geometricians have thus a vast field from which to reap a
harvest. I must not forget enumerative geometry, and especially
infinitesimal geometry, cultivated with such brilliancy by M. Dar-
boux, and to which M. Bianchi has added such useful contributions.
140 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
If I do not say more upon this subject it is because I have nothing
to add after the brilliant lecture by M. Darboux.*
IX. CANTORISM.
I have already spoken of the need we have of continually going
back to the first principles of our science and the profit we may thus
obtain in the study of the human mind. It is this need which has
inspired two attempts which hold an important place in the more
recent part of mathematical history. The first is Cantorism, whose
services to science we all know. One of the characteristic traits of
Cantorism is that in place of generalizing and building theorems more
and more complicated on top of each other and defining by means of
these constructions themselves, it starts out from the genus supremum
and defines, as the scholastics would have said, per genus proximum
et differentiam specificam. What horror would have been brought
to certain minds—that of Hermite, for instance, whose favorite idea
‘was comparing the mathematical to the natural sciences! With the
raost of us these prejudices have passed away, but it still happens that
we come across certain paradoxes, certain apparent contradictions
which would have overwhelmed Zénon d’Elée and the school of
Mégore with joy. I think, and I am not the only one who does, that
it is important never to introduce any conception which may not be
completely defined by a finite number of words. Whatever may be
the remedy adopted, we can promise ourselves the joy of the physi-
cian called in to follow a beautiful pathological case.
X. THE RESEARCH OF POSTULATES.
And yet, further, we are trying to enumerate the axioms and postu-
lates, more or less deceiving, which serve as the foundation stones of
our various mathematical theories. M. Hilbert has obtained the most
brillant results. It seems now as if this domain must be very limited
and that there will not be any more to be done when this inventory is
finished, and that will be very soon. But when all has been gathered
together there will be plenty of ways of classifying them, and a good
librarian will always find something to busy himself with and each
classification will be instructive to the philosopher.
I stop this review, which I could not hope to make complete, for
many reasons, and because I have already drawn too much on your
patience. I believe that my examples will have been sufficient to show
you by what means the mathematical sciences have progressed in the
past and along what paths they must proceed in the future.
4See G. Darboux: Les origines, les méthodes et les problémes de la Géométrie
infinitésimale (The origin, methods, and problems of infinitesimal geometry).
Revue générale des Sciences, 15 Nov., 1908,
WHAT CONSTITUTES SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP.*
By Commandant PAauL RENARD.
The question has been much discussed as to what type has the
most noteworthy qualities among the numerous devices which are
to-day carrying men through the air. Some are partisans of the
aeroplane, others of the dirigible, and these two camps are always in
rivalry, sometimes in open enmity, so that unanimity is far from
prevailing.
In aviation there are monoplane and biplane enthusiasts, those
who prefer aeroplanes without a tail, such as the Wrights’ machines,’
or with a tail, like all the others. In aerostation, or ballooning,
some contend for the flexible type like the Ville de Paris, others for
the semirigid type like the Republique, and lastly, others who vaunt
the merits of the rigid type, like the Zeppelin.
How can anyone know where to stand in the face of all these opin-
ions? From a technical point of view, excellent arguments can be
found in favor of each of the present types of air-ships as well as for
those which may be later devised; specialists can discuss these ques-
tions indefinitely. Although as far as I am concerned I have a well-
established opinion on this point, it is not from the theoretical stand-
point that I wish to express myself to-day, but without wishing to
pass judgment it seems to me worth while to at least indicate the con-
siderations on which such a judgment should be based. In a word I
should like to determine here what, from a practical point of view,
are the qualities which can be demanded in an air-ship, and from
among these qualities to choose those which are of the greatest im-
portance and which as a consequence should preferably serve as a
criterion in passing judgment on a structure of a new kind.
According to the point of view, very different sorts of perform-
ances, if I may use such an expression, may be expected of an air-ship.
You may, for example, wish to rise as high as possible in the air, and
the capacity for upward ascension in such a case is evidently a quality
4Translated by permission from Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. 54, Noy. 1,
1909, pp. 181-199.
+The Wright aeroplane is now provided with a tail, or rear horizontal
rudder.—EKd.
141
142 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
to be considered. It is not enough merely to rise, however, but it is
also necessary to stay there. The period during which the air-ship
shall remain suspended in the air without touching the ground, there-
fore, is also one of the elements of interest in the question.
Another phase of the question is that any engine of locomotion must
be able to cover distances; the distance which separates the point of
departure from the finishing point is therefore one of the essential
characteristics of a voyage. In fact one might be tempted to say that
the best air-ship is the one that can travel the greatest distance in a
single flight before touching the earth.
Finally, it is not only necessary that a certain given distance shall
be covered, but it must take the shortest possible time to accomplish
it. In other words, speed is the most highly valued quality at the
present day. In all types of locomotion, whether by bicycle, automo-
bile, railroad trains, steamboat, or motor boat it seems that the prin-
cipal aim is speed, always speed, and still more speed. This search
for acceleration in means of transportation is one of the character-
istics of our epoch; and it is not to be wondered at, for although all
space is open to us, still our time is parsimoniously dealt out to us,
and the best way we can use it is to carefully economize it by the use of
the powerful mechanical means at our disposal.
Aerial navigation does not escape from this general law of locomo-
tion. Speed is therefore one of the important elements in the meas-
urement of the value of an air-ship. But a distinction must here be
made, for there are two kinds of speeds to be considered, termed
absolute speed, and individual speed. The absolute or effective speed
is the one commonly considered. It is the speed measured with re-
gard to the ground over which the air-ship is passing. If a dirigible
starts from Paris at 8 in the morning and at 11 o’clock is above Au-
xerre, the distance between the two cities being 150 kilometers as the
crow flies, we would say that its absolute velocity had been on the
average 50 kilometers an hour. This absolute speed is the one of
practical interest. It is the plain fact, all modifying circumstances
being removed from the calculation.
From the point of view of merit in a device, however, it is pre-
cisely these modifying circumstances that should be considered. ‘The
effective velocity results from the combination of two other velocities,
namely, the individual velocity of the vehicle, which will be defined
shortly, and the velocity of the wind.
Everyone knows what the velocity of the wind means. As for the
individual velocity of an air-ship, its definition is very simple; it is
the velocity which the air-ship could attain if there were no wind, or,
again, it is the velocity in calm air, or finally, its velocity in compari-
son with the ambient air, considering this to be at rest.
ct a
SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP—-RENARD. 143
Of these two elements, the combination of which determines the
absolute velocity, one, the individual velocity, depends on the con-
struction of the air-ship; and the efforts of all aeronautic engineers
are directed toward giving this as great a value as possible; the other
element, the velocity of the wind, is entirely beyond us and we must
submit to it, whatever it is. But according to the direction and the
velocity of the wind, it is necessary to have very different individual
velocities to obtain a determined effective velocity.
If, for example, on the day when our dirigible traveled from Paris
to Auxerre in three hours, the wind had blown exactly in the desired
direction with a velocity of 50 kilometers an hour, the wind alone
would have been sufficient to accomplish the voyage in the time given
without any intervention of the individual velocity. The aeronaut
could have stopped his motor and thus would have made the journey
at little cost. The effective speed would be the same as the velocity
of the wind, the individual speed zero; the wind would have done all
and the machine nothing.
If the wind, however, although blowing in the proper direction
from Paris to Auxerre, had had a velocity of only 30 kilometers an
hour the aeronaut, if he were contented with allowing himself to be
carried by the wind, would have taken five hours to make the journey
instead of three. To attain the previous speed of 50 kilometers per
hour he would have to add to the velocity of the wind the 20 kilome-
ters lacking, and this difference would be nothing else but his indi-
vidual speed. In such a case we should say that the velocity of the
wind had been 30 kilometers an hour, the individual velocity 20, and
the effective or absolute velocity 50 kilometers per hour. Instead of
doing all the work as before, the wind had only done the greater part
and the motor the rest.
If the velocity of the wind had been but 10 kilometers, the motor
this time would have had to add not 20 kilometers but 40. In this
case the motor would have deserved the principal credit for the
voyage, and the wind would have furnished only a slight supple-
mentary velocity.
Let us suppose now that the air is absolutely calm, that is, the
velocity of the wind is zero. The motor alone can be counted on
here, and it is due to it that the speed of 50 kilometers an hour is
attained. The effective velocity will be equal to the individual
velocity, and the motor will have done all and the wind nothing.
Finally, if the wind, with a velocity of 30 kilometers an hour,
is blowing not in such a direction as to be astern from Paris to
Auxerre, but in the opposite direction, the motor will be required
to furnish an individual speed of 80 kilometers an hour. The first 30
are used up merely in compensating for the unfavorable effects of
the wind, the other 50 alone being effective. This time the motor
144 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
has not only done everything, as in calm air, but it has done more,
for in addition to the absolute velocity it has had to furnish a surplus
of individual velocity to counterbalance the hindering effect of the
wind.
In a word, in order to attain the same practical result as before,
that is, an absolute velocity of 50 kilometers an hour, the motor
should be capable of giving to the air-ship an individual velocity
of 0, 20, 40, 50, or 80 kilometers an hour.
We have considered here only the simplest case—when the wind
blows in the direction of the place to be reached or in exactly the
opposite direction. This is almost never the case in practice, so
that it becomes necessary in each case to determine what the indi-
vidual velocity must be to attain a certain absolute speed. The
problem is now a little more complicated, but the conclusions are the
same, and the individual velocity is necessarily sometimes less, some-
times more, than the absolute velocity, and at times the two may
even be equal. To sum up, all that may be said is that the wind
ean be either a help or a hindrance to the progress of air-ships, and
in exceptional cases neither obstructs nor is favorable to their evo-
lutions.
By those with a different point of view, it may finally be asked
if there is not opportunity to measure the value of an air-ship by the
amount of useful weight carried, in personnel or in material. The
power of transporting is certainly one of the qualities sought for in
certain vehicles.
All the qualities which we have passed in review—altitude, dura-
tion of voyage, distance covered, velocity, power of transportation—
have the common characteristic that they may be measured exactly,
their value can be expressed in precise figures, and thus they furnish
a fixed mathematical standard of comparison between different types
of air machines, for they are based on rigorous observations, and
questions of sentiment have not intervened. For instance, if the
altitude attained should be taken as the criterion of the value of a
dirigible, the one that has ascended to a height of 1,500 meters is
incontestibly superior to one that has only attained a height of 1.200
meters. If it is a matter of distance covered, the one which in a
single flight has traveled 800 kilometers is superior to one which
has only covered 600. That much is perfectly clear.
There are other qualities, however, less exact in their nature, which
nevertheless are not negligible, such as security, comfort, and pleasure
of voyages.
T do not eare to enter into a detailed examination of these phases of
the subject, partly because they can not be exactly valued, and further
because they are readily attained by devices of secondary importance.
Thus by the use of flexible cushions and backs with head rests the
SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP—RENARD. 145
traveler’s comfort is easily increased. These are questions to be
referred to the skill of an upholsterer and not to an engineer.
There is, however, one property that is highly important for safety
and comfort in a voyage—the stability of the vehicle. This stability
is obtained by mechanism of a technical nature; it is often very difli-
cult to obtain and therefore should be considered in connection with
the more exact qualities first discussed. In a given vehicle, stability
can be interpreted in several ways. The center of gravity of the
apparatus can describe a very regular trajectory, but the vehicle may
nevertheless be exceedingly unstable; it may go through oscillatory
movements which are highly uncomfortable and occasionally danger-
ous. These movements have been given different names according to
the direction they follow. When they are in a horizontal plane they
are said to be zigzag movements or yawing. If it is a question of
vertical movement, it may be of two sorts—in a longitudinal direction
it is called pitching, and if in a tranverse direction it is rolling.
Although displacements of this kind do not affect the trajectory of
the center of gravity, and consequently can not prevent the vehicle
from following its course, they are none the less disagreeable, espe-
cially if several of them are combined. Stability of direction, longi-
tudinal stability, and transverse stability, which will enable us to
avoid, respectively, yawing, pitching, and rolling, are therefore
qualities highly desirable.
There is a fourth sort of stability that is a special quality of air-
ships. This is stability of altitude. Land vehicles are forced to
keep to the level of the ground on which they rest. Aquatic carriers
float on the surface of the water; air-ships, on the contrary, and with
them must be classed submarines, are submerged in a fluid and can
ascend and descend through the gaseous or liquid mass. When the
air-ship remains at the altitude chosen by the pilot, or when it mounts
or descends at his will, it is said to have stability of altitude. It does
not have this quality when its vertical movements are involuntary and
beyond the control of the aeronaut.
i.
We have thus completed the enumeration of the qualities which an
air-ship may possess. The question is now to choose from among
them those most important in determining the value of the conveyance.
But before making this choice it is indispensable to know from what
point of view it is to be made. One may inquire as to which of these
qualities is the most difficult to obtain. If the technical standing of
engineers were to be determined that would be the course to pursue,
and we should proclaim the superiority of the constructor who had
endowed his machine with the qualities which are the hardest to
e
146 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
attain. But it is not a question of awarding prizes to engineers.
We want to know what air-ships have the greatest practical advan-
tages. In making our choice of qualities we shall not demand, there-
fore, those most difficult of attainment, but those most desirable in
themselves. We can afterward inquire if the most desirable qualities
are more or less difficult to realize; this will be merely an accessory
matter.
We are therefore called upon to pass judgment upon the practical
advantages in types of air-ships. The first consideration is not to lose
sight of the conditions under which by definition itself an air-ship is
operated, conditions different from those which a boat or a railway
train meets; no one can justly make an estimate of such dissimilar
devices without recognizing the fundamental conditions of their
utilization; that is, the nature of the supporting medium in which
they move, the earth, water, or air.
Locomotion on land brings into touch all the habitable places on
the earth except those separated from each other by expanses of
water impossible to bridge. But with this advantage there is still
an element of great disadvantage. To attain on land perfect condi-
tions for speed and carrying power, it has not been enough merely
to train animals or create powerful and ingenious machines. These
achievements would not have counted for much unless the route had
been prepared by the construction of roadways, involving an enor-
mous amount of labor and money. Without highways and railways,
automobiles and locomotives would be powerless. This is so true at
the present day that the importance and the perfection of the ways
of communication are considered the principal criteria of material
civilization, and where these means are lacking we are no further
advanced than were those of the days of Joshua.
A water transportation line, and herein lies its inferiority, only
admits of the joining together of a very limited number of places,
those along the shores of seas or along navigable streams. There is,
however, the enormous advantage of not requiring a preliminary
preparation of roadways. To travel by water, with all the perfec-
tion possible to obtain, it is only necessary to have good ships. The
sea has at all times been the chief means of communication between
the various countries of the globe; all the ocean shores have been
fairly well known for a long period, while there have remained im-
mense tracts of country unexplored in the interior of the continents.
If to venture an hypothesis, there existed in the center of Africa,
or in the midst of the deserts of Asia, an unknown but populous city,
the center of a flourishing civilization, the explorers who had dis-
covered it could tell of its marvels on their return, but this newly
discovered city would still remain apart from general civilization
simply because it was not connected with other countries by per-
SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP—-RENARD. 147
fected ways of communication. If, on the contrary, there should be
discovered in the solitudes of the Pacific an islet, in itself of little
importance, it could be brought into direct communication with
New York, Marseille, and Sidney, and enter immediately into the
circle of mundane affairs.
Aerial navigation combines the advantages of its older sisters and
is free from their inconveniences. It can connect Paris and Rio de
Janeiro as well as Madrid and St. Petersburg. It no more requires
the preliminary construction of roads of communication than does
maritime transportation. It creates direct bonds of communication
without intermediary agencies, and to utilize it it is only necessary
to have appropriate vehicles. Thanks to this means, all points on
the globe may enjoy the privilege which has hitherto been reserved
to the shores of the sea, and in a few years the atmosphere will
certainly be the great medium for bringing people together just as
the ocean has been for a long time in its more limited and less perfect
fashion.
EET,
These general considerations are not mere digression from the ques-
tion which we are considering to-day. We must not lose sight of
them if we wish to estimate things clearly. Do we not often hear
the remark: “Of what importance are dirigibles or aeroplanes?
They do not travel as fast as railroad trains; they have much less
carrying capacity than boats; would it not be worth while rather to
perfect the time-honored land or maritime means of travel than to
search for a new method of transportation ? ”
If aerial navigation did not differ in its essential properties from
these other modes of locomotion known from the most ancient times
this presentation of the case would be entirely rational, but when
men pursue so indefatigably the conquest of the air and the public
follows its progress with such interest, it is not because they hope
to discover in this way the means of possessing in a higher degree
the qualities of speed and capacity desirable in any vehicle, it is be-
cause of qualities found alone in aerial navigation. If this were
not so the conquest of the air would still certainly be an important
question, but it would not be worth all the efforts that it brings forth
and the excited interest that it arouses.
We can not actually realize what is before us, but there is to-day
an idea latent in every mind that the investigation into aerial loco-
motion is not a vain caprice of mankind, but springs from a deep
and instinctive feeling that extraordinary changes are impending
in the conditions of humanity.
We must now go a step further into the detailed study of the
qualities which we have enumerated and choose the most important.
148 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The first quality which I mentioned is the faculty of ascending
to the greatest possible height. The means for accomplishing this
end are different, according to whether the machines are heavier
or lighter than air. In the first case it is necessary to have at your
disposal a motive power greater than that necessary to sustain and
move the machine in a horizontal plane. It is therefore a question
of the power of the motor.
If, however, the air-ship is a dirigible balloon, the motor does not
come into consideration. It is only necessary to throw off a definite
weight of ballast, and the greater this quantity is for a given balloon
the higher it will ascend. Besides the weight of the motor and the
mechanism itself and the weight of the fuel and other supplies and
of the passengers, arrangements must also be made for a supplemen-
tary weight that can be sacrificed. It is not enough to increase the
volume of the gas envelope in order to increase the dispensable bal-
_last in the same proportion, for the altitude attained does not depend
on the absolute amount of ballast thrown off but on the ratio of this
weight to the volume of the balloon. If, for example, with a balloon
of 1,000 cubic meters an altitude of about 2,300 meters should be
attained by releasing 250 kilograms of ballast, to attain the same
altitude with a balloon of 2,000 cubic meters capacity not 250 kilo-
grams, but 500, must be thrown off. If the weight of the air-ship
itself, the motor mechanism, the supplies, and the passengers
increased proportionately with the volume of the gas envelope, we
would always have the same proportion of ballast and could ascend
no higher in one case than in the other. This, however, is not
the fact, for large balloons can carry a larger proportion of ballast
than small ones, and it is with these that high altitudes are most
easily attained. The altitude is therefore to a great degree a question
of volume.
It may be remarked that if lighter motors for a given power are
provided, .or greater power for a given weight—in other words, if
the weight is reduced, there would be more dispensable weight, more
ballast per horsepower, and, consequently, a greater capability of
ascension. It is also evident that to attain an extreme elevation the
weight carried should be reduced as much as possible. Thus the
number of passengers should be reduced to a minimum and little or
no extra material carried. By doing this, in the case of a dirigible,
the dispensable ballast can be increased to the extent of the economy
which has been realized in the rest of the equipment. In the case of
an aviation machine if its total weight is diminished and, consequently,
the expenditure of motive power necessary to sustain the machine,
the excess power available for attaining altitudes is thereby also
increased. To sum up, in all air-ships, of whatever kind, altitude may
be attained with a facility corresponding to the power available for
SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP—RENARD. 149
a given weight, but with dirigibles the principal method of reaching
higher altitudes is by increasing the dimension of the gas envelope.
An aerial voyage can be prolonged as long as supplies remain avail-
able, whether the air-ship be lighter or heavier than air. The most
important of these supplies is fuel for the motor and the accessory
lubricating oils, the weight of which is comparatively small. In
dirigibles there must also be a supply of ballast proportionate to the
length of the voyage. The quality of duration is therefore a question
of transporting capacity, and the methods of obtaining it are the
same.
The distance that can be covered is evidently proportional to the
duration of the trip, and is also proportional to the absolute velocity
of the air-ship. We have just considered the duration; as for the
absolute speed, it is a quality that must be considered by itself. We
have, therefore, as regards distance only one thing to keep in mind,
and that is, it is obtained by combining the means used to attain
duration and velocity.
As already stated, absolute velocity is a resultant of two velocities,
that of the wind and that of the air-ship; with the wind we can do
nothing, but the individual velocity is another matter. It may be
remarked that if the individual velocity should be less than that of
the wind, the machine would not advance but would recede more or
less from its point of departure. Such a machine, however, would not
be dirigible and would not deserve the name of “ air-ship.” We mean
to consider here only devices really dirigible, that is, those whose
velocity is greater than that of the prevailing wind. In this case,
whether flying against the air or with it, the absolute velocity will
increase with the individual velocity. Let us suppose that the wind
blows 50 kilometers an hour. The air-ship with an individual velocity
of 60 kilometers will make 10 kilometers an hour against the current
and 110 with it. If it has an individual velocity of 70 kilometers, it
can travel 20 kilometers an hour against the wind and 120 with it.
In either case it is evident that the absolute velocity increases with
the individual velocity. One can even demonstrate mathematically
that when an air-ship describes a closed circuit corresponding ap-
proximately to the form of a circle or a regular polygon, whatever
may be the velocity and direction of the wind the one that possesses
the greatest individual velocity will have the greatest average abso-
lute speed around the whole course.
As we can not affect the velocity of the wind, to seek to increase
the absolute velocity is in fact to seek the greatest individual velocity.
We have just seen how desirable this quality of speed is in itself.
Without it dirigibility is impossible; and the greater it is the more
frequent are the occasions when we can travel in all directions and the
greater will be the distances covered. Speed is, therefore, in respect
150 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
to importance, the principal quality in an air-ship, without which it
is but the plaything of the winds, and it is toward the improvement
of this feature that all efforts should be directed.
How may this individual velocity be obtained? In dirigibles all
resistance to forward movement must be diminished as far as pos-
sible; this is accomplished by appropriate design of form. This form
must be permanently maintained, powerful motors must be pro-
vided, driving good propellers. To sum up, every improvement
which can be devised with regard to dirigible balloons should be
directed principally if not solely toward the increase of their indi-
vidual velocities.
The same is true with regard to aviation apparatus, but in this
direction the difficulty is much less, for because of their light design
they offer much less resistance to forward motion than the dirigibles,
condemned to drag along their enormous bags filled with hydrogen.
For a given motive power therefore the former can attain much
greater speeds than balloons, as experience has superabundantly
demonstrated.
However that may be, for the one or the other the individual
velocity is a question of motive power, and since in an air-ship only
a limited weight can be allowed for the motor, this must have as
great a specific power as possible; in other words, the weight of the
gas engine should be reduced as much as practicable. The question
of individual velocity thus depends on the lightness of the motors.
This motive power must, furthermore, be utilized to the best possible
advantage, which can be done by proper propellers. ‘The resistance
to forward movement must be diminished, and this can be accom-
plished by careful design. The air-ship must also be stable in all
directions—horizontally, longitudinally, or transversely—for yawing,
pitching, and rolling, apart from the wearying effect on passengers
and the dangers they may present, are formidable obstacles to the
best speed. When a dirigible moves sidewise it presents an enormous
surface to the air of a shape deplorable from the point of view of
resistance, and the speed is diminished to an inconceivable degree.
One can almost sum up in a word what can be said about indi-
vidual velocity. It is this, that for an air-ship to possess this quality
in the highest degree it must be endowed with all the others.
There remains now the carrying capacity. Here the question
appears in quite a different light, according to whether the aati ea
is lighter or heavier than air.
With a dirigible it is simply a question of the volume of the
balloon. It must not be thought, however, that by increasing in-
definitely the volume of the gas envelope that the carrying power
of an air-ship can be increased without limit. To enlarge the volume
means to increase the fabric surface and this will demand greater
SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP—RENARD. 151
strength in a large balloon than a small one, which will increase the
weight of a square meter of the envelope and accordingly result in
a double cause of increase in the total weight. This will also be
true with regard to the suspension cords and all the material con-
stituting the dead weight.
It can be demonstrated that in balloons of different volumes this
dead weight increases nearly as the fourth power of the linear
dimensions; that is, more rapidly than the volume. Thusin a balloon
of twice the volume the dead weight will not be multiplied by 2
but by 2.52, and with triple the volume the dead weight will be
multiplied not by 3 but by 4.33 and so on. In spite of this unfavor-
able circumstance, however, we may say in the limits of practice,
that the carrying capacity increases with the volume. It increases
also with the lightening of the motors, for if the motor is lighter for
a given power the economy in weight so realized can be used to
increase the weight carried; in general, however, it is preferred to
profit by this hghtening by increasing the motive power and conse-
quently the speed.
In a dirigible the total ascensional force is the product of the vol-
ume of the balloon by the lifting power of a cubic meter of gas.
This latter quantity depends entirely on the specific gravity of the air
and of the gas employed. As long as no gas lighter than hydrogen
can be found there can be no hope of a change in the present condi-
tions, and even if such a gas should be discovered, we should always
be limited by the weight of a cubic meter of air, 1.293 kilograms.
This figure represents the extreme limit of weight that a cubic meter
of the gas could lift, if it weighed nothing. However, a cubic meter
of pure hydrogen weighs only 0.090 kilogram; a cubic meter of this
gas therefore raises a weight of 1.203 kilograms, and even if there
existed a gas of zero density only 90 grams per cubic meter would
be gained over the lifting power of hydrogen.
Consequently, it is true at the present day and always will be,
that the total lifting power of a balloon can be increased only by
an enlargement of its volume.
In an apparatus heavier than air this total ascensional force is
again equal to the product of two factors; in this case, however, it is
the surface of the sustaining planes, and the supporting power per
square meter. ‘To increase this total ascensional force it thus becomes
nece.sary to increase one or the other of these factors.
Theoretically, the dimensions of the sustaining planes can be in-
creased, but in practice it is difficult, for these surfaces become much
heavier as they increase in size and thus absorb a large part of the
increase of ascensional power attained thereby. If this is carried
still further the weight of the sustaining surfaces can be increased
to such an extent that all the benefit of the increase in size is lost,
45745°—sm 1909——11
152 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and even more. We should, therefore, endeavor to increase the car-
rying power per square meter of the sustaining planes.
This carrying power may be increased partly by an increase in the
sustaining quality of the bearing surface, and it is research in this di-
rection that practically leads to the perfection of devices heavier than
air. It is a question of form, dimensions, and orientation which
must be taken up in detail. This problem constitutes in reality nine-
tenths of the problem of aviation.
In another way the load that can be carried per square meter of
sustaining surface in a given apparatus, increases with the available
motive power. The greater this power is in comparison with the
weight of the machine the larger may be the load imposed on each
square meter of sustaining surface. The increase is not proportional,
but it is rather rapid, as may be shown by a few figures. If an aero-
plane provided with a 25-horsepower motor can carry 10 kilograms
per square meter, the same aeroplane with a motor of 50 horsepower
ean carry 16 kilograms; with a 75-horsepower motor, 21; and with
a 100-horsepower motor 25 kilograms per square meter.
There is one very interesting point to note here, and that is, for a
given aeroplane the capacity per square meter varies with the veloc-
ity. Let us suppose that our aeroplane, with a 25-horsepower motor
and carrying 10 kilograms per square meter, makes a speed of 60
kilometers per hour. When it is provided with a motor of 50 horse-
power, which will permit it, as we have just seen, to carry 16 kilo-
grams per square meter instead of 10, its velocity will be increased.
It will no longer be 60, but 76 kilometers per hour. In the same way,
if it has a 75-horsepower motor due to which its carrying capacity
increases to 21 kilograms, its velocity will at the same time reach 86
kilometers. Finally, with the motor of 100 horsepower and a load
of 25 kilograms per square meter it will have a velocity of 95 kilo-
meters.
The individual velocity and the carrying capacity therefore in-
crease with the power of the motor; nothing of the kind occurs with
dirigibles.
However that may be, whether dirigibles or aviation apparatus are
concerned, the carrying capacity is dependent on the lightness of the
motors and the general perfection of the whole device; but these
features have a much greater effect in the heavier than air system
than in the lighter than air. In dirigibles there intervenes in this
question a preponderating element, that of the volume of the gas bag
whose influence dwarfs all others. This element does not exist in
the aviation devices.
We have still to examine stability in all its forms, but, as we have
already seen, this property is indispensabie if we desire to attain an
individual velocity of any magnitude whatever. There is, therefore,
SUPERIORITY IN AN AIR-SHIP—RENARD. 153
no necessity to analyze it in detail. We will simply remember that
a rapid air-ship is necessarily stable.
LY.
From the foregoing the conclusion may be drawn that the different
qualities which an air-ship may possess are not independent of each
other but may be reduced to two fundamental properties, the indi-
vidual velocity and the carrying capacity. The first of these quali-
ties, the individual velocity, is highly desirable in itself, for without
it dirigibility is impossible. Furthermore, it is the only means by
which we can increase the absolute velocity, which is of such prac-
tical importance. Finally, the absolute velocity is one of the factors
determining the distance that can be covered in a single flight. When
the individual velocity is increased, for the same reason both the
absolute velocity and the distance covered are increased. If we also
add the consideration that the possession of this speed necessarily
implies the possession of stability in all directions, we must conclude
- that in it we have a quality that is essentially fundamental.
The carrying capacity of such a machine can be measured by the
amount of weight of every kind which it can carry in excess of the
weight of the air-ship proper, its motor, propellers, and all the parts
indispensable to its operation.
Given this weight it can be used in different ways. It can be
employed in transporting a number of passengers or a considerable
weight of merchandise. In the form of ballast it helps to attain the
greatest altitude, and thus contributes to the duration of the aerial
voyage. In the form of fuel supply it assures the duration of the
voyage, thus affecting one. of the two factors entering into distance
covered.
Individual velocity can not be present in a high degree if the
property of stability is not also present. This permits of the attain-
ment of an absolute velocity which, coupled with duration of voyage,
goes to make up distance traveled. The carrying capacity has no
relation to stability. It can be utilized either for its own sake or
to attain altitude, or to prolong the voyage and thus contribute in
increasing the distance traveled.
These different qualities may therefore be divided into two
groups, those dependent on the individual velocity and those on
the carrying capacity. As for the distance traveled, it is a common
resultant of the two groups, for it is the product of absolute velocity
by duration of flight, qualities belonging to the different groups.
If we wish to obtain a synthetic idea of the value of an air-ship,
it is by the ratio of the distances covered that their merit should
be measured, but this quality is only the product of two others—the
154 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
absolute velocity and the duration of the voyage. These two factors
may play a varying role in the final result.
The factor of duration is certainly less important than the velocity.
To obtain duration the machine need not even be dirigible; a simple
free balloon can possess this quality, while up to the present time it
is the spherical balloons which have made the longest uninterrupted
voyages, so that while recognizing the valuable index which the
distance traveled affords in the estimation of the merit of an air-
ship, still, of the two elements which go to make it up, we must
attach more importance to the absolute velocity than to the dura-
tion of flight.
It should be recalled, however, that these two qualities are not
fundamental. The absolute velocity itself depends on the wind and
the individual velocity, and from our point of view it is only im-
portant if it is attained by the caprice of the wind but in the direc-
tion desired by the pilot. To accomplish this, there must be indi-
vidual velocity, a fundamental property.
The duration of flight is itself dependent on the carrying capacity.
We must, therefore, conclude that of these two fundamental prop-
erties it is the individual velocity that stands first and the capacity
of transport takes second place.
As stated in the beginning of this discussion, I have arrived at
these conclusions simply from utilitarian considerations. If we ex-
amine the question from the point of view of the difficulties to be
overcome, what rank shall we assign to these two essential qualities
of an air-ship? For an aeroplane the question is very simple; the
difficulties are the same in acquiring one as in acquiring the other.
With an increase in the individual velocity, the possible load per
square meter of sustaining surface is increased. Consequently, in
making an advance in one a gain is made in the other. The question
can be summed up by saying that an aeroplane should be as perfect
as possible; that is, it should be stable, have carrying surfaces en-
dowed with the best sustaining qualities, a good propeller, and a
powerful and light motor. If it possesses such perfection it can be
used in any way desired; it can travel swiftly and yet carry a con-
siderable weight that may be utilized either as useful load or to in-
crease the duration of the flight. If its load is lightened its speed
will be diminished, but its abundant motive power will enable it to
ascend. To conclude, with a perfect aeroplane the aviator may ob-
tain whichever quality he desires or combine them in whatever pro-
portion he deems convenient.
In the case of aeroplanes, therefore, we may say that the question
of difficulties to be overcome is negligible, and that utilitarian con-
siderations alone determine their value. In these machines it is the
individual velocity, as it is in all other types, which is the most im-
SUPERIORITY IN AN ATR-SHIP—-RENARD. 155
portant quality, but the others can be obtained without modifying the
construction in the slightest degree, and except for attaining altitude,
without losing any velocity, but even gaining it, with an increase in
the carrying capacity and in the qualities which are dependent on it.
This is not the case with dirigibles. To be sure, with them as with
aeroplanes, general perfection of apparatus—motor, propellers, forms
of small resistance—is indispensable to velocity and can likewise
exert a favorable influence on the carrying capacity and its resulting
consequences, but another factor intervenes, the volume of the balloon.
This exerts an enormous influence on the carrying capacity, which
dwarfs that resulting from the general perfection of the apparatus.
Although by increasing the individual velocity we can indirectly
increase in a slight degree the carrying capacity, we possess, more-
over, a means of increasing this quality absolutely independent of
those which produce velocity. I may add that this method has no
great merit in its application. It is not very difficult to add a few
hundred cubic meters to a balloon, or even more. I would not go as
far as to say that the problem is of extreme simplicity, but it is a
small matter beside those that have to be solved in increasing the
individual velocity of a dirigible. Consequently, as far as machines
lighter than air are concerned, if from a utilitarian point of view
the carrying capacity is an inferior quality, it is equally so from a
technical standpoint, for it is much easier to attain than individual
velocity.
Thus there are in an air-ship only two fundamental qualities from
which all the others are derived, individual velocity and carrying
capacity; and from a practical standpoint the latter is much less im-
portant than the former.
In considering the difficulties to be overcome, in an aeroplane the
question does not arise, for in such apparatus the qualities sought
for are so involved one with the other that every added improvement
allows of the increase according to choice of one or the other of the
properties desired in an air-ship. With dirigibles this is not the case,
for carrying capacity is much more easily obtained than individual
velocity, and the technical considerations which are involved in ma-
chines lighter than air are merely those that are basic in the utiliza-
tion of an air-ship.
Simply because a colossal dirigible has accomplished long journeys
and covered great distances, the superiority of this type of air-ship
over all others should not necessarily be proclaimed. The machine
that should interest us most is the one capable of the greatest individ-
ual velocity, and as this velocity is difficult to measure, we should
estimate it from the absolute velocity attained in flying in a closed
circuit in such a way as to eliminate from the final result, as much
as possible, the effect of the wind.
156 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
I believe that in this respect our air-ships have nothing to envy
in those of foreigners. I even believe frankly that ours are superior.
We can continue to be proud, then, of our air-ships; they possess to
a higher degree than others the first of all qualities, individual velo-
city. They are gaining in this respect from day to day, and when
our engineers desire it they can provide them besides with the carry-
ing capacity of which our rivals are so proud.
France is in no danger, as has been frequently loudly announced,
of losing the empire of the air.*
“These lines were written before the catastrophe of the dirigible Republique.
This tragic event, nevertheless, does not alter the conclusions of this article in
the slightest degree.—RENARD.
RESEARCHES IN RADIOTELEGRAPHY.¢
(With 2 plates.)
By cerot, Ja A] HiEeMminG) MeeA DD: Se: Bo Revs:
Radiotelegraphy, popularly called wireless telegraphy, has out-
lived the tentative achievements of its precocious infancy and obtained
for itself a settled but important position amongst our means of
communication.
This stage, however, has only been reached after a long struggle
with experimental difficulties and much labor in analyzing the proc-
esses involved. As many of these matters are of general scientific
interest, it is proposed, during the present hour, briefly to summarize
the results of some recent research.
You are doubtless all aware that every radiotelegraphic station
comprises three elements. There is, first, the external organ called the
air wire or antenna, by which the electromagnetic waves are radiated
and absorbed. This antenna consists of one or more wires extending
up into the air, either vertically or sloping, or partly vertical and
partly horizontal. These wires are insulated at the upper ends and
may be arranged fan fashion, or may form one or more nearly closed
loops, placed in a vertical position. The antenna is, so to speak, the
mouth or ear of the station, by which it speaks through the ether, or
by which it hears the etherial whispers coming to it from other
stations. The ether waves are produced by very rapid electric cur-
rents moving to and fro in the antenna wires, and these, like the
vibrations of a violin string, or the aerial oscillations in an organ
pipe, set up a periodic disturbance in the surrounding medium, which
in the electrical case consists of alternating electric and magnetic
forces taking place at each point in space around the antenna.
There are, then, appliances in the station collectively called the
transmitter, which have for their function to create these powerful
electric oscillations in the antenna, and to control them so as to send
out short or long trains of ether waves in accordance with the dot or
dash signals of the Morse alphabet. Lastly, there is the receiving
@QVecture before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Friday, June 4, 1909.
Reprinted by permission from pamphlet copy published by the Royal Institution.
157
158 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
apparatus, which, when connected to the antenna, serves to detect the
presence in it of the very feeble oscillations which are being generated
in the antenna by the powerful oscillations in the antenna of some
far-distant sending station. It is usual to employ the same antenna
at any one station both for sending and receiving, and to switch it over
from the transmitter to the receiver according as we wish to send or
receive messages, although methods have been described and are being
developed for using the antenna simultaneously for both purposes.
By way of preface let me illustrate by a few experiments the
manner in which these electric oscillations are set up in the air wire,
and the nature of the effects produced by them in the surrounding
space. We have here a very long wire which, for the purpose of
keeping it within a small compass, is coiled upon an ebonite tube.
Two such spirals, H, and H,, are placed side by side and connected
at the bottom through two other small coils of wire S (see fig. 1). In
contiguity to these last two coils of wire are two others, P, which are
in series with a condenser or battery of
Leyden jars, C, and a spark gap. If we
charge the condenser by an induction coil,
I, and let it discharge across the gap, we
produce rapidly succeeding trains of elec-
tric oscillations in the condenser circuit,
and these induce other currents in the open
or helix circuit of similar kind. The re-
sult is that electricity rushes up and down
the spiral wires, which we may consider to
represent two very long air wires or an-
Fic. 1. tenne. We have therefore, alternately,
free charges of electricity at the top ends of the wires and electric
currents passing to and fro across the middle point. We may com-
pare this movement of electricity in the helix to the oscillations of a
liquid in a U-tube when it is disturbed. In the electrical case we
have at each spark discharge 20 or 30 electrical swings or oscillations
separated by relatively long intervals of silence, the intervals between
two swings in the train being about one four-hundredth-thousandth
of a second, while the interval between the groups or trains of swings
is about one-fiftieth of a second.
Such electrical oscillations in the wire produce two effects in
external space, called, respectively, electric and magnetic force. In
the case of a simple vertical air wire the magnetic force is distributed
along concentric circular lines embracing the wire while the electric
force is distributed along certain looped lines in the plane of the wire.
If, however, we employ a close-wound spiral antenna, as in our
experiment, the positions of the electric and magnetic forces are inter-
changed as compared with those of the single vertical wire.
RADIOTELEGRAPHY—FLEMING. 159
As the currents in the air wire reverse their direction the magnetic
and electric effects in the external space also reverse, but not every-
where at the same moment. The magnetic and electric forces are
affections or states of the ether, and in virtue of the inertia and
elasticity of the medium they are propagated from point to point
with a finite velocity which is the same as that of light. We can
then explore the field near the antenna and obtain an approximate
idea of its nature and intensity by the use of a Neon vacuum tube,
which glows when held in the electric field with greater or less
brilancy. At certain intervals of distance in the space the magnetic
and electric forces reverse direction in the same way at the same
instant, and this distance is called a wave length.
In the case of a straight air wire, the magnitude of the forces at
considerable distances varies inversely as the distance from the an-
tenna, and the antenna radiates equally in all directions. If, how-
ever, we employ a U-shaped antenna, as in the present experiment,
the currents being in opposite directions in the two branches, then
along a median line transverse to their common plane their actions
will neutralize each other, and the radiation will be symmetrical only
with respect to the plane of the antenna. In constructing an antenna
intended to radiate in all directions, it is necessary to connect the
lower end to a large plate of metal or network of wires either sunk
in the earth or placed just above the surface. In the former case,
this plate is called an earth plate, and in the latter a balancing
. capacity. It is necessary that this balancing capacity, if insulated,
should be of sufficient size to take up all the electricity which rushes
out of the antenna at each oscillation without sensible rise in poten-
tial. If we are only employing an antenna of moderate capacity for
short distance signaling, then an insulated balancing capacity would
not be of unwieldly dimensions and may be constructed of a number
of wires stretched out or laid on the ground or insulated a little way
above it. When, however, we have to employ a very large antenna
of great capacity for long distance work, then the provision of a
suitable balancing capacity would involve constructive difficulties
which are best obviated by making the earth itself the balancing
capacity—in other words, by connecting the base of the antenna to
an extensive network of wires or large metal plates buried in the
ground. It has been asserted that the direct earth connection damps
out the free oscillations in the antenna more quickly than would be
the case if an insulated balancing capacity is employed. Although
this may be true to a certain extent, we have to set against it the fact
that the use of an insulated balancing capacity is out of the question
in many cases—as on board ship, where a connection to the hull of
the vessel is always made. Also for any but small antenne the neces-
sary insulated balancing capacity may be somewhat large, and it is
160 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
in every way better to put it below ground, in other words, to employ
an earth plate and compensate for any slight earth damping by an
antenna of rather larger capacity.
This matter is, however, only part of a much larger question, viz,
the function of the earth in radiotelegraphy. It is well known that
the nature of the earth’s soil or surface between the sending and
recelving stations has a great effect upon electric waves passing over
it. Various imperfect explanations were given of this action in
early days, but the basis for a better knowledge has been laid by the
experimental researches of Admiral Sir Henry Jackson and the
theoretical discussions of M. Brylinski and Doctor Zenneck. To fol-
low their explanations it must be borne in mind that high-frequency
electric currents, as used in radiotelegraphy, are confined chiefly to
the surface of conductors by means of which they are conducted.
Such a current does not distribute itself uniformly over the whole
cross section of a wire carrying it, but is confined to a thin skin or
surface layer. This can be proved by the following experiment: We
take a copper wire spiral or loop and make it part of a circuit in
which a high-frequency current exists. If we measure in any way
the current in that circuit we find it has a certain value. If we sub-
stitute for the copper wire an iron wire of the same size, we find that
the current in the circuit is then much less. This can be discovered
by placing near the circuit in question another testing circuit com-
prising an inductance and a capacity and some means for testing the
amplitude of the oscillations set up in this secondary circuit. This
decrease is not due to the mere fact that the iron has a greater resist-—
ance than copper, but to the fact that the iron is magnetizable, and
such magnetization absorbs energy owing to so-called hysteresis. If,
however, we dip the iron for a moment into molten zinc and deposit
on it a thin surface layer of zinc, or galvanize it; we find it then
becomes almost as good as a solid copper wire for conveying high-
frequency currents. On the other hand, if we burn off-the zine from
a piece of galvanized-iron wire, we render it a worse conductor for
high-frequency oscillations. This experiment proves that such oscil-
lations are conveyed by a thin surface layer of the conductor. In
the case of a copper wire for oscillations having a frequency of one
million, the current penetrates about one-third of a millimeter, and
in the case of an iron wire, about one-fortieth of a millimeter into the
metal.
For nonmagnetic substances the depth to which a current of.a
given frequency penetrates into a conductor is greater in proportion
as the conductivity of the material is less. Hence high frequency
currents penetrate farther into carbon than into metal. Accordingly
a much thicker layer of carbon than of zinc would be needed to shield
the iron spiral in our last experiment. The same thing happens in
RADIOTELEGRAPHY—FLEMING. 161
the case of an electric wave propagated over a terrestrial surface.
If the surface is a very good conductor the wave hardly penetrates
into it, but glides over the surface. If it is a poor conductor the
wave penetrates into it to a greater extent, and the worse the con-
ductivity the deeper the penetration.
The materials of which the earth’s crust is composed, with some
exceptions, owe their electric conductivity chiefly to the presence of
water in them. They are called electrolytic conductors. Substances
like marble and slate when free from iron oxide are fairly good insu-
lators. Dry sand or hard dry rocks are poor conductors, but wet sand
and moist earth are fairly good conductors. Sea water, owing to the
salt in it, is a much better conductor than fresh water. The follow-
ing table gives some figures, which, however, are only approximate,
for the specific resistance of various terrestrial materials in ohms per
meter cube. It will be seen that dry sand or soils are of very high
specific resistance, and damp or wet sand or clay fairly low.
TABLE I1.— Approximate conductivity and dielectric constant of various terres-
trial materials,
Waterinle Specific resistence in ohms | Dielectric constant.
per meter cube. AGT ile
SGM, W/GHSIRe Gsanps Goonsoccondnanandndgonannpdobasee i 80
Mreshiwateneearee eecn cece cee ee ea eeeaae 100 to 1,000 80
Moisit#eamtht y excne ccs eee ase oon oscic'e weminetisns 10 to 1,000 5 to 15
DIVeCAnt HAAS SG see iee wo hacen simecoee monase ss cqemeae ve 10,000 and upward 2to6
Wietisain die meeeeseee ce omen eee ea eens enince Eee 1 to 1,000 9
DryATiVerisanG whee = cease ~ algae aeccceice oceans very large 2to3
Wieticlavccsctotee cee FE SUOCO RSE BOGOEE OE EEE AGaEDS 10 to 100 oe
Dr yg Cl ayers ee acentoa ce eraeicis winine cin leis eee wisianialeiowe 10,000 and upward 2tod
Slatesasacccee cose serene cree sae Ana oaemecerekaae 10,000 to 100,000 aes
Marblemcteass ctaceccaneetrs saesesesee sceeenees 5,000,000 6
IMELGUTY ese ceiccwcisb ease oecidsemnnauioeece sce cece -000001 Infinity
If our earth’s surface had a conductivity equal say to that of
copper, then the electric radiation from an antenna would glide over
the surface without penetration. In the case of the actual earth there
is, however, considerable penetration of the wave into the surface, and
therefore absorption of energy by it.
Brylinski and also Zenneck have calculated the depth to which
electric waves of such frequency as are used in radiotelegraphy pene-
trate into the sea or terrestrial strata of various conductivities. For
mathematical reasons it is customary to define it by stating the
depth in meters or centimeters at which the wave amplitude is
reduced to 1/e=0.367 of its amplitude at the surface. I have repre-
sented in a diagram some of Zenneck’s results calculated for waves
of 1,000 feet in length, and for terrestrial surface materials of
various kinds, conductivities, and dielectric constants (see fig. 2).
You will see that in the case of sea water an electric wave traveling
over it penetrates only to the depth of a meter or two, whereas in
162 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the case of very dry soil it would penetrate much deeper. Owing to
the conductivity of the soil, this movement of lines of maenetic force
through it sets up currents of electricity which expend their energy in
heat. This energy must come from the original store imparted to
the sending antenna, and therefore the wave is robbed of its energy as
it travels over the surface.
It should be clearly understood that when a wireless telegraph
antenna is in operation it sends out into the surrounding space a
nearly hemispherical electrical wave, which spreads out in all direc-
tions. There are five causes which weaken the wave as it travels
outward:
(1) The distribution of the energy continually over a larger and
larger area. The wave amplitude diminishes inversely as the distance,
and the wave energy inversely as the square of the distance. This
is proved theoretically from first principles by Hertz’s equations, and
tres. a
100 Metre K- j
40 » <80
1 10 100 ©1000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000
Sea Fresh Damp Dry Soil
Water. | Water. Soil. ee
Specific Resistance in Ohms per dletre Cube.
Fig. 2.—Depth of penetration of waves 1,000 feet in length (Doctor
Zenneck).
has been confirmed experimentally by the experiments of Messrs.
Duddell and Taylor and of Professor Tissot.
(2) There is a certain absorption of energy due to the ionization
of the atmosphere by daylight and to other causes, but this is only
detectable over long distances and for the present moment we shall
neglect it. We include, however, under this head, obstructions due
to special atmospheric conditions, electrical or material.
(3) There is a diminution, due to earth curvature, which is ope
tive only over long distances.
(4) There is some reduction of intensity which results from ke
stacles—such as hills, trees—especially from cliffs of ironstone or
conductive rocks, due to distortion of the electric field.
(5) Lastly, there is the weakening due to the dissipation of energy
by the penetration of the waves into the surface over which they
travel.
RADIOTELEGRAPHY—FLEMING. 163
We shall consider the last-named cause alone at the present moment.
Doctor Zenneck has discussed mathematically, in a very interesting
paper, the effect of the conductivity and dielectric constant of the
terrestrial surface, soil, or sea, on the propagation of a plain electric
wave over it, assuming the radiation to be from an ordinary vertical
antenna, and the electric force therefore normal to the earth and
magnetic force parallel to it. The result is to show that there are,
broadly speaking, three cases to consider. First, supposing the sur-
face material to be a good conductor, then the wave moves over the
surface and penetrates a very little way into it. The electric force
in the air over the surface is a purely alternating force vertical to the
earth’s surface, and the magnetic force is an alternating force parallel
to it, and there is very little subterranean electric or magnetic force
(see fig. 3a). This is realized approximately or most nearly in the
case of radiotelegraphy over sea water. Secondly, let the earth be
assumed to have a very poor conductivity and not a very large dielec-
tric constant; then analy-
sis shows that the elec-
tric force in the air has
two components, one per-
pendicular to the earth’s
surface and one parallel
to it, and the resultant is
an alternating and a ro-
tating force, the direc- = +=10hm ” = 100,000 ohms + = 10,000 ohms
D : 20 per metre cube. per metre cube. per metre cube.
tion of its maximum K = 80. K=2 -3. K=1—3.
value beins inclined to ry = Resistivity. K = Dielectric constant.
5 F
Fie. 3.
the surface and leaning
forward (see fig. 38). The wave front therefore slopes forward.
Also, there is a subterranean electric force, showing that the wave
is penetrating into the soil, and there is therefore dissipation of
energy owing to the conductivity of the soil as the wave travels over
the surface. This case is realized when the wave travels over land
composed of dry soil having a small dielectric constant. Thirdly,
let the earth be a very poor conductor, having a small dielectric con-
stant from 2 to 3 and a specific resistance of about 10,000 ohms per
meter cube—for example, very dry earth or sand. Then the investi-
gation shows that the electric force in the air has two components,
one parallel to the earth’s surface and one perpendicular to it differ-
ing in phase, and the resultant is represented by the rotating radius
of an ellipse, the maximum value or major axis of which is inclined
forward in the direction of the wave motion (see fig. 8c). At the
same time there is some penetration of the wave into the earth and
consequent dissipation of energy.
164 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Doctor Zenneck has considered the case of electric waves 1,000
feet in wave length, and has represented the final result by some
interesting curves. He defines the effect of the absorption of energy
by the soil by stating the distance in kilometers at which the wave
amplitude would be reduced by the effect of this absorption to
0.367=1/e of its amplitude at the sending station, altogether apart
from the weakening due to the spreading of the waves out in a hemi-
sphere, which we may call the spherical or space decrease. These
curves are plotted to abscisse representing the specific resistance of
the soil (see. fig. 4). You will see from this diagram that when a
plane electric wave having the above wave lengths is propagated over
sea water, it would have to travel 10,000 kilometers before its ampli-
Xi,
10,000
1,000
100
Dielectric Constant.
10
is reduced to 0°367 = 1/e of Amplitude at origin.
Ht = Distance in Kilometres at which the Wave Amplitete
Sea
Water.
Specific Resistance in Ohms pea Metre Cube.
Fresh
Water.
Damp Soil.
Dry Soil. | Insulators.
Fic. 4.—Curves showing the distance in which electric waves 1,000 feet
(800 meters) in length have amplitude reduced to 1/¢ by traveling over
various surfaces (Doctor Zenneck).
tude would be reduced in the assigned ratio; and over fairly dry
soil, about 100 to 1,000 kilometers; but over very dry soil, having a
small dielectric constant, only about 1 to 10 kilometers. Also you
will notice that the curves rise up again for still higher resistivities.
This, of course, is as it should be. All the practical cases lie between
two ideal extremes—the case of an infinitely perfect conducting earth,
in which case the waves would not penetrate into it at all, and the
other case, an infinitely perfect nonconducting earth, in which the
wave would penetrate into it, but would suffer no dissipation of
energy. This theory is quite in accordance with practical experience
in radiotelegraphy. Every receiving apparatus associated with an
antenna of a certain height and kind must be subjected to waves of
a certain minimum amplitude to give any appreciable signal. For
RADIOTELEGRAPH Y—FLEMING. 165
all lower amplitudes that particular receiving arrangement is per-
fectly deaf. Now, it is a matter of common experience that with a
given radiotelegraphic apparatus and antenna, it is possible to re-
ceive signals for greater distances over sea water than over dry land,
and that if the soil is very dry the distance may be cut down very
considerably indeed. This is not due merely to the difficulty of mak-
ing what the telegraphists call a good earth at the sending station,
it is due to the absorption of the wave by the earth for the whole
distance which extends between the two stations. Hence, also, it is
a common experience that when particularly dry weather is suc-
ceeded by wet weather, the radiotelegraphic communication between
two stations on land is considerably improved.
In another paper Doctor Hack has shown that even underground
water is an advantage in facilitating radiotelegraphic communica-
tion. Since a shore station must always be established on shore for
’
ws
re
re
ne 1 1/10
8S
an 2 1/100
SS
os By distanc}
SE 3 ance alone 1/1000
aS
ae 4 1/10000
ae
ay
PS 5 1/10°
£8
SEs
is)
6
; Kilometres 500 1000 1500 2000 3500
Distance | wiles 312 625 937 1250 1562
Fic. 5.—Curves showing decrease in wave amplitude with distance for
waves 1,000 feet in length (Doctor Zenneck).
communication with ships, it is in consequence generally the custom
to select a site for that station as near as possible to the coast, and to
take pains to get a very good conducting connection between the foot
of the antenna and the soil, and also if necessary between the antenna
earthplate and the sea. Fessenden has suggested for this purpose the
use of what he calls a wave chute, which is merely a metallic network
extending some distance outward from the antenna in cases where
this antenna is established in the center of towns or dry districts.
Doctor Zenneck has also given a series of curves which show in a
remarkable manner the reduction in wave amplitude due to both dis-
tance and surface absorption, calculated for waves of 1,000 feet in
length, and for various coefficients of absorption (see fig. 5). Thus,
for example, if we are propagating plane waves 1,000 feet long over
a surface which by itself would reduce the wave amplitude to 0.867
of its initial amplitude in 1,000 kilometers, then, when we consider
the decrease by distance as well, we have to take account of the fact
that this last cause reduces the wave amplitude at 1,000 kilometers to
166 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
0.001 of that which it is at 1 kilometer distance. I have represented
in the diagram some of Doctor Zenneck’s curves. The dotted line
shows the decrease of amplitude by distance alone, and the firm lines
that due to distance and terrestrial absorption in various cases. We
are able to see from them the large effect due to travel over large dis-
tances of very dry soil. Thus, for instance, if the absorption is such
as to cut down the amplitude in the ratio of 1:0.367 at 1,000 kilo-
meters, then at a distance of 3,000 kilometers the amplitude of a wave
of 1,000 feet in length would be cut down in the ratio of 3,000 to 1 by
distance alone, but in the ratio of 60,000 to 1 by distance and terres-
trial absorption combined.
An important matter is the question of the influence of wave
length on this absorption. It can be shown from theory that an
increase of wave length reduces the energy dissipation by the earth.
Thus in certain cases increasing the wave length from 1,000 to 10,000
feet increases the range of effective communication one hundred
‘times. The absorption is also determined by the decrement of the
wave train being greater the larger the decrement.
One practical deduction to be made from this investigation is that
the reduction in wave amplitude which takes place when the wave
moves over very dry soil is as much due to small dielectric constant
of the material as to high resistivity. We see also that the wave
front is very far from being vertical when the waves travel overland,
and hence it is an advantage in that case for the receiving antenna to
slope away from the direction in which the waves are traveling or
from the radiant point. Lastly, it points to the advantage of a long
wave for overland working. Generally speaking, then, we find that
electric wave telegraphy is conducted with much greater ease over
sea than over dry land, the reason being that the dielectric constant
is large and the conductivity of sea water is sufficient to prevent
much penetration of the electric wave in the sea, and therefore there
is not much dissipation of its energy by absorption due to the surface
over which it travels. We have here an instance of economy in
nature. Over sandy deserts, where we can, if need be, put up tele-
graph posts and wires, radiotelegraphy has had some natural diffi-
culties placed in its way, but on sea, where connection between mov-
ing stations is the important matter, and telegraph posts are impos-
sible, special facilities seem to have been afforded us for conducting it.
The next point in connection with the antenna to be noticed is the
means adopted of setting up the oscillations in it. The universal cus-
tom at present is to excite oscillations in a reservoir circuit con-
sisting of a condenser and an inductance by means of the spark or
arc. If the spark method is used, then the condenser is one of
relatively large capacity and the inductance is kept small. If the
capacity is measured in electrostatic units, and the inductance in
electromagnetic units, the ratio of capacity to inductance may be
RADIOTELEGRAPHY—FLEMING, 167
something of the order of 5:1 of even 20:1. In this case the con-
denser is charged by means of an induction coil or transformer, and
discharged across a spark gap, and this discharge consists of inter-
mittent trains of electric oscillations with a periodic time equal to
the free natural period of the oscillatory circuit. These discharges
are made to succeed each other from 50 to 600 times a second, by
using an induction coil with an appropriate interrupter, or else an
alternator and a transformer. If the
arc method of exciting the oscillations 2, Ey
is employed, then the ratio of capacity es alga
to inductance must be much smaller and 4/3, a 23
the oscillations are excited in this cir- [8 a
cuit by a continuous current arc worked é
with a voltage from 200 to 400 volts or = x
more, the arc being traversed by a
strong magnetic field and generally be- as oF
ing placed in a chamber kept free from z B
oxygen. The oscillations set up in the Fre. 6.
condenser circuit are then persistent or unbroken. The oscillations
are excited in the antenna by coupling it inductively or directly with
the condenser circuit (see fig. 6). If the former method is employed,
then an oscillation transformer is used consisting of two coils of wire,
one coil being inserted in the condenser circuit and one in the an-
tenna circuit, and according as these coils are near or far apart, they
are said to be closely or loosely coupled. These two circuits have
then each their own natural period of electric vibration, like tuning
forks, and they have to
be adjusted to syntony.
It is well known that
under these conditions
oscillations set up in
one circuit immediately
create oscillations of
two frequencies in both
circuits. This action
can be easily illus-
é trated by two pendu-
lums which are of the same length and are hung side by side on
a loose string distinguished by red and blue bobs. If one pendu-
lum is set swinging, it imparts little jerks to its other and sets
the latter in motion, but to do this the first must part with its
own energy, and hence is gradually brought to rest. Then the opera-
tion is repeated in the reverse direction. The motion of each pendu-
lum may then be represented by the ordinates of a curve such as those
in figure 7. This kind of motion can, by a well-known theorem,
45745°—sm 1909——12
Blue Pendulum
Hig. 7.
168 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
be resolved into the sum of two oscillations of different frequen-
cies. Hence, each pendulum may be said to possess two rates of
vibration. The same thing happens in the case of two closely
coupled syntonic electric currents. If one circuit has free oscillations
set up in it, the action and reaction of the circuits generates oscilla-
tions of two frquencies. Accordingly, when an antenna circuit is
coupled to a condenser circuit, we have oscillations of two frequencies
set up in it, and waves of two wave lengths radiated from the an-
tenna. The presence of these two waves can be detected either by
measurements made with the cymometer or by an oscillograph
vacuum tube. In the first case all that is necessary is to place a
cymometer in proximity to the antenna and vary its oscillation con-
stant. It will be found that there are two settings of the handle for
which the Neon tube glows brightly, and the scale of the instrument
will indicate the wave
lengths of the two waves
respectively. Some instruct-
A2= 1060 metres
C,
= 0'0043 mfds. lve measurements of this
= 0'0048 mf ;
kind have been made by
Prof. W. G. Pierce in a re-
cent research, and he has
shown that the wave lengths
given by the formule which
can be deduced from the
theory of the operations are
in agreement with actual
measurements (see fig. 8).
Another striking confirma-
tion can be obtained by the
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1690 oscillograph vacuum tube,
Fic. 8.—Pierce’s eee inductive coupling. invented 2 Baa Gomes.
~ of the Reichsanstalt, Ber-
lin. This consists of a glass tube having two strip electrodes in
it nearly touching, which are made of nickel or aluminum. The
tube is filled with pure nitrogen and exhausted to a pressure of
about 10 to 20 mm. If such a tube has a high voltage applied
to its terminals, a glow light extends along the electrodes, the length
of which varies with the electromotive force. Hence, if the tube
is connected to a circuit in which an oscillatory discharge is taking
place, the glow light along the tube will rapidly extend and contract.
If the electrodes are examined in a revolving mirror, making from
fifty to a hundred turns a second, the images of the glowing elec-
trodes corresponding to each oscillation will be separated out, and
if the oscillations are persistent or undamped, we see a series
of short bright lines alternately above and below a centrai line.
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RADIOTELEGRAPHY—FLEMING. 169
Tf, however, the oscillations are damped, then we see in the mirror
a train of images each decreasing in length (fig. 9, pl. 1). On apply-
ing such an oscillograph vacuum tube to the circuit of an inductively
coupled antenna, and examining in a revolving mirror the image of
the electrodes, they will be seen to present an appearance as in fig. 10,
pl. 1, taken from photographs kindly given me by Herr Hans Boas,
of Berlin. These oscillograms indicate that there are two oscillations
present of different frequency, producing an effect similar to beats
in music. Owing to the difference in frequency, the oscillations
alternately reenforce and extinguish each other throughout the period,
and as this type of oscillogram is only obtained with an inductively
coupled antenna, it is a proof that in such a case there are two
oscillations present of different frequencies. A similar result has
been obtained by Prof. E. Taylor Jones with low-frequency oscil-
lations in coupled inductive circuits by means of an electrostatic
oscillogram of his own invention. Looking at these photographs, it
will be seen that each represents a single train of damped oscillations
gradually dying away, but that in each train of oscillations there is
an alternate waxing and waning of the amplitude, which indicates
that it may be considered to be composed of two superimposed oscil-
lations of different frequency (fig. 10a, pl. 1).
Accordingly, in the case of wireless telegraph antenne inductively
coupled, we have in general two waves radiated of different lengths,
and either of these can be made to affect suitably tuned receiving
circuits. These waves have different damping and different maximum
amplitudes.
One of the disadvantages of close inductive coupling is, therefore,
that we must divide the energy given to the antenna between two
waves of different length. As the receiving antenna is generally only
tuned to one of these wave lengths, we then capture and absorb only
the energy conveyed by the waves of that wave length. To meet this
difficulty it has been the custom to employ a feeble coupling between
the circuits of the oscillation transformer, so as to generate waves
of only one wave length. The objection then arises that the energy
conveyed to the antenna is much reduced. It is, however, possible,
as I have shown, to duplicate the receiving circuits so as to capture
the energy of both the waves even with close coupling of the trans-
mitter transformer ¢ (see fig. 11).
A method of creating feebly damped oscillations has, on the other
hand, recently been developed, generally known in Germany as Wien’s
@Since the delivery of this lecture my attention has been drawn by Mr. J.
Hettinger to an article by himself in the ‘‘ Hlectrical Engineer” of October 26,
1906, in which he describes an almost identical arrangement devised by him for
capturing both the waves of an inductively coupled transmitter, and refers to a
prior invention for the same purpose by Dr. G. Seibt.
170 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
method, or the method of quenched sparks, which is based on the fact
that if we can quench or stop the spark in the condenser circuit after
the first few oscillations, the oscillations of the antenna then take
place freely and with a single fre-
quency (see fig. 114).
The principle which underlies this
method is the well-known fact, to
which particular attention was called
by Prof. M. Wien, of Danzig, in 1906,
that the damping effect of very short
sparks is extremely large. Hence, if
we form a spark gap consisting of a
large number of very small spark gaps in
Fic. 11.—Method of utilizing waves series, say 10 gaps each of 0.3 mm., and
of both frequencies emitted by E
inductively coupled transmitting 1f we keep the spark surfaces cool,
TEMES SUEY then not only can no are form be-
“tween these surfaces but the condenser spark is immediately
quenched. Moreover, if we supply this spark gap, either from a high
frequency alternator, or from a low resistance transformer, we can
produce as many as 2,000 sparks per second. A form of discharger
for this purpose has been devised in Germany which consists of a
series of copper disks or
copper boxes cooled with
water, the flat surfaces of
which are placed in con-
tiguity, but separated by
very thin rings of mica.
The interspace between
the boxes 1s not mere
than one one-hundred-
and-twenty-fifth of an
inch, and ten or twelve
of these disks or boxes
are placed in series (see
fig. 11s). The row of
boxes takes the place of
the ordinary spark balls,
and is connected to the
secondary terminals of a
transformer, fed by a high
frequency alternator, and also connected to an oscillatory circuit.
When the transformer is in action it produces a very large number,
1,000 or more, of oscillatory discharges of the condenser per second,
each of which has a large initial amplitude, but quickly dies out. The
inductively or directly coupled antenna hence receives a very large
Ordinary Spark
Primary
Secondary |\
Primary
Fic. 114. Oscillations in inductively coupled circuits.
RADIOTELEGRAPH Y—FLEMING. a rq
number of impulses per second, each of which sets up in it free
electrical oscillations of one definite period.
A discharge composed of a single pair of metal plates with inter-
posed separating paper ring has been devised and employed by Von
Lepel. In this case the plates are connected to the terminals of a
high-voltage direct-current dynamo, and are shunted by a circuit
having inductance and capacity, one of the plates being also connected
to an antenna and the other to a balancing capacity.
These dischargers, however, have not stood the test of prolonged
practical use, and we can not say therefore that they are comparable
in value for telegraphic purposes
with the well-proved inventions
of Mr. Marconi.
In connection with spark teleg-
raphy it has been clearly seen,
lately, that much can be done by
attention to details of construc-
tion to increase the number of
oscillations in each wave train in
the case of spark apparatus, in
other words, to lessen the damp-
ing by obviating energy losses in
all parts of the apparatus. It is
not a matter of indifference what
kind of glass we use in Leyden
jars or what form of stranded
wire we employ in oscillation
transformers, or type of spark
discharger. By appropriate selec-
tion of apparatus, we can con- SS
siderably increase the number of Plan of Copper Flanged Plate.
oscillations in damped trains of F'6- 118. Plan and section showing por-
small amplitude, and therefore Sci Nia Saba
increase the possibilities of utilizing the principle of resonance.
Before leaving the subject of the antenna we may notice some
recent improvements in directive antennae, that is, in devices for
more or less confining the radiation to one direction, and for locating
the position of the sending station.
In a previous discourse explanations were given of the property
of a closed or partly closed antenna of radiating more in some direc-
tions than others, and the action of Marconi’s bent antenna was
described. Two other inventors, Messrs. Bellini and Tosi, have taken
advantage of this fact to construct antenne of a very interesting
character. They erect an antenna consisting of two wires, each bent
ttre seme nen ewe Ban wee, wm nee nw wee anne
v72 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
into a triangular form, the top ends nearly meeting, the planes of
these triangles being at right angles to one another, and both of them
vertical. The nearly closed antenna circuits are then inductively
coupled with a condenser circuit, which is capable of being swivelled
around in various directions. If the said condenser circuit is placed
in such a position as to be coupled with one of the triangular antenne,
it will cause the maximum radiation to take place in the plane of that
antenna, but none at all at right angles to it. If it is coupled with
the other antenna, it will cause radiation to take place to a maximum
degree in the plane of that second antenna. If, however, the oscil-
latory circuit is placed in an intermediate position, so as to act
inductively upon both the nearly closed triangular antenne, then it
can be shown both mathematically and experimentally that the radia-
tion of the combined system is a maximum in the direction of the
plane of the oscillatory circuit which is coupled with the antenna.
. Hence, with such a combined antenna, we have it in our power to
: create radiation most strongly in one direc-
tion, although not entirely suppressed in all
other directions. By combining together,
however, a single vertical antenna with two
nearly closed circuit antenne at right angles
to one another, Messrs. Bellini and Tosi have
constructed a complex antenna which has the
property of producing radiation almost en-
tirely limited to one-half of the circumja-
cent space (see fig. 12). It therefore corre-
sponds to a certain extent in effect to the
optical apparatus of a light-house, with
catoptric or dioptric apparatus, which pro-
jects the light from the lamp largely in one direction. It is not
yet possible to make with electric radiation of long wave length
that which corresponds precisely with a beam of hight wholly con-
centrated along a certain cone or cylinder, but it is possible, by
the use of a complex antenna as described, to greatly limit the
diffusion of the radiation. Since radiating and absorbing power
go hand in hand, it is obvious that such a directive antenna also
enables the position of a sending station to be located. Messrs.
Bellini and Tosi have accordingly applied their methods in the con-
struction of a radiogoniometer and receiving antenna, by means of
which they can locate the direction of the sending station without
moving the antenna, but merely by turning around a secondary cir-
cult into a position in which the maximum sound is heard in a
telephone connected with the receiver. By the kindness of Captain
Tosi I am able to exhibit to you their ingenious apparatus (see
fig. 13, pl. 2):
Q
Fie. 12.
“ANOHdS TS LOINVY YOS SNOILVITIOSO
LNALSISHSd SNIONGOY, YO4 OYV WNININNIY “AHdVY¥SS TS LOIGVY
NOISNA L-HDIH ShHSWHNY LSNY4—']1S? “SI SAILOSYIGQ YOS SHSALAWOINODSOIGVY SdSO]L GNV INITISG—'S] “SIS
"6 ALVId *Buiwia|j—6Q6| ‘Hodey ueiuosy}iWS
RADIOTELEGRAPH Y—FLEMING.,. ie
The space occupied by such closed antenne has hitherto prevented
their employment on ships. ‘There is still, therefore, an opening for
the invention of apparatus capable of being used on board ship
which will enable one ship to locate, within narrow limits, the
direction of another ship sending signals to it, and therefore of
ascertaining immediately the direction from which some call for help
is proceeding.
Closely connected with this part of the subject is the question so
frequently discussed as to the isolation or secrecy of radiotelegraphic
communication. Up to the present moment the only really practical
method of isolating any particular receiver so as to make it sensitive
only to signals coming from a certain direction, is to avail ourselves
to the utmost of the principle of resonance and to tune the sending
and receiving circuits to exact cor- Th
respondence. The question then
arises, What is it which determines 90
the effectiveness of this tuning? fe
If waves of one particular wave
jength are impinging on a receiving : “0
antenna and creating signals, by % ,,
how much can the wave length be
varied or the tuning of the receiver é 7
upset or changed without prevent- gs 40
ing these signals being received? §
It is clear that the narrower this § ¢
range the more perfect the isola- 20
tion of the receiver. It can be
shown that it depends upon the
form of the resonance curve of the ; pees
sending and _ receiving circuits. Percentage Variation from Exact Tuning,
If the sending station is emitting Fic. 14.—Resonance curves.
waves of a certain constant wave length and damping or decrement,
then in the receiving circuit of all other stations within range there
will be produced oscillations having a certain mean square value
measurable by appropriate instruments. If any receiving circuit is
gradually brought by adjustment of its capacity and inductance into
exact syntony or tune with the sending station, then this receiver cur-
rent reaches its maximum value and there is a definite lesser value of
the receiver current for every particular degree of want of tuning or
dissonance between the two. The curve which by its ordinates ex-
presses this receiver current corresponding to each particular tuning
or natural frequency of the receiving circuit, is called a resonance
curve (see fig. 14). If this curve has a very sharp peak, then it
clearly indicates that a slight want of tuning or syntony between the
stations will greatly reduce the receiver current. The peakiness of
174 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the curve depends upon the sum of the decrements of the sending and
receiving circuits. By the term “ decrement” of a circuit is meant
the logarithm of the ratio of the amplitudes of two successive oscil-
lations in the train.
To obtain very sharp tuning we have therefore to employ either
undamped oscillations or very feebly damped oscillations in the
transmitter, and also a receiving circuit in which there is as little
dissipation of energy by resistance and other causes as possible. It
is then possible to cause a change of even less than one-half of 1 per
cent, or 5 parts in 1,000 in the wave length of the received waves
to cease to actuate the receiver. This means that we can distinguish
between two waves 1,000 and 1,005 or 1,010 feet in length, respec-
tively, and that our receiver may be tuned to respond to one and not
to the other. The persistent or undamped oscillations created by
the arc transmitters have, therefore, an advantage in this respect
-over spark transmitters, in that the damping or decrement of the
transmitter is less; but it should be borne in mind that the damping
of the receiver circuit has also a large influence on the form of the
resonance curve, and that good isolation can not be obtained unless
the receiving circuit also has a small decrement. Under favorable
conditions we can employ a sending key, which does not interrupt
the production of the electric waves at the sending station, but sim-
ply alters the wave length slightly by about one-fourth per cent. If,
then, the corresponding receiving station has a feebly damped re-
ceiver, this change will be sufficient to cut up the continuous record
or telephone sound at that station into Morse dots and dashes, and so
transmit signals. But another station not so tuned will either re-
ceive nothing at all or else a continuous unbroken line or sound not
having any meaning. There are other methods by which signals not
intended for a particular receiver can be rejected by it. Fessenden
has described for this purpose an interference detector, in which the
impulses it is not desired to receive are made to divide between two
paths, the oscillations in which are then caused. to neutralize each
other’s effect on the oscillation detector. On the other hand, the
waves of the wave length it is desired to receive do not so neutralize
themselves, but produce a signal by their operation on the detector.
We must pass on to notice in the next place some improvements in
oscillation detectors, and means of testing them. As already ex-
plained, the ether waves sent out by the transmitting antenna fall on
the receiving antenna and create in it or some other circuit connected
to it very feeble oscillations. These oscillations being very feeble
alternating currents of high frequency, can not directly affect either
an ordinary telegraphic instrument or a telephone, but we have to
interpose a device of some kind called an oscillation detector, which
is affected by oscillations in such a manner that it undergoes some
RADIOTELEGRAPH Y—FLEMING. TS
change which in turn enables it to create, increase, or diminish a local
current produced by a local battery and so affect a telephone or tele-
graphic relay. One kind of change the oscillations can produce in
certain devices is a change in their electric resistance, which in turn
is caused to increase or diminish a current through a telephone or
telegraphic relay generated by a local battery. To this type belong
the well-known coherers of Branly, Lodge, and Marconi, which re-
quire tapping or rotating to bring them back continually to a condi-
tion of sensitiveness. Coherers, however, have been devised which
require no tapping. Thus it has been found by Mr. L. H. Walter that
if a short length of very fine tantalum wire is dipped into mercury
there is a very imperfect contact between the mercury and tantalum
for low electromotive forces. This may perhaps arise from the fact
that tantalum, like iron, is not wetted by mercury. If, however,
feeble electric oscillations act between the mercury and tantalum, the
contact is improved whilst they last. If, then, the terminals of a cir-
cuit containing a telephone in series
with a shunted voltaic cell are con-
nected to the mercury and tantalum,
respectively, and if damped or inter-
mittent trains of electric waves fall on
an antenna and excite oscillations
which are allowed to act on the mer-
cury tantalum junction, then at each
train the resistance of the contact falls,
the local cell sends current through the
telephone and produces a short sound, Fic. 15.—Walter’s tantalum de-
and if the trains come frequently FECHOE:
enough this sound is repeated and will be heard as a continuous
noise in the telephone (see fig. 15). This sound can be cut up into
dot and dash signals by a key in the sending instrument. If the
transmitter is sending persistent oscillations, then some form of
interrupter has to be inserted in the receiving circuit to enable us
to receive a continuous sound in the telephone which can be re-
solved into Morse dot and dash signals by the key in the trans-
mitter. The operator usually wears on his head a double telephone,
and listens to these long and short sounds in the telephone and writes
down each letter or word as he hears it. The reception of signals in
modern radiotelegraphy is most usually effected by ear, by means of
some type of oscillation detector capable of actuating a telephone. It
is important then to notice that, to obtain the highest sensitiveness
when using the telephonic method of reception, the spark frequency
or number of oscillation trains or the number of interruptions of the
persistent train per second must take place at such a rate that it
agrees with the natural time period of the diaphragm of the telephone
176 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
used. An ordinary telephone receiver is most sensitive, according to
the researches of Lord Rayleigh and M. Wien, for some frequency
lying between 500 and 1,000. Thus Lord Rayleigh (see Phil. Mag.,
vol. 38, 1894, p. 285) measured the alternating current in micro-
amperes required to produce the least audible sound in a telephone
receiver of 70 ohms resistance at various frequencies, and found
values as follows:
TABLE II.
HrequenGypencnssocceoaesmceesieeceeesceeesece 128 | 192] 256] 307] 3820] 384] 512] 640 768
Least audible current in microamperes...... 28} 2.5 | 0.83 | 0.49 | 0.32 | 0.15 | 0.07 | 0.04 0.1
M. Wien found for a Siemens telephone somewhat different results
Viz:
128
1.5
256
0.13
512
0. 027
720
0. 008
1, 927
0.018
1,500
0. 024
INFEQUCNCY? oc eis ce aaioatesete secret Sseec ed acwsiesesecioess 64
Least audible current in microamperes.............----.-
Both, however, agree in showing a maximum sensitiveness for
currents of a frequency between 600 and 700. This is due to the
fact that the frequency of the actuating current then agrees with the
natural frequency of the ordinary telephone diaphragm. Hence,
alternators for large power radiotelegraphic stations are now designed
to give currents with a frequency of about 300 or 600 alternations per
second, so that, when producing discharges of a condenser, the num-
ber of sparks per second may be at least 600, and fulfill the con-
ditions for giving maximum sound in the telephone of the receiver
per microampere. Another class of oscillation detector recently
discovered comprises the crystal detectors which depend on the pos-
session by certain crystals of the curious property of acting as an
electrical valve, or having greater conductivity in one direction than
the other, and also on not obeying Ohm’s law as conductors. It was
discovered by General Dunwoody of the United States Army, in 1906,
that a mass of carborundum, which is a crystalline carbide of silicon
formed in electric furnaces, can act as a detector of electric oscilla-
tions if inserted in the circuit of an antenna, the crystal mass being
held strongly pressed between two spring clips, which are also con-
nected by a shunted voltaic cell in series with a telephone. When
feeble oscillations are set up in the antenna, a sound is heard in the
telephone. This property of carborundum has been carefully investi-
gated by Prof. G. W. Pierce, of Harvard, and he showed that a
single crystal of carborundum has remarkable unilateral conductivity
for certain voltages when held with a certain contact pressure be-
tween metallic clips. Thus for a crystal held with a pressure of
1 kilogram, and subjected to an electromotive force of 30 volts, the
conductivity in one direction through the crystal was 4,000 greater
RADIOTELEGRAPHY—FLEMING, ihrer 4
than in the opposite direction (see fig. 16). The result of these
experiments was also to show that the current voltage curve or
characteristic curve of a carborundum crystal is not linear—that is to
say, the crystal as a conductor does not comply with Ohm’s law, for
the resistance of the crystal decreases as the current is increased.
Hence the conductivity of the crystal is a function of the voltage
acting on it (see fig. 16a).
Accordingly, if we pass a
current from a local cell
through a crystal under a
voltage say of 2 volts, a
telephone being inserted in
series with the cell, and if
we apply an_ oscillatory
voltage also to the crystal,
which varies say between
+0.5 and —0.5 volt, then Applied Voltage. +
the crystal 1s alternately Fic. 16.—Characteristic curves of carborundum
subjected to a voltage of 2.5 crystal.
and 1.5 volts, but the corresponding currents would be say 8.4 and
1.8 microamperes, as shown by an experiment with one particular
crystal employed by Professor Pierce. The mean current would then
be 5.1 microamperes, whereas the steady voltage of 2 volts would
only pass a current of 4 microamperes. Hence, apart from the uni-
lateral conductivity, and merely in virtue of the fact that the char-
acteristic curve is not a straight line, we find that such a crystal or
even a confused mass of crystals
can act as a radiotelegraphic de-
tector. There are, therefore, two
ways in which a crystalline mass
of carborundum can be used as a
radiotelegraphic detector. It con-
sists of a conglomeration of crys-
tals arranged in a_ disorderly
manner, or not so symmetrically
as to neutralize one another’s uni-
Applied Voltage. lateral conductivity. Hence the
a as mass of crystals, like the single
crystal, possesses unilateral conductivity, and also a conductivity which
is a function of the voltage applied to it. We may then use it without
a local cel’, and avail ourselves of its valve property to rectify the trains
of oscillations in the antenna and convert them into short unidirec-
tional trains which can affect a galvanometer or telephone; or secondly,
we may place the crystal between the ends of a circuit containing a
telephone and a shunted voltaic cell, and then on passing oscillations
Current.
178 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
through the crystal we hear sounds in the telephone due to the fact
that the conductivity is a function of the voltage, and is therefore
increased more by the addition than it is diminished by the substrac-
tion of the electromotive force of the oscillations to or from the steady
voltage of the local cell. The telephone, therefore, detects this change
in the average value of the current by a sound emitted by it. Pro-
fessor Pierce has discovered that several other crystals possess similar
properties to carborundum, for example, hessite, which is a native
crystalline telluride of silver or gold; an anatase, which is an oxide of
titanium; and molybdenite, which is a sulphide of molybdenum. As
regards the origin of this curious unilateral conductivity, it seems
clear that it is not thermoelectric, but at present no entirely satisfac-
tory theory of the action has been suggested.
A number of forms of oscillation detector have recently been
invented which depend on the curious fact that a slight contact
between certain classes of conductors possesses a unilateral conduc-
tivity, and can therefore rectify oscillations. One such detector now
much used in Germany consists of a plumbago or graphite point,
pressed lightly against a surface of galena. It has been found by
Otto von Bronk that a galena-tellurium contact is even more effective.
To the same class belongs the silicon-steel detector of Pickard. If
such a contact is inserted across the terminals of a condenser placed in
the receiving circuit, and if it is also in series with a telephone, the
trains of oscillations are rectified or converted into more or less pro-
longed gushes of electricity in one direction through the telephone.
These coming at a frequency of several hundred per second, corre-
sponding to the spark frequency, create a sound in the telephone,
which can be cut up by the sending key into Morse signals. Accord-
ing to the researches of Professor Pierce and Mr. Austin it seems clear
in many cases that this rectifying action is not thermoelectric, since
the rectified current is in the opposite direction to the current obtained
by heating the junction.
I may, then, bring to your notice some recent work on another form
of radiotelegraphic detector, which I first described to the Royal
Society about five years ago under the name of oscillation valve. It
consists of an electric glow lamp, in the bulb of which is placed a
cylinder of metal which surrounds the filament but does touch it.
This cylinder is connected to a wire sealed through the glass. Instead
of a cylinder, one or more metal plates are sometimes used. The
filament may be carbon or a metallic filament, and I found some year
or more ago that tungsten in various forms has special advantages.
The bulb is exhausted to a high vacuum, but of course this means it
includes highly rarefied gas of some kind. When the filament is ren-
dered incandescent it emits electrons, and these electrons or negative
RADIOTELEGRAPH Y—FLEMING. 179
ions give to the residual gas a unilateral conductivity, as shown by me
in a Friday evening lecture given here nineteen years ago. Moreover,
the ionized gas not only possesses unilateral conductivity, but its con-
ductivity, like that of the crystals just mentioned, is a function of the
voltage applied to it. Hence, if we apply an electromotive force
between the hot filament and the cool metal plate, we find that nega-
tive electricity can pass from the filament to the plate through the
ionized gas, and that the relation between the current and voltage is
not linear, but is represented by 2 characteristic curve bending upward
which has changes of curvature in it (see fig. 17). The sharp bend
upward at one place implies a large increase in the current corre-
sponding to a certain voltage, which means that, corresponding to a
certain potential gradient and therefore velocity of the electrons, con-
siderable ionization of the residual gas is beginning to take place.
The current, however, would not increase indefinitely with the volt-
age, but would before long become constant or saturated. It will be
seen, therefore, that
at points on _ the
curve where there is
a bend or change of
curvature the second
differential coefficient
of the curve may
have a large value.
Hence, if we consider
the current and volt- Applied Voltage.
age corresponding to Fic. 17.—Characteristic curve of rarefied gas ionized by
this point, it will be hot negative electrode.
seen that any small increase in the voltage increases the current
more than an equal small decrease in voltage diminishes it. If
then we superimpose on a steady voltage corresponding to a point
of inflexion of the curve an alternating voltage, the average value
of the current will be increased. This then points out two ways
in which this oscillation valve or glow lamp can be used as a radio-
telegraphic detector. First, we may make use of the unilateral
conductivity of the ionized gas in the bulb and employ the glow
lamp with cylinder around the incandescent filament as a rectifier
of trains of oscillations to make them affect a galvanometer or
telephone. This method was described by me in papers and speci-
fications in 1904 and 1905. In that case the valve is arranged in con-
nection with a receiving antenna, as shown in figure 18, and used with
a galvanometer or telephone. Mr. Marconi subsequently added an
induction coil and condenser, and employed in 1907 the arrangements
shown in figure 19. In this case the trains of oscillations set up in
the antenna could not by themselves affect a galvanometer or a tele-
000
Current in Micro-amperes.
180 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
phone, but when rectified by the valve they become equivalent to an
intermittent unidirectional current, and can then affect the telephone
or a galvanometer, or any instrument for detecting a direct current.
On the other hand, we may take advantage, as I have more recently
shown, of the nonlinear form of the characteristic curve. In other
words, of the fact that the conductivity of the ionized gas is a func-
it
Fic. 18. Fie. 19.
Connections for oscillation valve used as radiotelegraphic detector.
tion of the voltage applied to it, and in this second method the valve
and receiving circuits are arranged as shown in figure 20. In this
case, we have to apply to the ionized gas a unidirectional electromotive
force which corresponds to a point of inflexion on the character-
istic curve, and then to add to this
voltage the alternating voltage of the
oscillations set up by the incident elec-
tric waves in the receiving circuit. The
result is to cause a change in the aver-
age value of the current through the
telephone, and therefore to produce a
sound in it, long or short, according to
the number of trains of waves falling
on the antenna. This last method,
then, requires the application in the
Fic. 20.—Connections for oscilla- telephone circuit of an accurately ad-
Sea eapern as a radiotele’ Justed steady electromotive force, not
any electromotive force, but just that
value which corresponds to a point on the characteristic curve at
which there is a sudden change of curvature.
At this point we may notice a broad generalization which has
already been made by H. Brandes, viz, that any materials such as the
erystals mentioned, or ionized gases, which do not obey Ohm’s law as
regards the independence of conductivity on impressed voltage, can
be used as radiotelegraphic receivers. It is necessary to be able to
test the relative sensibility of detectors to know whether any new
RADIOTELEGRAPH Y—FLEMING. 181
form is an improvement. It is not always possible for an inventor
to get these tests made at real wireless telegraph stations. Moreover,
it is no use to test over short distances, because then all detectors
appear to be equally good. I have found, however, that we can make
these comparative tests very easily within quite moderate distances by
employing closed sending and receiving circuits which are poor radi-
ators. All the devices called wave detectors are really only oscilla-
tion detectors, and we can therefore test their value simply by ascer-
taining how feeble an alternating current or alternating voltage they
will detect. If we then set up in one place a square circuit of wire a
few feet inside, and complete the circuit by a condenser and a spark
gap, we can set up oscillations in it by means of an induction coil. I
find that it is necessary to inclose the spark gap in a cast-iron box,
and to blow upon the spark with a jet of air to secure silence, absence
of emission of electromagnetic waves direct from the spark balls, and
constancy in the oscillatory circuit. I then set up, a few score or few
hundred feet away, a similar tuned closed oscillatory circuit, and I
connect the oscillation detector to be tested either in this circuit or as
a shunt across the condenser. The closed receiving circuit is so con-
structed that it may be rotated around either of threeaxes. It is then
generally possible to find some position of the receiving circuit such
that no sounds are heard in a telephone connected to a highly sensi-
tive detector associated with the circuit. This position is called the
“zero position.” Ifthe receiving circuit is rotated around some axis, it
begins at a certain displacement to receive signals, and the angle
through which it has to be turned is a measure of the insensibility
of the particular oscillation detector being used. I find, for instance,
that it is quite easy to take one of my oscillation valves, a magnetic
detector, an electrolytic detector, a crystal detector, or any other
type, and arrange these in order of their sensibility by means of the
device described. Sensibility is not, however, the only virtue which
a wave detector should possess. It is important that it should be
simple, easily adjusted, and not injured by the chance passage
through it of any unusually large oscillatory currents. Another
quality which is desirable is that it should be quantitative in its
action, and that any change in the amplitude of the wave received
should be accompanied by an equal change in the current which the
detector allows to pass through the telephone. A quantitative
oscillation detector then enables not merely signals but audible speech
to be transmitted. In other words, it can effect wireless telephony.
The difficulties, however, in connection with the achievement of
wireless telephony are not so much in the receiver as in the transmit-
ter. We have to obtain, first, the uniform production of persistent
electromagnetic waves radiated from an antenna; and, next, we have
to vary the amplitude of these electric waves proportionately to, and
182 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
by means of, the aerial vibrations created by the voice speaking to
some form of microphone. We can not employ an intermittent spark
generator because each spark would give rise to a sound in the tele-
phone, and these sounds, if occurring at regular intervals, would
produce a musical note in the telephone. If, however, we make the
sparks run together into what is practically a high voltage are tak-
ing a small current, then, in an oscillatory circuit shunted across this
arc, we have set up persistent high frequency oscillations, as first
achieved by Mr. Duddell. We can greatly increase the energy of
the oscillations by immersing the arc in a strong transverse magnetic
field and also in a hydrocarbon gas, as shown by Poulsen, or we may
employ a number of arcs in series. KE. Ruhmer has lately also em-
ployed a high-tension are between aluminum electrodes (see fig. 21, pl.
2),shunted by a condenser and inductance as a means of generating
persistent oscillations. As an alternative, it is possible to create them
_by a mechanical method, viz, by a high frequency alternator, subject,
however, to certain limitations as to frequency. Both these types of
generator have their advantages and practical objections. There is
good evidence that radiotelephony has been accomplished over dis-
tances of 100 miles or more by each of these methods in the hands of
experts, but what is now required is the reduction of the apparatus
to such simple manageable and practical form that it can be applied
in regular work. The wave-generating apparatus must be capable of
producing uniform persistent oscillations of high voltage and fre-
quency, not less than 30,000 or 40,000 per second, or at least above the
limits of audition, and the amplitude of these oscillations must be
capable of being varied by some form of speaking microphone placed
in the oscillation circuit or in the radiating antenna, or in a secondary
circuit coupled to it. No ordinary simple carbon microphone will
safely pass sufficient current for this purpose. A type of multiple
microphone has been used successfully and also a duplex microphone,
the invention of Ernst Ruhmer.
It is not, however, possible to speak of radiotelephony at the pres-
ent time as having reached the same level of practical perfection as
radiotelegraphy. But the possibilities of it are of such a nature that
it will continue to attract the serious attention of inventors. This
is not the place to enter into a full discussion of the causes which
limit submarine telephony through cables, but there are well-known
reasons in the nature of submarine cables as at present made which
impose very definite limits upon it, owing to what is called distortion
of the wave form. Electric wave telephony is free at least from
this disadvantage, and if (as has been asserted) arc generators can
be made self-regulating and capable of being worked for hours auto-
matically, or even for ten minutes without being touched, then the
remaining difficulties with the microphone are not insuperable.
RADIOTELEGRAPHY—FLEMING, 183
Time does not permit of the discussion of the many other points in
connection with radiotelegraphy and telephony which have been the
subject of recent work. Much attention has been paid lately to
methods of cutting out atmospheric signals due to natural electrical
discharges in the atmosphere, which are troublesome disturbers of
the etherial calm necessary for radiotelegraphy. Considerable
thought and expenditure have been necessary to discover means for
overcoming the difficulties of long distance transmission by daylight,
and also those arising from the cross talk of other stations. Much
also has been done in training skilled wireless operators both in the
navy and for the mercantile marine work. Radiotelegraphy, like
aviation, 1s an art as well as a science, hence personal skill is a factor
of importance in turning the flank of the difficulties of the moment.
Nevertheless, the art and the science of radiotelegraphy are both
progressing, and the splendid services already rendered by it in sav-
ing life at sea are at once a proof of present perfection and an evi-
dence that the arduous labors of investigators and inventors have
borne fruit in yet larger powers to command the great forces of
nature for the use and benefit of mankind.
45745°—sm 1909——13
|
RECENT PROGRESS IN PHYSICS.¢
By Prot. Sit J.J. LHOmsons MeoAS Ii Ds Ds Se. sky Resi
It has usually been the practice of the president of this association
to give some account of the progress made in the last few years in
the branch of science which he has the honor to represent.
I propose this evening to follow that precedent and to attempt to
give a very short account of some of the more recent developments
of physics, and the new conceptions of physical processes to which
they have led.
The period which has elapsed since the association last met in
Canada has been one of almost unparalleled activity in many
branches of physics, and many new and unsuspected properties of
matter and electricity have been discovered. The history of this
period affords a remarkable illustration of the effect which may be
produced by a single discovery; for it is, I think, to the discovery of
the Réntgen rays that we owe the rapidity of the progress which has
recently been made in physics. <A striking discovery like that of the
Rontgen rays acts much like the discovery of gold in a sparsely popu-
lated country; it attracts workers who come in the first place for the
gold, but who may find that the country has other products, other
charms, perhaps even more valuable than the gold itself. The coun-
try in which the gold was discovered in the case of the R6ntgen rays
was the department of physics dealing with the discharge of electric-
ity through gases, a subject which, almost from the beginning of elec-
trical science, had attracted a few enthusiastic workers, who felt
convinced that the key to unlock the secret of electricity was to be
found in a vacuum tube. Réntgen, in 1895, showed that when elec-
tricity passed through such a tube, the tube emitted rays which could
pass through bodies opaque to ordinary light; which could, for ex-
ample, pass through the flesh of the body and throw a shadow of
the bones on a suitable screen. The fascination of this discovery
attracted many workers to the subject of the discharge of electricity
«Presidential address at British Association meeting, 1909. Reprinted by
permission (omitting introduction) from Chemical News, London, vol. 100, No.
2596, August 27, 1909.
185
186 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
through gases, and led to great improvements in the instruments
used in this type of research. It is not, however, to the power of
probing dark places, important though this is, that the influence of
Rontgen rays on the progress of science has mainly been due; it is
rather because these rays make gases, and, indeed, solids and liquids,
through which they pass conductors of electricity. It is true that be-
fore the discovery of these rays other methods of making gases con-
ductors were known, but none of these was so convenient for the
purposes of accurate measurement.
The study of gases exposed to Réntgen rays has revealed in such
gases the presence of particles charged with electricity ; some of these
particles are charged with positive, others with negative electricity.
The properties of these particles have been investigated; we know
the charge they carry, the speed with which they move under an
electric force, the rate at which the oppositely charged ones recom-
_bine, and these investigations have thrown a new light, not only on
electricity, but also on the structure of matter.
We know from these investigations that electricity, like matter, is
molecular in structure, that just as a quantity of hydrogen is a col-
lection of an immense number of small particles called molecules, so
a charge of electricity is made up of a great number of small charges,
each of a perfectly definite and known amount.
Helmholtz said in 1880 that in his opinion the evidence in favor of
the molecular constitution of electricity was even stronger than that
in favor of the molecular constitution of matter. How much
stronger is that evidence now, when we have measured the charge on
the unit and found it to be the same from whatever source the
electricity is obtained. Nay, further, the molecular theory of matter
is indebted to the molecular theory of electricity for the most accu-
rate determination of its fundamental quantity, the number of
molecules in any given quantity of an elementary substance.
The great advantage of the electrical methods for the study of the
properties of matter is due to the fact that whenever a particle is
electrified it is very easily identified, whereas an uncharged molecule
is most elusive; and it is only when these are present in immense
numbers that we are able to detect them. <A very simple calculation
will illustrate the difference in our power of detecting electrified and
unelectrified molecules. The smallest quantity of unelectrified
matter ever detected is probably that of neon, one of the inert gases
of the atmosphere. Professor Strutt has shown that the amount of
neon in one-twentieth of a cubic centimeter of the air at ordinary
pressures can be detected by the spectroscope; Sir William Ramsay
estimates that the neon in the air only amounts to one part of neon
in 100,000 parts of air, so that the neon in one-twentieth of a cubic
centimeter of air would only occupy at atmospheric pressure a vol-
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 187
ume of half a millionth of a cubic centimeter. When stated in this
form the quantity seems exceedingly small, but in this small volume
there are about ten million million molecules. Now the population
of the earth is estimated at about fifteen hundred millions, so that
the smallest number of molecules of neon we can identify is about
7,000 times the population of the earth. In other words, if we had no
better test for the existence of a man than we have for that of an
unelectrified molecule we should come to the conclusion that the
earth is uninhabited. Contrast this with our power of detecting
electrified molecules. We can by the electrical method, even better
by the cloud method of C. T. R. Wilson, detect the presence of three
or four charged particles in a cubic centimeter. Rutherford has
shown that we can detect the presence of a single a-particle. Now
the particle is a charged atom of helium; if this atom had been un-
charged we should have required more than a million million of
them, instead of one, before we should have been able to detect them.
We may, I think, conclude, since electrified particles can be studied
with so much greater ease than unelectrified ones, that we shall ob-
tain a knowledge of the ultimate structure of electricity before we
arrive at a corresponding degree of certainty with regard to the
structure of matter.
We have already made considerable progress in the task of dis-
covering what the structure of electricity is. We have known for
some time that of one kind of electricity—the negative—and a very
interesting one it is. We know that negative electricity is made up
of units all of which are of the same kind; that these units are ex-
ceedingly small compared with even the smallest atom, for the mass
of the unit is only one seventeen-hundredth part of the mass of an
atom of hydrogen; that its radius is only 10° centimeter, and that
these units, “corpuscles” as they have been called, can be obtained
from all substances. The size of these corpuscles is on an altogether
different scale from that of atoms; the volume of a corpuscle bears
to that of the atom about the same relation as that of a speck of dust
to the volume of this room. Under suitable conditions they move at
enormous speeds which approach in some instances the velocity of
hight.
The discovery of these corpuscles is an interesting example of the
way nature responds to the demands made upon her by mathema-
ticlans. Some years before the discovery of corpuscles it had been
shown by a mathematical investigation that the mass of a body must
be increased by a charge of electricity. This increase, however, is
greater for small bodies than for large ones, and even bodies as small
as atoms are hopelessly too large to show any appreciable effect; thus
the result seemed entirely academic. After a time corpuscles were
discovered, and these are so much smaller than the atom that the
188 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
increase in mass due to the charge becomes not merely appreciable,
but so great that, as the experiments of Kaufmann and Bucherer
have shown, the whole of the mass of the corpuscle arises from its
charge.
We know a great deal about negative electricity; what do we know
about positive electricity? Is positive electricity molecular in struc-
ture? Is it made up into units, each unit carrying a charge equal in
magnitude though opposite in sign to that carried by a corpuscle?
Does, or does not, this unit differ, in size and physical properties,
very widely from the corpuscles? We know that by suitable proc-
esses we can get corpuscles out of any kind of matter, and that the
corpuscles will be the same from whatever source they may be de-
rived. Isa similar thing true for positive electricity? Can we get,
for example, a positive unit from oxygen of the same kind as that we
get from hydrogen ?
For my own part, I think the evidence is in favor of the view that
we can, although the nature of the unit of positive electricity makes
the proof much more difficult than for the negative unit.
In the first place we find that the positive particles—“ canal-
strahlen ” is their technical name—discovered by our distinguished
guest, Dr. Goldstein, which are found when an electric discharge
passes through a highly rarefied gas, are, when the pressure is very
low, the same, whatever may have been the gas in the vessel to begin
with. If we pump out the gas until the pressure is too low to allow
the discharge to pass, and then introduce a small quantity of gas and
restart the discharge, the positive particles are the same whatever
kind of gas may have been introduced.
I have, for example, put into the exhausted vessel oxygen, argon,
helium, the vapor of carbon tetrachloride, none of which contain
hydrogen, and found the positive particles to be the same as when
hydrogen was introduced.
Some experiments made lately by Wellisch, in the Cavendish Lab-
oratory, strongly support the view that there is a definite unit of
positive electricity independent of the gas from which it is derived ;
these experiments were on the velocity with which positive particles
move through mixed gases. If we have a mixture of methyliodide
and hydrogen exposed to Réntgen rays, the effect of the rays on the
methyliodide is so much greater than on the hydrogen that, even
when the mixture contains only a small percentage of methyliodide,
practically all the electricity comes from this gas, and not from the
hydrogen.
Now, if the positive particles were merely the residue left when a
corpuscle had been abstracted from the methyliodide, these particles
would have the dimensions of a molecule of methyliodide; this is
very large and heavy, and would therefore move more slowly
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 189
through the hydrogen molecules than the positive particles derived
from hydrogen itself, which would, on this view, be of the size and
weight of the light hydrogen molecules. Wellisch found that the
velocities of both the positive and negatives particles through the mix-
ture were the same as the velocities through pure hydrogen, although
in the one case the ions had originated from methyliodide and in the
other from hydrogen; a similar result was obtained when carbon
tetrachloride, or mercury methyl, was used instead of methyliodide.
These and similar results lead to the conclusion that the atom of
the different chemical elements contain definite units of positive as
well as of negative electricity, and that the positive electricity, like
the negative, is molecular in structure.
The investigations made on the unit of positive electricity show
that it is of quite a different kind from the unit of negative, the mass
of the negative unit is exceedingly small compared with any atom,
the only positive units that up to the present have been detected are
quite comparable in mass with the mass of an atom of hydrogen; in
fact, they seem equal to it. This makes it more difficult to be certain
that the unit of positive electricity has been isolated, for we have to
be on our guard against its being a much smaller body attached to
the hydrogen atoms which happen to be present in the vessel. If the
positive units have a much greater mass than the negative ones, they
ought not to be so easily deflected by magnetic forces when moving
at equal speeds; and, in general, the insensibility of the positive par-
ticles to the influence of a magnet is very marked; though there are
cases when the positive particles are much more readily deflected,
and these have been interpreted as proving the existence of positive
units comparable in mass with the negative ones. I have found, how-
ever, that in these cases the positive particles are moving very slowly,
and that the ease with which they are deflected is due to the smallness
of the velocity and not to that of the mass. It should, however, be
noted that M. Jean Becquerel has observed in the absorption spectra
of some minerals and Professor Wood in the rotation of the plane
of polarization by sodium vapor, effects which could be explained
by the presence in the substances of positive units comparable in
mass with corpuscles. This, however, is not the only explanation
which can be given of these effects, and at present the smallest posi-
tive electrified particles of which we have direct experimental evi-
dence have masses comparable with that of an atom of hydrogen,
A knowledge of the mass and size of the two units of electricity,
the positive and the negative, would give us the material for con-
structing what may be called a molecular theory of electricity, and
would be a starting point for a theory of the structure of matter;
for the most natural view to take, as a provisional hypothesis, is that
matter is just a collection of positive and negative units of electricity,
190 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and that the forces which hold atoms and molecules together, the
properties which differentiate one kind of matter from another, all
have their origin in the electrical forces exerted by positive and
negative units of electricity, grouped together in different ways in
the atoms of the different elements.
As it would seem that the units of positive and negative electricity
are of very different sizes, we must regard matter as a mixture con-
taining systems of very different types, one type corresponding to
the small corpuscle, the other to the large positive unit.
Since the energy associated with a given charge is greater the
smaller the body on which the charge is concentrated, the energy
stored up in the negative corpuscles will be far greater than that
stored up by the positive. The amount of energy which is stored
up in ordinary matter in the form of the electrostatic potential
energy of its corpuscles is, I think, not generally realized. All sub-
stances give out corpuscles, so that we may assume that each atom of
a substance contains at least one corpuscle. From the size and the
charge on the corpuscle, both of which are known, we find that
each corpuscle has 810-7 ergs of energy; this is on the supposition
that the usual expressions for the energy of a charged body hold
when, as in the case of a corpuscle, the charge is reduced to one unit.
Now, in 1 gram of hydrogen there are about 6 10** atoms, so if there
is only one corpuscle in each atom the energy due to the corpuscles
in a gram of hydrogen would be 48X10" ergs, or 11X10° calories.
This is more than seven times the heat developed by 1 gram of
radium, or than that developed by the burning of 5 tons of coal.
Thus we see that even ordinary matter contains enormous stores of
energy ; this energy is fortunately kept fast bound by the corpuscles;
if at any time an appreciable fraction were to get free the earth
would explode and become a gaseous nebula.
The matter of which I have been speaking so far is the material
which builds up the earth, the sun, and the stars, the matter studied
by the chemist, and which he can represent by a formula; this matter
occupies, however, but an insignificant fraction of the universe, it
forms but minute islands in the great ocean of the ether, the sub-
stance with which the whole universe is filled.
The ether is not a fantastic creation of the speculative philosopher ;
it is as essential to us as the air we breathe. For we must remember
that we on this earth are not living on our own resources; we are
dependent from minute to minute upon what we are getting from
the sun, and the gifts of the sun are conveyed to us by the ether.
It is to the sun that we owe not merely night and day, spring time
and harvest, but it is the energy of the sun, stored up in coal, in
waterfalls, in food, that practically does all the work of the world.
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 191
How great is the supply the sun lavishes upon us becomes clear
when we consider that the heat received by the earth under a high
sun and a clear sky is equivalent, according to the measurements of
Langley, to about 7,000 horsepower per acre. Though our engineers
have not yet discovered how to utilize this enormous supply of power,
they will, I have not the slightest doubt, ultimately succeed in doing
so; and when coal is exhausted and our water power inadequate, it
may be that this is the source from which we shall derive the energy
necessary for the world’s work. When that comes about, our centers
of industrial activity may perhaps be transferred to the burning
deserts of the Sahara, and the value of land determined by its
suitability for the reception of traps to catch sunbeams.
This energy, in the interval between its departure from the sun
and its arrival at the earth, must be in the space between them.
Thus this space must contain something which, like ordinary matter,
can store up energy, which can carry at an enormous pace the energy
associated with light and heat, and which can, in addition, exert the
enormous stresses necessary to keep the earth circling round the sun
and the moon round the earth.
The study of this all-pervading substance is perhaps the most
fascinating and important duty of the physicist.
On the electromagnetic theory of light, now universally accepted,
the energy streaming to the earth travels through the ether in electric
waves; thus practically the whole of the energy at our disposal has
at one time or another been electrical energy. The ether must, then,
be the seat of electrical and magnetic forces. We know, thanks to the
genius of Clerk Maxwell, the founder and inspirer of modern elec-
trical theory, the equations which express the relation between these
forces, and although for some purposes these are all we require, yet
they do not tell us very much about the nature of the ether.
The interest inspired by equations, too, in some minds is apt to be
somewhat platonic; and something more grossly mechanical—a model,
for example, is felt by many to be more suggestive and manageable,
and for them a more powerful instrument of research, than a purely
analytical theory.
Is the ether dense or rare? Has it a structure? Is it at rest or in
motion? are some of the questions which force themselves upon us.
Let us consider some of the facts known about the ether. When
light falls on a body and is absorbed by it, the body is pushed for-
ward in the direction in which the light is traveling, and if the body
is free to move it is set in motion by the light. Now, it is a funda-
mental principle of dynamics that when a body is set moving in a
certain direction, or, to use the language of dynamics, acquires mo-
mentum in that direction, some other mass must lose the same amount
of momentum; in other words, the amount of momentum in the uni-
192 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
verse is constant. Thus when the body is pushed forward by the
light some other system must have lost the momentum the body
acquires, and the only other system available is the wave of light
falling on the body; hence we conclude that there must have been
momentum in the wave in the direction in which it is traveling.
Momentum, however, implies mass in motion. We conclude, then,
that in the ether through which the wave is moving there is mass
moving with the velocity of ight. The experiments made on the
pressure due to light enable us to calculate this mass, and we find
that in a cubic kilometer of ether carrying light as intense as sun-
light is at the surface of the earth, the mass moving is only about
one fifty-millionth of a milligram. We must be careful not to con-
fuse this with the mass of a cubic kilometer of ether; it is only the
mass moved when the light passes through it; the vast majority of
the ether is left undisturbed by the light. Now, on the electro-
magnetic theory of light, a wave of light may be regarded as made
up of groups of lines of electric force moving with the velocity of
hight; and if we take this point of view we can prove that the mass
of ether per cubic centimeter carried along is proportional to the
energy possessed by these lines of electric force per cubic centimeter,
divided by the square of the velocity of ight. But though hnes of
electric force carry some of the ether along with them as they move,
the amount so carried, even in the strongest electric fields we can
produce, is but a minute fraction of the ether in their neighborhood.
This is proved by an experiment made by Sir Oliver Lodge in
which light was made to travel through an electric field in rapid
motion. If the electric field had carried the whole of the ether
with it, the velocity of the light would have been increased by the
velocity of the electric field. As a matter of fact no increase what-
ever could be detected, though it would have been registered if it
had amounted to one-thousandth part of that of the field.
The ether carried along by a wave of light must be an exceedingly
small part of the volume through which the wave is spread. Parts
of this volume are in motion, but by far the greater part is at rest;
thus in the wave front there can not be uniformity, at some parts
the ether is moving, at others it is at rest—in other words, the wave
front must be more analogous to bright specks on a dark ground
than to a uniformly illuminated surface.
The place where the density of the ether carried along by an
electric field rises to its highest value is close to a corpuscle, for round
the corpuscles are by far the strongest electric fields of which we
have any knowledge. We know the mass of the corpuscle, we know
from Kaufmann’s experiments that this arises entirely from the elec-
tric charge, and is therefore due to the ether carried along with the
corpuscle by the lines of force attached to it.
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 193
A simple calculation shows that one-half of this mass is con-
tained in a volume seven times that of a corpuscle. Since we know
the volume of the corpuscle as well as the mass, we can calculate the
density of the ether attached to the corpuscle; doing so, we find it
amounts to the prodigious value of about 510", or about 2,000 mil-
lion times that of lead. Sir Oliver Lodge, by somewhat different con-
siderations, has arrived at a value of the same order of magnitude.
Thus around the corpuscle ether must have an extravagant density ;
whether the density is as great as this in other places depends upon
whether the ether is compressible or not. If it is compressible, then
it may be condensed round the corpuscles, and there have an abnor-
mally great density; if it is not compressible, then the density in free
space can not be less than the number I have just mentioned.
With respect to this point we must remember that the forces acting
on the ether close to the corpuscle are prodigious. If the ether were,
for example, an ideal gas whose density increased in proportion to
the pressure, however great the pressure might be, then if, when
exposed to the pressures which exist in some directions close to the
corpuscle, it had the density stated above, its density under atmos-
pheric pressure would only be about 810-'%, or a cubic kilometer
would have a mass less than a gram; so that instead of being almost
incomparably denser than lead, it would be almost incomparably
rarer than the lightest gas.
I do not know at present of any effect which would enable us to
determine whether ether is compressible or not. And although at
first sight the idea that we are immersed in a medium almost infinitely
denser than lead might seem inconceivable, it is not so if we remem-
ber that in all probability matter is composed mainly of holes. We
may, in fact, regard matter as possessing a bird-cage kind of struc-
ture in which the volume of the ether disturbed by the wires when
the structure is moved is infinitesimal in comparison with the volume
inclosed by them. If we do this, no difficulty arises from the great
density of the ether; all we have to do is to increase the distance
between the wires in proportion as we increase the density of the
ether.
Let us now consider how much ether is carried along by ordinary
matter, and what effects this might be expected to produce.
The simplest electrical system we know, an electrified sphere, has
attached to it a mass of ether proportional to its potential energy,
and such that if the mass were to move with the velocity of light its
kinetic energy would equal the electrostatic potential energy of the
particle. This result can be extended to any electrified system, and
it can be shown that such a system binds a mass of the ether propor-
tional to its potential energy. Thus a part of the mass of any system
is proportional to the potential energy of the system.
194 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The question now arises, Does this part of the mass add anything
to the weight of the body? If the ether were not subject to gravita-
tional attraction it certainly would not; and even if the ether were
ponderable, we might expect that as the mass is swimming in a sea
of ether it would not increase the weight of the body to which it is
attached. But if it does not, then a body with a large amount of
potential energy may have an appreciable amount of its mass in a
form which does not increase its weight, and thus the weight of a
given mass of it may be less than that of an equal mass of some sub-
stance with a smaller amount of potential energy. Thus the weights
of equal masses of these substances would be different. Now, experi-
ments with pendulums, as Newton pointed out, enable us to deter-
mine with great accuracy the weights of equal masses of different
substances. Newton himself made experiments of this kind, and
found that the weights of equal masses were the same for all the
materials he tried. Bessel, in 1830, made some experiments on this
subject which are still the most accurate we possess, and he showed
that the weights of equal masses of lead, silver, iron, or brass did not
differ by as much as one part in 60,000.
The substances tried by Newton and Bessel did not, however, in-
clude any of those substances which possess the marvelous power of
radioactivity; the discovery of these came much later, and is one
of the most striking achievements of modern physics.
These radioactive substances are constantly giving out large quanti-
ties of heat, presumably at the expense of their potential energy;
thus when these substances reach their final nonradioactive state their
potential energy must be less than when they were radioactive.
Professor Rutherford’s measurements show that the energy emitted
by 1 gram of radium in the course of its degradation to nonradio-
active forms is equal to the kinetic energy of a mass of one-thirteenth
of a milligram moving with the velocity of light.
This energy, according to the rule I have stated, corresponds to
a mass of one-thirteenth of a milligram of the ether, and thus a gram
of radium in its radioactive state must have at least one-thirteenth of
a milligram more of ether attached to it than when it has been
degraded into the nonradioactive forms. Thus if this ether does not
increase the weight of the radium, the ratio of mass to weight for
radium would be greater by about one part in 13,000 than for its
nonradioactive products.
I attempted several years ago to find the ratio of mass to weight
for radium by swinging a little pendulum, the bob of which was
made of radium. I had only a small quantity of radium, and was
not, therefore, able to attain any great accuracy. I found that the
difference, if any, in the ratio of the mass to weight between radium
and other substances was not more than one part in 2,000. Lately
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 195
we have been using at the Cavendish Laboratory a pendulum whose
bob was filled with uranium oxide. We have got good reasons for
supposing that uranium is a parent of radium, so that the great
potential energy and large ethereal mass possessed by the radium
will be also in the uranium; the experiments are not yet completed.
It is, perhaps, expecting almost too much to hope that the radio-
active substances may add to the great services they have already
done to science by furnishing the first case in which there is some
differentiation in the action of gravity.
The mass of ether bound by any system is such that if it were to
move with the velocity of light its kinetic energy would be equal
to the potential energy of the system. This result suggests a new
view of the nature of potential energy. Potential energy is usually
regarded as essentially different from kinetic energy. Potential
energy depends on the configuration of the system, and can be cal-
culated from it when we have the requisite data; kinetic energy, on
the other hand, depends upon the velocity of the system. According
to the principle of the conservation of energy the one form can
be converted into the other at a fixed rate of exchange, so that when
one unit of one kind disappears a unit of the other simultaneously
appears.
Now, in many cases, this rule is all that we require to calculate
the behavior of the system, and the conception of potential energy
is of the utmost value in making the knowledge derived from experi-
ment and observation available for mathematical calculation. It
must, however, I think, be admitted that from the purely philosoph-
ical point of view it is open to serious objection. It violates, for
example, the principle of continuity. When a thing changes from a
state A toa different state B, the principle of continuity requires that
it must pass through a number of states intermediate between A and
B, so that the transition is made gradually, and not abruptly. Now,
when kinetic energy changes into potential, although there is no dis-
continuity in the quantity of the energy, there is in its quality, for we
do not recognize any kind of energy intermediate between that due
to the motion and that due to the position of the system, and some
portions of energy are supposed to change per saltum from the
kinetic to the potential form. In the case of the transition of
kinetic energy into heat energy in a gas, the discontinuity has dis-
appeared with a fuller knowledge of what the heat energy in a gas
is due to. When we were ignorant of the nature of this energy, the
transition from kinetic into thermal energy seemed discontinuous;
but now we know that this energy is the kinetic energy of the mole-
cules of which the gas is composed, so that there is no change in the
type of energy when the kinetic energy of visible motion is trans-
196 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
formed into the thermal energy of a gas—it is just the transference of
kinetic energy from one body to another.
If we regard potential energy as the kinetic energy of portions of
the ether attached to the system, then all energy is kinetic energy,
due to the motion of matter or of portions of ether attached to the
matter. I showed, many years ago, in my “Applications of Dynam-:
ics to Physics and Chemistry,” that we could imitate the effects of
the potential energy of a system by means of the kinetic energy of
invisible systems connected in an appropriate manner with the main
system, and that the potential energy of the visible universe may in
reality be the kinetic energy of an invisible one connected up with it.
We naturally suppose that this invisible universe is the luminiferous
ether, that portions of the ether in rapid motion are connected with
the visible systems, and that their kinetic energy is the potential
energy of the systems.
We may thus regard the ether as a bank in which we may deposit
energy and withdraw it at our convenience. The mass of the ether
attached to the system will change as the potential energy changes,
and thus the mass of a system whose potential energy is changing can
not be constant; the fluctuations in mass under ordinary conditions
are, however, so small that they can not be detected by any means at
present at our disposal. Inasmuch as the various forms of potential
energy are continually being changed into heat energy, which is the
kinetic energy of the molecules of matter, there is a constant tendency
for the mass of a system such as the earth or the sun to diminish, and
thus as time goes on for the mass of ether gripped by the material
universe to become smaller and smaller; the rate at which it would
diminish would, however, get slower as time went on, and there is no
reason to think that it would ever get below a very large value.
Radiation of light and heat from an incandescent body like the sun
involves a constant loss of mass by the body. Each unit of energy
radiated carries off its quota of mass, but as the mass ejected from
the sun per year is only one part in 20 billionths (1 in 2X10") of the
mass of the sun, and as this diminution in mass is not necessarily
accompanied by any decrease in its gravitational attraction, we can
not expect to be able to get any evidence of this effect.
As our knowledge of the properties of light has progressed, we
have been driven to recognize that the ether, when transmitting light,
possesses properties which, before the introduction of the electro-
magnetic theory, would have been thought to be peculiar to an emis-
sion theory of light and to be fatal to the theory that light consists of
undulations.
Take, for example, the pressure exerted by light. This would fol-
low as a matter of course if we supposed light to be small particles
moving with great velocities, for these, if they struck against a body,
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 197
would manifestly tend to push it forward, while on the undulatory
theory there seemed no reason why any effect of this kind should take
place.
Indeed, in 1792, this very point was regarded as a test between the
theories, and Bennet made experiments to see whether or not he could
find any traces of this pressure. We now know that the pressure is
there, and if Bennet’s instrument had been more sensitive he must
have observed it. It is perhaps fortunate that Bennet had not at
his command more delicate apparatus. Had he discovered the pres-
sure of hght, it would have shaken confidence in the undulatory
theory and checked that magnificent work at the beginning of the
last century which so greatly increased our knowledge of optics.
As another example, take the question of the distribution of energy
in a wave of light. On the emission theory the energy in the light
is the kinetic energy of the light particles. Thus the energy of light
is made up of distinct units, the unit being the energy of one of the
particles.
The idea that the energy has a structure of this kind has lately
received a good deal of support. Planck, in a very remarkable series
of investigations on the thermodynamics of radiation, pointed out
that the expressions for the energy and entropy of radiant energy
were of such a form as to suggest that the energy of radiation, like
that of a gas on the molecular theory, was made up of distinct units,
the magnitude of the unit depending on the color of the light; and on
this assumption he was able to calculate the value of the unit, and
from this deduce incidentally the value of Avogadro’s constant—the
number of molecules in a cubic centimeter of gas at standard tempera-
ture and pressure.
This result is most interesting and important because if it were a
legitimate deduction from the second law of thermodynamics, it
would appear that only a particular type of mechanism for the vibra-
tors which give out light and the absorbers which absorb it could be
in accordance with that law.
If this were so, then, regarding the universe as a collection of
machines all obeying the laws of dynamics, the second law of thermo-
dynamics would only be true for a particular kind of machine.
There seems, however, grave objection to this view, which I may
illustrate by the case of the first law of thermodynamics, the prin-
ciple of the conservation of energy. This must be true whatever be
the nature of the machines which make up the universe, provided they
obey the laws of dynamics, any application of the principle of the
conservation of energy could not discriminate between one type of
machine and another.
Now, the second law of thermodynamics, though not a dynamical
principle in as strict a sense as the law of the conservation of energy,
198 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
is one that we should expect to hold for a collection of a large number
of machines of any type, provided that we could not directly affect
the individual machines, but could only observe the average effects
produced by an enormous number of them. On this view, the second
law, as well as the first, should be incapable of saying that the ma-
chines were of any particular type; so that investigations founded
on thermodynamics, though the expressions they lead to may sug-
gest—can not, I think, be regarded as proving—the unit structure
of light energy.
Tt would seem as if in the application of thermodynamics to radia-
tion some additional assumption has been implicitly introduced, for .
these applications lead to definite relations between the energy of the
hight of any particular wave length and the temperature of the
luminous body.
Now, a possible way of accounting for the hght emitted by hot
- bodies is to suppose that it arises from the collisions of corpuscles
with the molecules of the hot body, but it is only for one particular
law of force between the corpuscles and the molecules that the distri-
bution of energy would be the same as that deduced by the second
law of thermodynamics, so that in this case, as in the other, the results
obtained by the application of thermodynamics to radiation would
require us to suppose that the second law of thermodynamics is only
true for radiation when the radiation is produced by mechanism of a
special type.
Quite apart, however, from considerations of thermodynamics, we
should expect that the ight from a luminous source should in many
cases consist of parcels, possessing, at any rate to begin with, a definite
amount of energy. Consider, for example, the case of a gas like
sodium vapor, emitting hght of a definite wave length; we may
imagine that this light, consisting of electrical waves, is emitted by
systems resembling Leyden jars. The energy originally possessed by
such a system will be the electrostatic energy of the charged jar.
When the vibrations are started this energy will be radiated away
into space, the radiation forming a complex system, containing, if the
jar has no electrical resistance, the energy stored up in the jar.
The amount of this energy will depend on the size of the jar and
the quantity of electricity with which it is charged. With regard to
the charge, we must remember that we are dealing with systems
formed out of single molecules, so that the charge will only consist
of one or two natural units of electricity, or, at all events, some small
multiple of that unit, while for geometrically similar Leyden jars the
energy for a given charge will be proportional to the frequency of
the vibration; thus the energy in the bundle of radiation will be pro-
portional to the frequency of the vibration,
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 199
We may picture to ourselves the radiation as consisting of the lines
of electric force which, before the vibrations were started, were held,
bound by the charges on the jar, and which, when the vibrations be-
gin, are thrown into rhythmic undulations, liberated from the jar and
travel through space with the velocity of light.
Now let us suppose that this system strikes against an uncharged
condenser and gives it a charge of electricity, the charge on the plates
of the condenser must be at least one unit of electricity, because frac-
tions of this charge do not exist, and each unit charge will anchor a
unit tube of force, which must come from the parcel of radiation
falling upon it. Thus a tube in the incident ght will be anchored
by the condenser, and the parcel formed by this tube will be anchored
and withdrawn as a whole from the pencil of light incident on the
condenser. If the energy required to charge up the condenser with
a unit of electricity is greater than the energy in the incident parcel
the tube will not be anchored, and the light will pass over the con-
denser and escape from it. These principles that radiation is made
up of units, and that it requires a unit possessing a definite amount
of energy to excite radiation in a body on which it falls, perhaps
receive their best illustration in the remarkable laws governing sec-
ondary Rontgen radiation, recently discovered by Professor Barkla.
Professor Barkla has found that each of the different chemical ele-
ments, when exposed to Réntgen rays, emit a definite type of second-
ary radiation whatever may have been the type of primary, thus lead
emits one type, copper another, and so on; but these radiations are
not excited at all if the primary radiation is of a softer type than the
specific radiation emitted by the substance; thus the secondary radia-
tion from lead being harder. than that from copper; if copper is ex-
posed to the secondary radiation from lead the copper will radiate,
but lead will not radiate when exposed to copper. Thus, if we sup-
pose that the energy in a unit of hard Réntgen rays is greater than
that in one of soft, Barkla’s results are strikingly analogous to those
which would follow on the unit theory of light.
Though we have, I think, strong reasons for thinking that the
energy in the light waves of definite wave length is done up into
bundles, and that these bundles, when emitted, all possess the same
amount of energy, I do not think there is any reason for supposing
that in any casual specimen of light of this wave length, which may
subsequent to its emission have been many times refracted or reflected,
the bundles possess any definite amount of energy. For consider
what must happen when a bundle is incident on a surface such as
glass, when part of it is reflected and part transmitted. The bundle
is divided into two portions, in each of which the energy is less than
the incident bundle, and since these portions diverge and may ulti-
mately be many thousands of miles apart, it would seem meaningless
45745°—sm 1909——14
200 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
to still regard them as forming one unit. Thus the energy in the
bundles of light, after they have suffered partial reflection, will not
be the same as in the bundles when they were emitted. The study
of the dimensions of these bundles, for example, the angle they sub-
tend at the luminous source, is an interesting subject for investiga-
tion; experiments on interference between rays of light emerging in
different directions from the luminous source would probably throw
light on this point.
I now pass to a very brief consideration of one of the most impor-
tant and interesting advances ever made in physics, and in which
Canada, as the place of the labors of Professors Rutherford and
Soddy, has taken a conspicuous part. I mean the discovery and in-
vestigation of radioactivity. Radioactivity was brought to light by
the Réntgen rays. One of the many remarkable properties of these
rays is to excite phosphorescence in certain substances, including the
_ salts of uranium, when they fall upon them. Since Réntgen rays
produce phosphorescence, it occurred to Becquerel to try whether
phosphoresence would produce Réntgen rays. He took some uranium
salts which had been made to phosphoresce by exposure not to
Réntgen rays but to sunlight, tested them, and found that they gave
out rays possessing properties similar to Réntgen rays. Further in-
vestigation showed, however, that to get these rays it was not neces-
sary to make the uranium phosphoresce, that the salts were just as
active if they had been kept in the dark. It thus appeared that the
property was due to the metal and not to the phosphorescence, and
that uranium and its compounds possessed the power of giving out
rays which, like Rontgen rays, affect a photographic plate, make
certain minerals phosphoresce, and make gases through which they
pass conductors of electricity.
Niepce de Saint-Victor had observed some years before this dis-
covery that paper soaked in a solution of uranium nitrate affected a
photographic plate, but the observation excited but little interest.
The ground had not been prepared, by the discovery of the Réntgen
rays, for its reception, and it withered and was soon forgotten.
Shortly after Becquerel’s discovery of uranium, Schmidt found
that thorium possessed similar properties. Then Monsieur and
Madame Curie, after a most difficult and laborious investigation, dis-
covered two new substances, radium amd polonium, possessing this
property to an enormously greater extent than either thorium or
uranium, and this was followed by the discovery of actinium by
Debierne. Now the researches of Rutherford and others have led to
the discovery of so many new radioactive substances that any attempt
at christening seems to have been abandoned, and they are denoted,
like policemen, by the letters of the alphabet.
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—-THOMSON. 201
Mr. Campbell has recently found that potassium, though far in-
ferior in this respect to any of the substances I have named, emits an
appreciable amount of radiation, the amount depending only on the
quantity of potassium, and being the same whatever the source from
which the potassium is obtained or whatever the elements with which
it may be in combination.
The radiation emitted by these substances is of three types known
as a-, B-, and y-rays. The a-rays have been shown by Rutherford to
be positively electrified atoms of helium, moving with speeds which
reach up to about one-tenth of the velocity of hght. The B-rays are
negatively electrified corpuscles, moving 1n some cases with very
nearly the velocity of light itself, while the y-rays are unelectrified,
and are analogous to the Rontgen rays.
The radioactivity of uranium was shown by Crookes to arise from
something mixed with the uranium, and which differed sufficiently in
properties from the uranium itself to enable it to be separated by
chemical analysis. He took some uranium, and by chemical treatment
separated it into two portions, one of which was radioactive and the
other not.
Next, Becquerel found that if these two portions were kept for
several months, the part which was not radioactive to begin with re-
gained radioactivity, while the part which was radioactive to begin
with had lost its radioactivity. These effects and many others receive
a complete explanation by the theory of radioactive change which we
owe to Rutherford and Soddy.
According to this theory, the radioactive elements are not perma-
nent, but are gradually breaking up into elements of lower atomic
weight; uranium, for example, is slowly breaking up, one of the
products being radium, while radium breaks up into a radioactive
gas called radium emanation, the emanation into another radioactive
substance, and so on, and that the radiations are a kind of swan’s
song emitted by the atoms when they pass from one form to another ;
that, for example, it is when a radium atom breaks up and an atom
of the emanation appears that the rays which constitute the radio-
activity are produced.
Thus, on this view the atoms of the radioactive elements are not
immortal; they perish after a life whose average value ranges from
thousands of millions of years in the case of uranium to a second or
so in the case of the gaseous emanation from actinium.
When the atoms pass from one state to another they give out large
stores of energy, thus their descendants do not inherit the whole of
their wealth of storedup energy; the estate becomes less and less
wealthy with each generation; we find, in fact, that the politician,
when he imposes death duties, is but imitating a process which has
been going on for ages in the case of these radioactive substances.
202 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Many points of interest arise when we consider the rate at which
the atoms of radioactive substance disappear. Rutherford has
shown that whatever be the age of these atoms, the percentage of
atoms which disappear in one second is always the same; another way
of putting it is that the expectation of life of an atom is independent
of its age—that an atom of radium one thousand years old is just as
likely to live for another thousand years as one just sprung into
existence.
Now this would be the case if the death of the atom were due to
something from outside which struck old and young indiscriminately ;
in a battle, for example, the chance of being shot is the same for old
and young; so that we are inclined at first to look to something com-
ing from outside as the cause why an atom of radium, for example,
suddenly changes into an atom of the emanation. But here we are
met with the difficulty that no changes in the external conditions
. that we have as yet been able to produce have had any effect on the
life of the atom; as far as we know at present the life of a radium
atom is the same at the temperature of a furnace as at that of liquid
air—it is not altered by surrounding the radium by thick screens of
lead or other dense materials to ward off radiation from outside, and
what to my mind is especially significant, it is the same when the
radium is in the most concentrated form, when its atoms are exposed
to the vigorous bombardment from the rays given off by the neighbor-
ing atoms, as when it is in the most dilute solution, when the rays are
absorbed by the water which separates one atom from another. This
last result seems to me to make it somewhat improbable that we shall
be able to split up the atoms of the nonradioactive elements by expos-
ing them to the radiation from radium; if this radiation is unable to
affect the unstable radioactive atoms, it is somewhat unlikely that it
will be able to affect the much more stable nonradioactive elements.
The evidence we have at present is against a disturbance coming
from outside breaking up of the radioactive atoms, and we must there-
fore look to some process of decay in the atom itself; but if this is
the case, how are we to reconcile it with the fact that the expectation
of life of an atom does not diminish as the atom gets older? We can
do this if we suppose that the atoms when they are first produced
have not all the same strength of constitution, that some are more
robust than others, perhaps because they contain more intrinsic energy
to begin with, and will therefore have a longer life. Now if when
the atoms are first produced there are some which will live for one
year, some for ten, some for a thousand, and so on; and if lives of
all durations, from nothing to infinity, are present in such proportion
that the number of atoms which will live longer than a certain num-
ber of years decrease in a constant proportion for each additional
year of life, we can easily prove that the expectation of life of an
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 203
atom will be the same whatever its age may be. On this view the
different atoms of a radioactive substance are not, in all respects,
identical.
The energy developed by radioactive substances is exceedingly
large, 1 gram of radium developing nearly as much energy as would
be produced by burning a ton of coal. This energy is mainly in the a
particles, the positively charged helium atoms which are emitted when
the change in the atom takes place; if this energy were produced by
electrical forces it would indicate that the helium atom had moved
through a potential difference of about 2,000,000 volts on its way out
of the atom of radium. The source of this energy is a problem of
the deepest interest; if it arises from the repulsion of similarly elec-
trified systems exerting forces varying inversely as the square of the
distance, then to get the requisite amount of energy the systems, if
their charges were comparable with the charge on the a particle,
could not when they start be farther apart than the radius of a
corpuscle, 10 em. If we suppose that the particles do not acquire
this energy at the explosion, but that before they are shot out of the
radium atom they move in circles inside this atom with the speed
with which they emerge, the forces required to prevent particles mov-
ing with this velocity from flying off at a tangent are so great that
finite charges of electricity could only produce them at distances com-
parable with the radius of a corpuscle.
One method by which the requisite amount of energy could be ob-
tained is suggested by the view to which I have already alluded—
that in the atom we have electrified systems of very different types,
one small, the other large; the radius of one type is comparable with
1078 em., that of the other is about 100,000 times greater. The
electrostatic potential energy in the smaller bodies is enormously
greater than that in the larger ones; if one of these small bodies were
to explode and expand to the size of the larger ones, we should have
a liberation of energy large enough to endow an a particle with the
energy it possesses. Is it possible that the positive units of electricity
were, to begin with, quite as small as the negative, but while in the
course of ages most of these have passed from the smaller stage to
the larger, there are some small ones still lingering in radioactive
substances, and it is the explosion of these which liberates the energy
set free during radioactive transformation ?
The properties of radium have consequences of enormous 1m-
portance to the geologist as well as to the physicist or chemist. In
fact, the discovery of these properties has entirely altered the aspect
of one of the most interesting geological problems, that of the age
of the earth. Before the discovery of radium it was supposed that
the supplies of heat furnished by chemical changes going on in the
earth were quite insignificant, and that there was nothing to replace
204 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the heat which flows from the hot interior of the earth to the colder
crust. Now, when the earth first solidified it only possessed a certain
amount of capital in the form of heat, and if it is continually spend-
ing this capital and not gaining any fresh heat it is evident that the
process can not have been going on for more than a certain number
of years, otherwise the earth would be colder than it is. Lord Kelvin
in this way estimated the age of the earth to be less than 100,000,000
years. Though the quantity of radium in the earth is an exceedingly
small fraction of the mass of the earth, only amounting, according
to the determinations of Professors Strutt and Joly, to about 5 grams
in a cube whose side is 100 miles, yet the amount of heat given out by
this small quantity of radium is so great that it is more than enough
to replace the heat which flows from the inside to the outside of the
earth. This, as Rutherford has pointed out, entirely vitiates the
previous method of determining the age of the earth. The fact is that
. the radium gives out so much heat that we do not quite know what
to do with it, for if there was as much radium throughout the interior
of the earth as there is in its crust, the temperature of the earth
would increase much more rapidly than it does as we descend below
the earth’s surface. Professor Strutt has shown that if radium be-
haves in the interior of the earth as it does at the surface, rocks
similar to those in the earth’s crust can not extend to a depth of more
than 45 miles below the surface.
It is remarkable that Professor Milne from the study of earth-
quake phenomena had previously come to the conclusion that rocks
similar to those at the earth’s surface only descend a short distance
below the surface; he estimates this distance at about 30 miles, and
concludes that at a depth greater than this the earth is fairly
homogeneous.
Though the discovery of radioactivity has taken away one method
of calculating the age of the earth it has supplied another.
The gas helium is given out by radioactive bodies, and since, except
in Beers. it is not found in minerals which do not contain radioactive
elements, it is probable that all the helium in these minerals has come
from these elements. In the case of a mineral containing uranium,
the parent of radium in radioactive equilibrium, with radium and its
products, helium will be produced at a definite rate. Helium, how-
ever, unlike the radioactive elements, is permanent and accumulates
in the mineral; hence if we measure the amount of helium in a sample
of rock and the amount produced by the sample in one year we can
find the length of time the helium has been accumulating, and hence
the age of the rock. This method, which is due to Professor Strutt,
may lead to determinations not merely of the average age of the crust
of the earth, but of the ages of particular rocks and the date at which
the various strata were deposited; he has, for example, shown in this
PROGRESS IN PHYSICS—THOMSON. 205
way that a specimen of the mineral thorianite must be more than
240,000,000 years old.
The physiological and medical properties of the rays emitted by
radium is a field of research in which enough has already been done
to justify the hope that it may lead to considerable alleviation of
human suffering. It seems quite definitely established that for some
diseases, notably rodent ulcer, treatment with these rays has pro-
duced remarkable cures; it is imperative, lest we should be passing
over a means of saving life and health, that the subject should be
investigated in a much more systematic and extensive manner than
there has yet been either time or material for. Radium is, however,
so costly that few hospitals could afford to undertake pioneering work
of this kind; fortunately, however, through the generosity of Sir
Ernest Cassel and Lord Iveagh, a radium institute, under the pat-
ronage of His Majesty the King, has been founded in London for the
study of the medical properties of radium, and for the treatment of
patients suffering from diseases for which radium is beneficial.
The new discoveries made in physics in the last few years, and
the ideas and potentialities suggested by them, have had an effect
upon the workers in that subject akin to that produced in literature
by the renaissance. Enthusiasm has been quickened, and there is a
hopeful, youthful, perhaps exuberant, spirit abroad which leads men
to make, with confidence, experiments which would have been thought
fantastic iwenty years ago. It has quite dispelled the pessimistic
feeling, not uncommon at that time, that all the interesting things
had been discovered, and all that was left was to alter a decimal or
two in some physical constant. There was never any justification for
this feeling, there never were any signs of an approach to finality in
science. The sum of knowledge is at present, at any rate, a diverging
not a converging series. As we conquer peak after peak we see in
front of us regions full of interest and beauty, but we do not see our
goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance tower still higher
peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects,
and deepen the feeling, whose truth is emphasized by every advance
in science, that “* Great are the Works of the Lord.”
i
a Liles Ss Lie red
‘ 5 : at ;
PRODUCTION OF LOW TEMPERATURES, AND
REFRIGERATION.
By L. MaARcHIS.
(Translated by permission from the Revue générale des Sciences, pures et
appliquées, Paris, 20th year, No. 5, March 15, 1909.)
The first International Congress of Refr'gerative Industries, held
at Paris October 5-12, 1908, was remarkable for the number and im-
portance of the papers submitted by the men of science and engi-
neers who responded to the call of the organization committee.
The congress was divided into six sections as follows:
First section. Low temperatures and their general effects.
Second section. Refrigerating media.
Third and fourth sections. Application of refrigeration to food
and in various other industries.
Fifth section. Application of refr:geration in commerce and trans-
portation.
Sixth section. Legislation.
In this article we do not intend to summarize the memoirs and
communications presented, but rather to give a general view of the
congress that brought together men of scicnce, engineers, biologists,
legislators, and men from the business world.
I. LIQUID AIR AND THE PROPERTIES OF BODIES AT LOW TEMPERATURES.
The first section considered principally the production of liquid
air and the preparation, with this as a starting point, of oxygen
and nitrogen in a commercial way.
It is well known that air, like all gases, is brought into a lquid
condition by the combined effect of lowering its temperature and
expanding it sufficiently. In carrying out this process, gaseous air
cooled to a low temperature is expanded suddenly from a pressure
p, to a lower pressure p,. Part of it goes over into a liquid state, and
the other part, gaseous and very cold, is led into an economizer, where
it cools down the air that is being compressed to the pressure p, for
the first time.
207
208 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The essentially adiabatic expansion of air can be effected in two
different ways.
(a) Air compressed to the pressure p, may be expanded without
doing available exterior work. It passes from the compression tank
to the liquefaction tank by the way of a narrow orifice. This is the
manner of expansion adopted by Linde in his liquid-air machines.
The lowering of temperature obtained under such conditions is only
appreciable if the difference between the pressures p, and p, is con-
siderable. In Linde’s apparatus” gaseous air cooled to about —100°
©. is expanded from a pressure of 200 to 40 atmospheres; the lique-
fied part of the gas at about —140° C. passes into a regenerator where
it cools the air compressed at 200 atmospheres; it is then led into a
pump which brings it up to this latter pressure. A second auxiliary
pump draws air from the atmosphere to take the place of that part
which has been liquefied. In the industrial machines the gases com-
. pressed to 200 atmospheres, before passing into the economizer where
the gas at —140° circulates, are cooled by liquid ammonia.
Under such conditions, in machines which produce 50 liters per hour
the yield of liquid air is about half a liter per horsepower-hour.
(6) The second method of air expansion consists in utilizing the
exterior work which the gas is capable of doing when it passes from
pressure p, to p,. This mode of expansion with utilizable exterior
work is the basis of the processes of G. Claude for the production
of liquid air.” Air compressed to a maximum pressure of 30 or 40
atmospheres passes first to an economizer, where it is cooled down as
in Linde’s apparatus by unliquefied gas. It is then expanded in the
cylinder of a motor whose energy can be utilized in the original
compression of the air. In course of time a partial liquefaction of
the air occurs in the evlinder of the auxiliary motor. The lubrica-
tion of this cylinder is accomplished by means of a petroleum dis-
tillate having a specific gravity of 0.675 (automobile gasoline),
which, at the low temperature at which the motor operates, attains
a sirupy consistency comparable to industrial lubricants.
Applied in this form the process of G. Claude gives only unsatis-
factory results. The expansion of the air, occurring at temperatures
of —175° to —180° by the gas expanding in the auxiliary motor,
takes place under unfavorable conditions. The appearance of liquid
air in this auxiliary cylinder is likely to produce a peculiar water-
hammer effect and is accompanied by a large increase in friction, that
@¥Wor a description of Linde’s machine, see E. Mathias: “La préparation
industrielle et les principales applications des gaz liquéfiés.” Revue générale
des Sciences, vol, 12, 1901.
®’ Readers desirous of obtaining the details of Claude’s processes will find an
account of them in the following: G. Claude: Air liquide, Oxygéne, Azote.
Paris, H. Dunod and E. Pinat, 1909.
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION—MARCHIS. 209
is to say, by a correlative destruction of the liquid air produced.
Moreover, under the most favorable conditions the yield of this ma-
chine is hardly more than 0.2 liter of liquid air per horsepower-hour.
For this reason M. Claude has been led to modify the process in
the following way, which I shall endeavor to explain: A part of the
cooled current of air compressed to 40 atmospheres is deflected before
it arrives at the expansion cylinder. This air under a pressure of
40 atmospheres is led into a chamber (liquefier) cooled by the gas
of the original current which has been expanded in the auxiliary
motor. Thanks to a pressure of 40 atmospheres the deflected gas is
liquefied in this latter chamber at a temperature no longer of —190°,
as was the case in the original process, where liquefaction occurred
at the limit of its expansion, but at —140°. Furthermore, the
expanded air which circulated in the liquefier is heated up and arrives
in the economizer no longer at —190°, but at about —130°. It cools
the gas in the feed conduit less, so that this gas arrives in the auxil-
lary motor at a temperature of about —100°. Its expansion takes
place, therefore, under more favorable conditions, and liquefaction
by expansion is less to be feared.
By thus substituting liquefaction under pressure for spontaneous
liquefaction by expansion M. Claude had brought his process of recov-
ering the energy of expansion down to a practical basis. With ma-
chines utilizing an exterior air compression capacity of 75 horse-
power the yield of this process becomes as high as 0.7 liter of liquid
air per horsepower-hour.
This idea can be carried still further, however. The air which
arrives at the auxiliary motor at a pressure of 40 atmospheres and
a temperature of about —100° C. can be subjected in expansion to a
too great drop in temperature. To avoid the recurrence here of the
difficulties encountered in the original process all that has to be done
is to carry out the expansion by degrees in several auxiliary cylinders.
The air of the first expansion can circulate about a first liquefier, into
which is led a deflected portion of air from the feed circuit in a cold
and compressed condition. The circulating air is warmed up and
goes on to be expanded in a second auxiliary cylinder. This air from
the second expansion is sent into a second liquefier similar to the
first, and is finally led into the economizer. In practice the two
liquefiers are not distinct; the two currents of air after expansion
merely circulate about different sections of the same liquefaction
apparatus. M. Claude has given the name of “compound liquefac-
tion” to this last process. It marks a new and important step in the
technique of the liquefaction of air. In machines of the type
described above the yield of liquid air, by the application of com-
pound liquefaction, is as high as 0.85 liter per horsepower-hour.
2) ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Liquid air promises to be the sole industrial source of oxygen and
nitrogen. The manufacture of these two gases at a very low price is
a problem the solution of which has a very great importance in
metallurgy and in the fertilizing industry. How we can derive
these gases from liquid air is a problem that I am now going to
consider.
Oxygen and nitrogen are two bodies whose critical points are
slightly different (—118° and 13 atmospheres for oxygen; —146° and
33 atmospheres for nitrogen). The vapor tension curve of nitrogen
is below that of oxygen. Ata lke temperature, below the lower of
their critical temperatures, the two gases, considered separately,
liquefy at very different pressures. The lquefaction of air—that
is to say, a mixture of these two gases—presents, however, some
peculiarities which are worth mentioning.
If at a sufficiently low constant temperature, T, air is compressed
in a closed chamber, the following phenomena may be observed:
(1) At a predetermined point of pressure, P,, a first drop of liquid
appears. This is what, after Duhem,*? we call the dew-point.”
(2) If at the constant temperature T the volume of the air is
diminished the pressure increases; at the same time the quantity of
the liquid phase grows larger. If this increase of the pressure is
continued all the air will pass into the liquid state, the values for
P, and T, for pressure and temperature at that instant, characterizing
what Duhem has denoted the boiling point.
(3) The dew and boiling points obtained at different tempera-
tures trace in the system P O T, on one hand the dew line and on the
other the line of boiling of the gaseous mixture considered.
(4) For each system of values (T, P) of temperature and pres-
sure the two phases, liquid and gas, are in a state of equilibrium; in
this state the composition of the two phases is different.
(5) The percentage of oxygen (the more easily liquefied element)
in either liquid or gaseous phase, we will term the content of this
phase.
The content of the liquid phase in a state of equilibrium is always
greater than the content of the gaseous phase. At a constant tem-
perature, when the pressure is increased, the contents of the two
phases, liquid and gaseous, continue to diminish till the mixture is
completely liquefied. Thus, when air is liquefied (volumetric con-
tent 21 per cent oxygen) the first drop of liquid contains oxygen and
nitrogen and its content is 47 per cent. This content continues to
diminish as the volume of the liquid phase increases. A liquid with
34 per cent oxygen can only be in equilibrium with gas of 12.5 per
cent oxygen. But as long as there is a gas phase its content is con-
siderably above zero. It remains above 7 per cent.
@Duhem: Traité de Mecanique chimique, vol. 4, chap. 3. Paris, Hermann.
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION—MARCHIS. PAI lab
It can be readily seen, therefore, that if the two phases, liquid
and gaseous, formed by the progressive liquefaction of air are main-
tained in contact, it is impossible to prepare gaseous nitrogen of a
sufficient degree of purity.
It is a different matter, however, when, under constant pressure
conditions, the liquid phase is eliminated as fast as it is produced.
We find ourselves here in the presence of a phenomenon inverse to
that observed when liquid air is distilled under constant pressure.
In such a case the contents of gaseous and liquid phases increase
continuously. The phases both tend toward a composition of pure
oxygen. At the same time the temperature of boiling rises from
a value in the neighborhood of that of pure nitrogen to the boiling
point of pure oxygen. Inversely, if we progressively condense air
under constant pressure, eliminating the liquid phase as fast as it
is formed, there are obtained gaseous residues less and less rich in
oxygen; at the same time the temperature of condensation becomes
lower and tends toward the boiling point of pure nitrogen at the
pressure employed. We obtain, therefore, much more rapidly than in
the process considered above a gaseous mixture richer in nitrogen.
To obtain a gaseous residue practically free from oxygen, however,
it is necessary, if this method is used, to almost completely liquefy
the air.
A much better result is obtained by the use of a device designed
by M. Claude which he calls a retour en arriére (reflux apparatus).
Let us imagine that the liquid after separating from the gas en-
counters a gaseous mass richer in oxygen. The liquid is colder on
account of the large proportion of nitrogen it contains. <A part of
the more condensable oxygen of the mixture will therefore be lique-
fied and take the place of nitrogen which will vaporize. Thus by
circulating in opposite directions a liquid and a gas having different
contents, there is obtained on one hand a liquid very rich in oxygen
and on the other practically pure gaseous nitrogen. This process
utilizes, moreover, a large amount of air which never needs to be
liquefied.
M. Claude has utilized this principle of reflux in the following
way: A sort of small tubular boiler is arranged so that its axis is
vertical. The tubes are surrounded on the outside with lquid air
and into the lower ends of these tubes is led a current of cold com-
pressed air. This liquefies progressively, giving liquids poorer and
poorer in oxygen; these liquids, in falling into a receptacle below,
encounter gases rich in oxygen and produce the gradual dilution,
the principle of which we have described. There finally separates
out at the top of the group of tubes practically pure nitrogen, while
liquid with a high percentage of oxygen is continually drawn out
of the lower part.
212 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
A second obstacle remains still to be overcome. Instead of air
supercharged with a volumetric content of 47 per cent oxygen, it is
necessary to obtain practically pure oxygen. This can be attained,
thanks to processes of rectification based on those employed in the
alcohol industry. In such a process there are two circulating streams
inside of a column, one from the bottom to the top, of practically
pure oxygen gas, and the other from the top to the bottom, of liquid
containing a large proportion of nitrogen. The latter, being colder,
condenses the oxygen and allows its nitrogen to escape in a gaseous
form according to the process which we have seen developed in
connection with the reflux apparatus,
The apparatus for this purpose is again composed of a sort of
tubular boiler with its axis vertical. At the upper end it continues
into a column with condensing shelves, such as is used in the alcohol
industry. The vertical tubes of the boiler are surrounded by prac-
‘tically pure oxygen, and into the interior of these tubes cold air is
introduced at a pressure of about 5 atmospheres. As we have ex-
plained above, this air becomes liquefied, giving in the lower part
of the boiler liquid air surcharged with oxygen and in the upper
part practically pure gaseous nitrogen. This is carried through the
liquefied oxygen and in turn becomes liquefied. The superoxygen-
ated liquid is carried up (through a tube) by its vapor pressure
and flews continuously into the central part of the rectification
column. The liquid nitrogen is conveyed to the summit of the
column. The oxygen vaporized in the tubular chamber on account
of the condensation of the air in the interior of the tubes, encounters,
in the rectifying column, liquids richer and richer in nitrogen; there
falls back in the still, consequently, liquid oxygen in a practically
pure state, while pure nitrogen separates out at the top of the
column. The quantity of liquid oxygen which falls back into the
still is greater than the amount which vaporizes and ascends into
the rectifying column. This excess of oxygen is drawn off and led by
way of an economizer to meters and to apparatus where it is used.
Such is the principle of the Claude method for the production of
practically pure oxygen and nitrogen. The Linde method differs
only in certain of its details. The Bardot factory, which works the
Linde process at Aubervilliers, at present produces about 50 cubic
meters of oxygen per hour. The Société de Air Liquide, which
uses the Claude process, has placed in operation apparatus capable
of producing 100 cubic meters of oxygen per hour. The yield is
about 1 cubic meter of pure oxygen per each horsepower effective
on the shaft of the compressor, in apparatus of 50 cubic meters, and
about 1.19 cubic meters for those of 100 cubic meters capacity.
This method of reflux has also made it possible for M. Claude to
extract pure gases, such as neon and helium, from the air. The
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION—MARCHIS. 9138
apparatus enables him to extract as a by-product of the industrial
manufacture of oxygen and nitrogen, a mixture of nitrogen with at
least 50 per cent of neon, helium, and hydrogen. To accomplish
this the gaseous residues which are strongly resistant to liquefaction
are drawn out, in the proportion of 6,000 liters per hour for an
influx of air of 3,500 cubic meters, from the lower parts of a tubular
system cooled by liquid nitrogen. By the conjunction of a pressure
of 4 atmospheres and a very low temperature, all the liquefiable
parts are condensed and the gaseous residue, if the quantity is well
regulated, consists of an almost pure mixture of neon and helium.
The liquefaction of air is not the last obstacle which men of
science have overcome in the field of gas condensation. Helium,
which long resisted the efforts of all physicists, has finally been
liquefied by M. Kammerlingh Onnes in the cryogenic laboratory
at Leyden“ whose installation admits of the attainment of a range
of temperatures from 0° down to —253°. By cooling down helium
by hydrogen boiling in a vacuum and suddenly expanding the gas
compressed to 100 atmospheres, the Dutch scientist has obtained a
transparent colorless liquid boiling at —269° with a density of 0.154.
The critical constants of helium appear to be in the neighborhood
of —268° and 3 atmospheres.
Thanks to the admirable scientific equipment of the laboratory at
Leyden, M. Jean Becquerel has been able to study at very low tempera-
tures the phenomena of liquid absorption and emission, such as the
magneto-optic phenomena in crystals and solidified solutions. This
work of Becquerel, so important in its significance, bears on the fol-
lowing points:
(1) Observation of the influence of variations of temperature on the
abnormal phenomena of absorption and dispersion. Laws of the
variation of the width of bands, and the existence for each band of a
maximum absorption. Calculation of the number of corpuscles pro-
ducing absorption. Spectral analysis at low temperatures.
(2) Study, in crystals and solutions of a phenomenon of the same
nature as the Zeeman effect. Invariability at varying temperatures,
of period changes produced by magnetism. Observations at low tem-
peratures of phenomena showing the variation in stability of vibrat-
ing systems, where their period is modified.
(3) Rotary magnetic polarization at low temperatures. Explana-
tion of rotation in the vicinity of the bands of absorption. Gener-
alization of the phenomenon of rotary magnetic polarization. Ex-
tension of the phenomenon to biaxial crystals. Joinder produced by
a magnetic field, of two principal vibrations, normal to the lines of
“Mathias: Le Laboratoire eryogene de Leyde. Revue générale des Sciences,
Paris, vol. 7, 1896, p. 381.
214 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
force. Experimental proof of the existence in a body submitted to a
field normal to a luminous ray, of a longitudinal component of elec-
tric force.
As M. d’Arsonval has so aptly pointed out in his paper at the close
of the conference, the study of these phenomena gives new results on
the nature, the movements, and the number of the electrons which
produce absorption. It contributes to the extension of our knowl-
edge as to the ultimate constitution of matter.
The study of the phenomenon of magnetic saturation at low tem-
peratures permits, as M. Pierre Weiss has remarked, of the determi-
nation of the magnetic moment of the molecule. This quantity is
fundamental in the expression of the law of corresponding magnetic
states, a law analogous to that of the same name which governs the
compression and dilation of bodies.
A study of such importance as the molecular modification of bodies
is rendered possible by the well-known fact that electric conducti-
bility increases as the temperature is lowered. The creation of pow-
erful magnetic fields by simple coils cooled down and traversed by
very intense currents, permits the realization of the atom, and allows
it to be transformed and its movements modified.
For this reason the first section of the congress adopted the fol-
lowing resolutions presented by Messrs. Jean Perrin, Mathias, and
Kammerlingh Onnes:
(a) In view of the extreme importance which is attached to the
modification of atoms and the possibility of attaining this result by
means of an intense magnetic field (a possibility which the Zeeman
phenomenon has already demonstrated), the congress offers the reso-
lution that the nations should unite for the construction of a great
electro magnet without iron, the efficiency of which shall be increased
by an intense refrigeration.
“(6) In view of the admirable scientific equipment of the cryogenic
laboratory at Leyden and the hospitable offer of welcome made by
Prof. K. Onnes to the investigators of all nations, the physicists pres-
ent at the first section of the Congress of Refrigeration, express the
following resolution: That the governments of the nations repre-
sented at the congress should furnish necessary assistance to permit
physicists to carry out at the cryogenic laboratory at Leyden re-
searches with regard to physical properties at very low temperatures.
“(c) The congress resolves that an international association shall
be founded to further such study, scientific or otherwise, an associa-
tion with its headquarters at Paris, which while aiding the already
specialized fields of research shall undertake the study of the whole
domain of low temperature.
*P, Weiss: L’hypothése du champ moléculaire et la propriété ferro-mag-
nétique. Revue générale des Sciences, February 15, 1908.
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION—MARCHIS. 215
“In view of the high degree of interest which attaches to the car-
rying out and coordinating of scientific research in the field of low
temperatures, the congress resolves, that the bureau of section A
shall be charged with the organization of a permanent international
association for the study of all scientific questions relating to low
temperatures.”
II. REFRIGERATING MEDIA.
In the storehouses where at the present day foodstuffs are pre-
served by refrigeration, low temperatures are obtained by the vapor-
ization of the following liquefied gases: Ammonia, sulphurous an-
hydride, carbon dioxide, and methyl chloride.
The liquefaction of these refrigerating agents may be attained (1)
by means of a compression pump (compression machines) ; (2) by
means of a solvent such as water (absorption machines). In the
compression machines, which are at present the most widely used in
the refrigerating industry, the gas liquefied in the condenser or lique-
fier, passes by way of a regulating cock into the refrigerating cham-
ber or evaporator; there it is vaporized by a pump which draws out
the vapor, compresses it, and sends it to be liquefied again in the con-
denser. In the absorption machines there is also a liquefier connected
with a refrigerating chamber by a stopcock. The compressor—the
aspirating and force pump—is replaced (a) partly by an absorber
in which the vapors from the refrigerator (in these machines as a
matter of fact ammonia gas is used) are dissolved in water; (0)
partly by a boiler where the heated ammonia solution gives off am-
monia gas. This is again condensed in the liquefier.
The utilizable effect of such a machine, or its refrigerating power,
is measured by the quantity of heat absorbed in the refrigerator dur-
ing a certain period, or as is sometimes said, the quantity of cold de-
veloped in the refrigerator during the same period.
As M. Barrier has remarked, this power varies widely with the
temperature of the refrigerating agent at the condenser and at the
refrigerator. The specification of these temperatures affords the
only means of comparing with any exactitude the claims of machines
made by different constructors, and the only means of avoiding dif_-
culties in commercial contracts and exchanges.
Furthermore, different countries adopt different units to express
this refrigerating power. In France and Germany they express the
refrigerating capacity by the number of kilogram-calories absorbed,
or kilogram-frigories (negative calories freed per hour). In Eng-
land and in the United States they prefer to measure the refrigerat-
ing capacity for a day of 24 hours and express it in tons of refrig-
eration, but in England the refrigeration ton is equal to 81,300
kilogram-frigories while the refrigeration ton in the United States
45745°—sm 1909——15
216 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
only amounts to 72,600 kilogram-frigories. Lastly, moreover, in the
United States the constructors and consulting engineers often express
the cooling capacity of the machines in gallon degrees per minute,
the temperature of the refrigerator being kept at —10 F. (—23°.3 C).
Such a unit is equal to 110.26 hour-frigories.
It would be very useful to adopt for the refrigeration capacity,
and for the different quantities which have to be considered in the
refrigeration industry, a perfectly coordinate system of units lke
that used in the electricity.
M. Maurice Leblane has submitted a very carefully studied out
report on this subject. But in view of the opposition of the English-
speaking delegates the question does not seem to be fully settled,
and Section II has passed the following resolution :
“That an international scientific commission, composed of theo-
retical and practical specialists in the subject of low temperatures,
shall be appointed to consider values, units, and notation suitable to
the refrigerating industry, and shall report at the next Congress.”
It is to this commission that the proposition of M. Kammerlingh
Onnes to give the name of Carnot to the unit of entropy has been
referred. i
This same commission has been likewise charged with the duty of
fixing the temperatures of condenser and refrigerator, which shall be
adopted so that the refrigeration capacity of a machine may be
defined. Section II has only been able to take the following resolu-
tion on that subject: That the normal capacity of a refrigerating
machine shall be defined by the number of thermal units it can pro-
duce in an hour at the given temperatures of the gas at condenser and
refrigerator, the choice of these temperatures and thermal units to be
left to the determination of the international commission charged
with the selection of units.
As a corollary to these resolutions it is likewise desirable to unify
the methods of testing refrigerating machines. For this reason
the following resolution has also been adopted by Section II: That
the question of simple, practical, and uniform methods of testing
refrigerating machines, based on the units defined by the interna-
tional commission and applicable to the different types of machines
and to different circumstances of installation, shall be made a subject
of study, with a view to international agreement.
Cold-storage rooms can be cooled by different methods. In the
abattoirs one of the most common methods is to direct dry cold air
into the preserving rooms. This air is brought down to a low tem-
perature and sufficiently dried out either by passing over a cold
saline solution (spray refrigerator) or by circulation in contact
with a coil acting as refrigerant (dry refrigerator). The choice of
the type of refrigerator, as M. Barrier has said, is a question of cir-
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION—MARCHIS. 217
cumstances. Even in the case of meat preservation it makes a dif-
ference whether the meat is frozen, that is to say, immunized, or
whether it is merely refrigerated (brought to a temperature between
zero and 4° C.), where it is more particularly subject to the action of
harmful germs. It also makes a difference whether it is a military
storehouse, where the meat is only taken out for immediate consump-
tion and the refrigerating chambers are closed up to the time the food
is removed, or whether it is a commercial storehouse, where the meat
is taken in or brought out daily and is more or less exposed to the
air, and where the frequent entries of the workmen carry in noxious
gases and impurities. In this latter case the spray evaporator
appears preferable on account of the purification and asepsis of the
air of the chambers. In the first case, however, the dry evaporator,
on account of its greater simplicity and the lowering of the con-
centration of the brine, presents some real advantages.
It is not sufficient only to produce cold; the cold must be conser-
vated. For this reason the insulation from heat should be considered
a question of the first importance in the construction of a cold store.
The proper conservation of the contents demands that the tempera-
ture of the storage chambers should be as constant as possible. The
question of insulating materials, therefore, has been a subject of
particular attention by the congress.
A good heat insulator should fulfill the following conditions:
(1) It should be a very poor conductor of heat. If a very thin
layer of the insulator is sufficient to obtain proper insulation, the result
is both economy of space and economy of the insulating material.
(2) It should have a low specific gravity. This condition is impor-
tant in insulation installment aboard ship. Its importance is not less,
however, in cold-storage warehouses, because of the reduction of cost
in transporting it to the work and the possibility of economy in the
cost of construction by making possible the construction of very
lightly built buildings.
(3) The insulator should be free from odor, and not subject to
decomposition, even when moist. This condition is all important in
the construction of cold-storage houses designed for the preservation
of foodstuffs. These absorb very easily bad odors arising from the
fermentation of insulating material and become unfit for consump-
tion. For this reason such substances as rice husks, cut straw, oat
husks, or cork mixtures made with fermentable substances, such as
casein, should be rejected.
(4) The insulating material should absorb to as great a degree as
possible the bad odors which are set free in refrigerating chambers
and render them less harmful. From this point of view peat or turf
sometimes is of great service.
(5) The insulating material should not be hygroscopic. It should
not absorb and retain moisture, which is capable of causing it to lose
218 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
its poor conducting qualities. This is the case with mineral wool, a
sort of fibrous glass made out of the slag of blast furnaces.
(6) When by reason of circumstances, such as the breaking of a
water tube, etc., an insulating material is wet it should be able to dry
out easily and regain its property of poor conduction.
(7) The insulating substances should not be attractive to parasites,
mice, rats, etc., nor afford a good culture ground for microbes.
(8) The insulation material should be incombustible, or at least
should not propagate combustion started at any point of the mass. A
certain number of cork mixtures possess this property; for example,
the mixture of cork and pitch. M. Briill has shown to the congress
several different types of entirely fireproof cork mixtures.
(9) When once placed in the packing which makes up the insu-
lating mat, either inside or outside of the wall, the insulating ma-
terial should not settle and thus produce continuous voids in the
insulation. The different wood carbons included under the term
charcoal are liable to this disadvantage, when they are used without
special precautions.
(10) The insulating materials should not attack the wood, iron, or
masonry which comes in contact with them.
(11) The insulating materials should be very easy to work and
to apply to the walls of the storage chambers and should possess a
certain resistance to bending or crushing.
(12) The insulation should not lose its qualities with time.
It is difficult enough to find an insulation that combines all these
qualities. Cork either in granular form or agglomerated, however,
is at present the most employed. M. Pasquay has informed the
congress that silk waste protected by an impermeable envelope forms
an excellent insulation.
The knowledge of the coefficient of conduction of insulators is of
great importance with regard to the thickness which the protecting
linings must be to bring down the loss of cold within a certain limit.
Different methods have been proposed for determining this. In
one of these, the two faces of a plate of the substance are maintained
constantly at different temperatures and the quantity of heat passing
through the plate in a certain time determined. This may be ac-
curately measured by weighing the amount of ice melted. This is
the principle of the well-known physical method called the wall
method. It may perhaps be remarked that those who have used
this method have not taken precautions against the loss of heat at
the edges of the experimental plates. They have not made use of
the method of using a guard ring in the form originated by M. Berget.
The other methods for measuring the conductibility are based on
Forbes’ method. This consists of heating one of the extremities of
a long slender bar of the material to be tested. When the system has
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION—MARCHIS. 219
attained an equilibrium the temperature is taken at different points
along the bar, and by the formule of Fourrier the coefficient of con-
ductibility can be calculated, if that of emission is known. This
jatter may be that of a coating or a very thin layer of metal, with
which the bar has been previously provided.
A variation of the Forbes method is that of the sectional bar of
Lodge. This bar is composed of three sections; the first and the
third are of a metal the conductibility of which is known. The
second is made up of the material to be tested. The end of the first
section is heated and the progression of temperature when equilib-
rium is established is measured. The general formula for uniform
movement of heat in an elongated bar makes possible the calculation
of the conductibility of the material composing the second section.
It is this method that M. Desvignes has used in determining the
conductibility of several insulating substances. He has worked out
the technique so that it can be easily employed in the refrigerating
industry.
Some of the results obtained by this method are as follows:
Coefficient of conductibility.
Calories for
meter-degree-hour.
OT cae ee a rh re es = ee a ee 0.05 to 0. 014
(GinsianGre “ood a a ee a ee eee . 068
Cork withwecaseinkbind ers a a eee ee ATL Pon Bee MEE RY . 069
Corkswith odorless: pitch) bind erses es eee ee ae . OST
(Cloke Gyalitin Storeliionen bias loniavemye . O67
Cork mixed with infusorial earth and calcined_________-~----___ . O89
As M. Desvignes has remarked, it would perhaps be imprudent to
take these figures as a basis for the calculation of loss in a cold-stor-
age plant. The specimens which were used in the tests were picked
and were perfectly dry. The given coefficients should be increased
not less than 20 per cent. In the application to certain materials
some account should be taken to the method of joining. Thus in a
partition of cork bricks pointed by cement mortar, where the joints
represent in very careful work about 15 per cent of the total volume,
the coefficient of conductibility of the brick itself, referred to the
total surface of the partition, should be almost doubled. These con-
siderations will show what a difficult question even the approximate
calculation of the heating effect due to the walls of the refrigerator
may be. The second section has withheld opinion on this question,
therefore, and taken the following resolutions:
(1) That study and research shall be undertaken in the technical
schools and laboratories to determine, either by known apparatus or
that which shall be subsequently devised, the specific constants of the
different insulators which are practically utilizable in the refriger-
ating industry.
220 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
(2) That the characteristic properties and constants to be deter-
mined, account being taken in each case of the degree of humidity,
shall be the following:
The density to be employed.
The coefficient of conductibility.
The resistance to flexure.
The resistance to crushing.
The power of expelling water.
The power of absorbing odors.
The incombustibility.
These constants should be determined under conditions of tem-
perature and thickness of material applicable to the refrigerating
industry.
(3) That the second section shall call especial attention to the study
of the conductibility as a function of temperature, thickness, degree
of humidity, and of other causes capable of influencing the conducti-
bility ; for example, the state of division of the material necessary to
assure a certain insulation.
(4) That the section requests that the International Bureau of the
Refrigeration Congresses, the organization of which has been
planned, shall constitute an international commission charged with
taking up the study of methods of testing, and cordinating, with a
view to establishing methods and obtaining comparable results, any
researches which are made, in which otherwise the investigators
would have their usual latitude.
(5) That it shall be of interest to submit the question of the uni-
formization of such methods to the next congress if the researches
concerned are sufficiently advanced.
Official instruction up to the present time has been somewhat
neglectful of the refrigerating industry. The present-day develop-
ments of this industry renders more and more necessary the educa-
tion of engineers who are specialists in this line. For this reason the
second section has also taken the following resolutions:
(1) That theoretical and professional instruction, applied to
different present-day phases of the industry of refrigeration and
with a view to-new applications, shall be inaugurated in the labora-
tories and higher technical schools of all countries, this course of in-
struction to be followed by detailed practical study of important
refrigerating establishments and rational experimentation with the
machinery there used, under the direction of specialists.
(2) That in order that the necessary scientific equipment and ex-
perimental material and the cost of the experiments may be pro-
vided for, this instruction should be subsidized by the governments,
municipalities, chambers of commerce, industrial societies, agricul-
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION-——MARCHIS. 221
tural syndicates, and all others individually or collectively interested
in the refrigeration industry.
(8) That the general work and the results of researches carried
out in these laboratories and schools, as well as those of associations
of engineers and manufacturers who are working in refrigeration,
should be submitted to the permanent International Bureau and co-
ordinated by it, in order that it may publish periodically a biblio-
graphical index, and may compare the results and derive all the use-
ful indications and conclusions possible from them for presentation
to the next Congress of Refrigeration for its examination.
Ill. THE CONSERVATION OF PERISHABLE ARTICLES.
We have now found out how to produce and maintain a low tem-
perature in cold stores. It remains now to study the methods of
construction and use of the cold storage rooms, and the rules per-
mitting of the conservation of different sorts of articles. These
questions have been the subject of numerous reports and discussions
which it would take too much time to digest here. I will, therefore,
only indicate some of the most important conclusions on these
questions.
The cold air of rooms in a cold storage house should circulate as
little as possible from one chamber to another, in order that the
odors of certain preserved products may not affect others. In par-
ticular, if the refrigeration of the cold store is accomplished by
means of air coolers it is absolutely necessary to have a special air
cooler for each series of chambers designed to contain a particular
product.
The articles to be preserved should not pass suddenly from the
ordinary temperature to the temperature of the storage rooms, or
vice versa; in other words, the refrigeration should be progressive.
Thus, in abattoirs the warm meat coming from the slaughter rooms
is transported by means of an overhead rail into a cold anteroom
kept at a temperature of 7° to 8° C. There it undergoes for about
twenty-four hours a preliminary cooling, at the termination of which
it is carried into the rooms where the air is maintained at a tempera-
ture of 0° to 4° C. and a humidity lower than 75 per cent. Salting
and treatment of the intestines, the hides, etc., should be carried on
in rooms entirely separate from those mentioned above, which should
be confined solely to the preservation of fresh meat.
The question of the preservation of horticultural products is one
of the most difficult in the application of cold to food stuffs. The
preservation of apples and pears has been studied in detail in the
United States by Mr. G. H. Powell. He has placed results before
the congress which demonstrate with the greatest clearness the effect
22 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
of placing in the refrigerating chamber freshly picked fruits in
comparison with those that have been exposed to the air several days
after picking. It is necessary to place the sound fruit in the cold
fruit chamber soon after it is gathered. Other circumstances also
influence its keeping qualities. It is much better if the fruit comes
from older trees; it also appears that sandy soils are not favorable
to preservation.
Fruits with a thick skin keep much better than those with an easily
ruptured covering. The peach, in particular, is one of the most
difficult of fruits to preserve. M. Loiseau, horticulturalist at Mont-
reuil, however, has succeeded in keeping this delicate fruit more than
a month. According to him, it is especially necessary to maintain
the temperature as constant as possible, varying not more than from
OF tov C:
Among the recent applications of low temperatures which have
been pointed out may be mentioned the use of artificial cold in the
manufacture of paraffin and viscose.
Crude petroleum generally contains from 5 to 6 per cent of paraf-
fin in solution. To obtain this paraffin, the petroleum is distilled
until it contains from 10 to 25 per cent of paraffin. Then by lower-
ing the temperature of this liquid (paraffin oil) to a degree which
varies according to the quality from +16° to —18° C., paraffin is
obtained which separates from the oil in the form of crystals which
can be separated from the oil by filtration under pressure. The ap-
pheation of refrigerating machines to this purpose makes possible
the treatment at one time of large quantities of petroleum. As an
example the works of Pardubitz in Bohemia are equipped with ma-
chines of a capacity of a million frigories, and produce annually
about four million (kilograms) of paraffin.
The artificial silk called viscose is made by drawing through very
fine openings a thick solution of cellulose obtained with alkaline or
sulpho-alkaline solvents (caustic soda and carbon disulphide). To
accomplish this successfully the solution must be-allowed to stand
in vessels cooled artificially to +2° C. for a month or two before
spinning. The solution is then sufficiently pure to be decanted and
spun with success.
IV. TRANSPORTATION WITH REFRIGERATION.
The question of transportation of products under refrigerating
conditions is one which has justly been a subject of careful considera-
tion by transportation companies both on land and sea.
The refrigerator cars or trains are of several types.
(1) The refrigerator train, consisting of a group of cars, one of
which has no capacity for storage, but contains a complete refrigera-
LOW TEMPERATURES AND REFRIGERATION—MARCHIS. DAB
tion plant which feeds the other cars, with which it is connected by
suitable piping.
The impossibility of breaking up such a train by uncoupling the
cars from each other limits the practical application of these trains,
however, except in a few instances. This system was experimented
with in 1905 in the transportation of Russian butter from Siberia
(from Kourgane to Riga at a mean speed of 15 to 16 kilometers per
hour). The cost of the refrigeration, the temperature of the butter
being maintained at a mean of 5.5° C., was as high as 0.117 frane per
lnlogram of butter per day, exclusive of the cost of the refrigerator
plant.
In this category must be classified the Russian refrigerator car
of the Silitch system. It is mounted on four sets of wheels on bogy
trucks and is of the following dimensions: Length, 8 meters; width,
3 meters; height, 2.65 meters; capacity, 120 cubic meters. It is
divided into six compartments. Two in the center contain the re-
frigerating apparatus while the other four may be charged with
goods to be refrigerated.
(2) The lack of elasticity of the refrigerator trains has been reme-
died by the use of refrigerator or insulated cars. The operation of
these cars necessitates, at the starting point, an insulation composed
of a refrigerating machine and an apparatus which forces a blast of
cold air into the body of the car before and after charging. When
the interior temperature of the car has been reduced to the requisite
degree, the cold air is shut off and the car hermetically sealed. In
Springfield, Mo., there is an installation of this kind capable of
cooling 40 cars of bananas at once time to 15° C.
To this type of cars may be compared those where the low tempera-
ture is obtained by the previous cooling of brine contained in coils
about the roof or walls of the car. The thermo-regulator car of the
Maksoutoff system belongs to this type. The saline solution, which
cools the air to about 5° C., must be cooled every two days, necessi-
tating refrigerating stations every five or six hundred kilometers.
(3) Besides the tributary cars of the refrigerator trains and those
depending on an installation at the point of departure, there are the
self-cooling cars; that is to say, cars themselves containing cold-
producing agents. These are the most universally used, both in
Europe and America.
These may be divided into two great classes: Cars cooled by ice and
cars cooled by evaporation of a liquefied gas.
In the ice-cooled cars the low temperature is obtained by means of
ice disposed in compartments along the roof, as exemplified in the
cars of the Société des Magasins et Transports frigorifiques de France,
or along the walls of the car, as exemplified in the American cars and
cars of the Moscow-Kazan Railroad. The plan of closing the body
224 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
of the car completely from the outside air has been generally aban-
doned. The ice-cooled cars now in use are usually provided with an
arrangement which draws in air from the outside and sends it, after
cooling it by contact with the ice, to renew the air in the car. The
free space remaining for the disposition of the merchandise is about
30 to 40 cubic feet, allowing the introduction of a load of from 6 to 10
tons, according to the nature of the products. By an ice consumption
of an average of 400 kilograms per day a temperature varying between
8° and 4° C.is obtained. The degree of humidity is high, however.
The cars cooled by evaporation of a liquid gas (in this case am-
monia) carry on the outside two cylindrical tanks of quid ammonia.
This fluid is sent by regulating cocks into coils placed at the two ends
of the car on the inside. The ammonia evaporates and absorbs heat,
the ammonia gas produced dissolving in water in a tank placed under
the car. One car of this variety was experimented with in 1905 in
the transportation of butter from Siberia. The cost of refrigeration
‘for butter maintained at a temperature of from 4° to 5° C. was as
high as 0.068 frane per kilogram of butter per day.
In the ice-cooled cars of various types experimented with by the
same Russian commission the total cost of refrigeration, including all
expenses (ice consumption and charging, installation of ice houses,
and operation of cars), amounted to 0.009 francs per kilogram of
butter.
As the short summary I have just made shows, the First Inter-
national Congress of Refrigeration has examined with care most of
the scientific and technical problems which exist in the refrigerating
industry. If it has solved any of these problems it has indicated in
the form of resolutions a very great number of others which up to
the present have been only incompietely worked out. The next inter-
national congress, which will be held in Vienna in 1910, will not be
inferior to that at Paris, and will bring us, let it be hoped, in the
scientific phase, to some accurate knowledge of the properties of bodies
at low temperatures, and in the industrial phase to a uniformity of
units of measure and methods of testing machines and insulating
material.
THE NITROGEN QUESTION FROM THE MILITARY
STANDPOINT-¢
By CHARLES EK. MUNROE,
Professor of Chemistry, The George Washington University.
The invention of gunpowder afforded man a means of utilizing
the energy of chemical separation in effecting propulsion and of
more efficiently applying this form of energy in mining and quarry-
ing. Through the discovery or invention of mercuric fulminate,
the cellulose nitrates, the glyceryl nitrates, the nitro-substitution
compounds, and the various explosive compositions made from these
nitrates and nitro-compounds, man was enabled also to utilize the
energy stored up in unstable molecules. History indicates that the
invention of gunpowder was made where saltpeter, which is its chief
ingredient, was naturally most abundant and most easily obtained,
but that, owing to the great value of gunpowder to man, its use and
manufacture spread to the cooler and more humid countries, and
it is in these countries that it and the other explosives enumerated
have come to be most extensively used. Statistics are not at hand
by which to show the increase in the use of powder throughout the
world, but some relative idea of this growth in recent years may be
gained from Table 1, which sets forth the quantity, or value, or
both, of the gunpowder, including, since 1860, blasting powder also,
produced in the United States in each census year beginning with
1840. .
The statistics for the world’s production of the modern explosives
are also not accessible, but an item contributing toward the assem-
bling of this valuable information regarding the world’s progress
was given for dynamite as’sold from the several factories with which
Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, was associated, though as
there were, during the period covered, independent factories in
Germany, in America, and probably in other countries, these figures,
as set forth in Table 2, give only a relative idea of the growth of
this industry.
4Reprinted by permission from United States Naval Institute Proceedings,
vol. 35, No. 3. Copyright, 1909, by Philip R. Alger, secretary and treasurer,
United States Naval Institute.
225
226
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
TABLE 1.—Powder produced in the United States.
Census.
Quantity
(pounds).
8, 977, 348
(o)
(>)
(6)
(>)
95,019, 174
124, 824, 473
215, 820, 144
Value.
$1, 590, 332
3, 223, 090
4,011, 839
3, 348, 941
6, 740, 099
5, 395, 193
8, 919, 460
aChemicals and Allied Products, Bulletin 92, Census of Manufactures for 1905, by Charles E. Munroe,
p. 82.
b Not reported.
TABLE 2.—Annual sales of dynamite from Nobel factories.¢
Year. Tons. | Year. Tons
|
TRG TAS e aadcne sacs e eiae teenie siaia wcimcaee D5 | | RUST tee o roneteeioeineclete sei Osere nelelee Slotine 3, 500
S68 Se eee seicree se sao neh oes sae eccictaeys 78 | VS76 i 52 astennciacliiccwacicsis sie wires seeieieaces 4,300
1IS1a1! apa caph SET gO Oe >) oe ES a TSA UST tien toe reat Se nel ens ieee ee 5, 500
TES Y (DE Bik SE Nie Oe SE eae eee ADANINI 87S eee. ae seeker pe ot: eee eS 6, 200
IS TALR. See 8 Se ae LL Ree ee Re A TAAIDALS TS Se Se es A aon pee eee Ga 8 7, 000
DST Ree ee oc Men Cerra ce eee oye eicmae IIFGEED || TEE (ec eer ae ce nadaesScrccnesecacraeane ec: 7, 500
IGE: SoS ee Sato hanes See 2HO505| SSE aaere sce te seek nee aus ece eee 8, 500
TSy(tels eeh A eae OI ee ee BeIDOh (MISSI: aa tees tN Nate eles ae 9, 500
a Notes on Nitroglycerin, Dynamite, and Blasting Gelatine, by George McRoberts, Phil. Soc. Glasgow
April 25, 1883.
TABLE 3.—Quantities and values of explosives produced in the United States
in the census years 1900 and 1905.%
1900. 1905.
Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value.
Gunpowder......... by ee erat OURS pounds. . 5, 450, 773 $614,290 | 10,383,944 | $1,541, 483
Blasting powderves os sso. acsiccetcaesceeeecce kegs> 4,774, 948 | 4,780, 903 8, 217, 448 7,377,977
Nitrosly.cerin' .- 4h .cc-cise occ cc ete emcees pounds ¢35, 280,498 | 5,532,570 | 451,579,270 7,730,175
Dynamites. ess ssseseocissceceinss sissies do 85, 846,456 | 8,247,223 | 130,920,829 | 12,900,193
Guncottonetsacces- cence o eee cere eeeeee eee do €2,988,176 | 1,473,619 7 5,905, 958 2, 435, 805
Smokeless/powder. ss. 4o-o- ee as-cese ces seers do.. 3,053,126 | 1,716,101 7,009, 720 4, 406, 477
Allothenexplosivesss. acc ccuecscocctw see tesissweinceels| oo tnaaissemecte 6493H leon sensetanes 190, 948
aChemicals and Allied Products, Bulletin 92, Census of Manufactures for 1905, by Charles E. Munroe,
p. 80.
b A keg contains 25 pounds of blasting powder.
¢ Including 31,661,806 pounds, produced and consumed, valued at $4,749,271.
d Including 43,643,270 pounds, produced and consumed, valued at $6,110,058.
e Including 2,139,834 pounds, produced and consumed, valued at $1,069,917.
f Including 5,522,796 pounds, produced and consumed, valued at $2,209,118.
THE NITROGEN QUESTION—-MUNROE. 227
The most complete and detailed figures relative to the produc-
tion of explosives to be found anywhere are those presented in the
reports on the census of manufactures of the United States for 1900
and 1905, which are as follows, the gunpowder and blasting powder,
which were combined in Table 1, being presented separately in
Table 3.
It is an interesting and important fact that, as with gunpowder
so with all of the other explosives enumerated, a nitrogen-containing
compound is employed in the manufacture of each and nitrogen re-
mains as a component or constituent of each product. The quantity
of nitrogen in one hundred parts of these explosives, together with
its equivalent in real nitric acid and in sodium nitrate, is shown,
together with other data relative to these explosives, in the following
table:
TABLE 4.—Per cent of nitrogen in certain of the more important explosives.
Acid components (3) (4)a (5) | (6) (7)
of nitrating Weight Weibkt Percent Equiva- | Equiva-
mixture. of acid 0 ofcon. | lentof | lent of
Explosive. per 100 | product faned HNO; | NaNO3
ofraw per 100 of| Jithg. in 100 in 100
(1) (2 mate- | raw ma- oa parts of | parts of
H2S04 HNO; rial. terial. gen: product. |product.
>
IDES ARYAN KG El os ebpadenncaoor||Seacopusad|s-oucadcsdlsaouscepae 100 12. 20 54. 85 74.00
(CHOON Es eaadastogoccpooncca Kenaccapoo|scapcecess| Epoqosaeuc 100 10. 40 46. 74 63. 00
Guincotlonteesecceereces sess 78.6 21.0 | 1,200.0 150 13. 40 60. 30 81. 34
Mercurie fulminates ss... -<ac--\-< 202-55 65.0 | 1,200.0 120 9.85 44. 33) 59.79
NIOP LY CELOl Neeeee ee na secede 61.5 34.5 b 689. 7 b 228 18. 50 83. 25 112.30
Piericiacid’s. -fsscise see 4 ae 26.6 55.8 400. 0 220 18. 30 82.35 111.08
1, 900.0 |
i D 2 9.5 2 5
Byroxyliniforis.)bas-cee sce 56.0 29.0 te 000.0 145 12. 50 56. 25 75. 88
a Factory yields.
b Using artificial refrigeration, vide Census Bulletin No. 92 of 1905.
e Nitrating in pots.
4 Nitrating in centrifugals.
In calculating the data for Table 4 the gunpowder is assumed to
be composed of KNO,, 75 per cent; C, 15 per cent; S, 10 per cent;
and the blasting powder of NaNO,, 74 per cent; C, 16 per cent; 5S, 10
per cent; but variations from these compositions will be found in
practice. However, it is believed that they represent very closely
the averages of all commercial compositions so styled. Although
a most important explosive, dynamite is omitted from the table be-
cause the wide variations in the character and quantities of the com-
ponents of this mixture as it occurs in commerce render it impossible
to properly represent it by an average formula, though it is usually
admitted that on the average dynamite contains 40 per cent of nitro-
glycerol. The wide variation in nitrogen contents occurs in the dope
or absorbent, which may contain from no nitrogen-containing com-
228 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ponent whatever, as in the kieselguhr dynamites, to 60 per cent
of sodium nitrate in straight wood-pulp dynamites; and this last
material may be partly or wholly replaced by ammonium or potas-
sium or cellulose nitrates in other dopes and compositions. Because
of a similar wide variation in their components the compositions
made from picric acid, its salts, and other nitro-substitution com-
pounds are also omitted. Notwithstanding these omissions, it is be-
lieved that the data set forth in the table may prove useful in the
development and checking of the statistics of manufacture. But,
unfortunately, owing to the different manners in which the nitrogen
atoms are grouped, as regards the other atoms, in the molecules of
the different kinds of explosives, no direct relation is to be observed
between the properties and behavior of these different bodies and the
percentages of nitrogen they contain, and this want of relation be-
comes the more marked the larger the number of different nitrogen-
containing substances that we consider. What, however, is empha-
sized by this presentation of data, is that the element nitrogen is a
characteristic and important component of all explosives that have
been accepted and used for military purposes.
From the time of the invention of gunpowder until the middle
of the lgst century the only recognized available source of this nitro-
gen was India saltpeter, which is the potassium nitrate, and which
was obtained from the niter found or formed in soil or rocks. The
production of nitrates in the soil or rocks is brought about usually
through the agency of nitrifying bacteria. In order that the process
of nitrification may go on there is required a supply of nitrogenous
organic matter, a slightly alkaline medium, a temperature range be-
tween definite limits, a limited amount of moisture,a supply of oxygen
or air, complete or semi darkness, and the presence of the nitrify-
ing organisms. The nitrification proceeds most rapidly at 100° F.
and within a few inches of the surface of soil or rock which is well
aerated and moderately moist. When potash salts are present in
sufficient quantity the potassium nitrate is produced, but the native
niter usually consists largely of calcium nitrate with some magnesium
nitrate and other salts. All of these nitrates are readily soluble in
water and may therefore, after formation, be to a great extent washed
away by frequent rainfalls, but where there is only a moderate
amount of water present the solution may be brought to the surface
by capillarity, and as the water evaporates the nitrates will be left
as an efflorescence on the surface of the soil or rock. It is evident,
therefore, that accumulations of niter will be largest in those locall-
ties where not only the best conditions for its production obtain, but
where also it is least likely to be washed away after being formed.
The native sources of supply are therefore found as efflorescences on
the soil in semiarid countries, in limestone caverns, where the remains
THE NITROGEN QUESTION—MUNROE. 229
and excreta of bats are the chief source of the.organic matter, and
about stables.
Since the amount of niter procurable from these sources was lim-
ited it became necessary, as the demand for saltpeter increased, to
resort to other sources of supply, and consequently niter plantations
were established in many countries where, following the principles
set forth above, the niter was formed and protected from the weather.
Desortiaux ® describes in detail the saltpeter plantations of Hungary,
Switzerland, France, and Sweden. Such farms have been carried
on in this country, especially in the Southern States during the civil
war, and the means resorted to by John Harrolson, of Selma, Ala-
bama, to secure the necessary nitrogenous organic matter for these
farms became particularly widely known. In emergencies, as in
Sweden in 1520, the earth of cemeteries has been lixiviated to obtain
niter, and in this last-mentioned country a tax was imposed in 1642
which had to be paid in saltpeter.?
About 1821 the naturalist Mariano de Rivero found on the Pacific
coast of South America, in the province of Tarapaca, immense de-
posits of sodium nitrate.“ As this salt had prior to this been known
only as a laboratory product, the discovery was of marked scientific
interest, which became an economic one when, in 1830, the material
was mined for exportation and 8,348 tons were shipped in that year.
Investigation has shown that this deposit extends for some 450 miles
north and south in the arid plains which he between the western slope
of the Andes Mountains and the coastal range on the Pacific, at alti-
tudes of from 3,600 to 13,000 feet and at distances of from 15 to 93
miles from the sea. The exploitation of this deposit has been pushed
to such an extent that in the year ending December 31, 1908, there were
shipped from the various South American ports contiguous to this
field 1,993,000 tons of the nitrate of soda, and because of the export
taxes levied upon this material and the payments required for con-
cessions to operate in this desert tract, this industry has been and
still is a rich source of revenue to the Chilean Government. The
extent to which this industry has grown and its rate of growth are
clearly set forth in the following table prepared by F. V. Vergara,’
collector of customs at the port of Valparaiso:
4Traité sur la poudre, les corps explosifs et la pyrotechnic, vol. 1, pp. 15-117,
1878.
6’ The Manufacture of Explosives, O. Guttmann, vol. 1, p. 24, 1895.
¢ Principles and Practice of Agricultural Analysis, H. W. Wiley, vol. 1, p. 16,
1894.
@Monthly Bulletin International Bureau of American Republics, November,
1903, p. 1290,
230 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
TABLE 5.—Sodium nitrate exported from Chile, 1840-1908.
Period. Exports. eee Period. “| Exports. seaeees
Tons. @ Tons. @ Tons. @ Tons. 4
TSA0=1S44 a eee ee eee 73, 232 V4 646" S1STO-USTOM nace emcee meee 1,365, 418 273, 083
S45 — 1840 es see AS eee or 94, 806 | 1S O61] | 880-1 8845 eee oe ee eee 2, 220, 926 444,185
S50 —1854 rye tee neon ae 149, 960 295;922))|| 1885-18892 = 2 2. = ser eee eee 3, 318, 520 663, 704
dgane1aso eee ee 250, 394 BI, 879"|| 1800-1804.) 2 eee 4, 813, 670 962, 734
SREB EAE meen sen 327, 034 | 65,407° || 18051809) <2) ee 6,204,636 | 1,240,927
ARERR USEOT aA een Ne. a 487, 324 | 97, 465 || 1900-1903. 2. 6.2. teceeeees 5,537,396 | 1,384,349
WETOLISTA sesso secs ecn: 1,095,628} 219,125 | |
|
a Metric tons of 2,204 pounds.
This material was not only cheap and relatively abundant, but,
as previously shown,’ the richest known source of oxygen for use
in explosives. It is not surprising, therefore, that its use for this
purpose has rapidly grown. Nitrate of soda was first used in blast-
ing powder in 1856, and a patent for such a powder was issued to
La Motte Dupont in 1857. During the census year 1905 there was
produced in the United States 205,436,200 pounds of blasting powder,
most of which was nitrate of soda powder, and large quantities
of this powder were manufactured and consumed in Chile and other
countries.
As nitrate of soda is quite deliquescent it is not suitable for direct
use in the compounding of gunpowder, but early after becoming
available in commerce it was made a source of manufacture of salt-
peter. It was during the Crimean war (1854-55) that this industry
was established in Germany, the sodium nitrate being converted into
potassium nitrate by means of potassium carbonate obtained from
the residues of sugar beets, and this assisted in the promotion of the
beet-root sugar industry which Germany was seeking to foster.
Singularly, about this time the now famous deposit of potassium
salts was discovered at Stassfurt, Germany. This town was noted
for its salt works in the beginnihg of the nineteenth century, the
source of supply being the natural brine from driven salt wells.
With the utilization of rock-salt deposits in various localities, the
price of salt was reduced to such a point that the Stassfurt works
ceased to yield their former large revenue to the Prussian Govern-
ment, and, with a view of making them again valuable, the Govern-
ment began boring for rock salt in this locality in 1839. In 1857
a shaft, which began in 1852, reached, at a depth of 1,080 feet, a
stratum of rock salt, but in doing so it passed through a heavy
deposit of so-called “Abraum-salze” or refuse salts, which were
then considered worthless. The “Abraum-salze ” were found to con-
sist largely of the minerals carnallite, which is a magnesium-
potassium chloride; sylvite, which is potasssium chloride; and kainite,
4 Lectures on Chemistry and Explosives, p. 2, 1888, by Charles E. Munroe.
THE NITROGEN QUESTION—MUNROE. 2oL
which is a mixture of carnallite and magnesium chloride, and these
refuse salts are to-day the chief source of the world’s supply of
potashes and potassium salts. Numerous uses have been found for
them, not the least interesting of which is the production of salt-
peter from the metathesis of the Chile nitrate with the Stassfurt
sylvite or carnallite. In the United States alone there were pro-
duced 14,468,000 pounds of potassium nitrate by this means during the
census year 1905, and this operation has been conducted here for many
years. It is by such means that the Chile deposits have been made to
render the saltpeter essential for use in sporting and military powders.
It has already been shown that the manufacture of dynamite
consumes large quantities of nitrate of soda, and it has been also
shown that the modern explosives, pyroxylin, guncotton, picric
acid, and nitroglycerol, require for their maunfacture a larger
quantity of sodium nitrate, or of any other nitrate, as a source of
the required nitrogen, than gunpowder does, while mercuric ful-
minate requires nearly as much. It may, therefore, be safely asserted
that but for the discovery and exploitation of the nitrate fields of
Chile the explosives industry, as it is known to-day, would have been
impossible, and the developments in mining and transportation which
have characterized the last half century could not have been made.
That is, the condition of civilization amid which we now live could
not have been attained.
Yet the explosives industry is but one of several in which nitrate
of soda is used. ‘The relative quantities used in various countries
differ. Unfortunately no detailed and accurate statistics can be had
except for the United States. Omitting the minor industries of
enameling, fluxing in metallurgy, pickling of meats and fish, and
the manufacture of subordinate chemicals in which approximately
23,926 short tons were used during the census year 1900, and 67,937
short tons in 1905, the quantities consumed in various industries were
as follows: ¢
TABLE 6.—WNitrate of soda consumed in the United States by establishments
classed as follows:
Class. | 1900. 1905.
Short tons. | Short tons.
Hentilizerina us tiyers se eee Nee ae ee ae eee ee ee eee ree ere reas | 19, 518 42,213
IDVWESLIbbiSH tO WIS a was Se naeaeeroasnces aoe ane ode cabo cera act Gees tasoecresGert aaasae 223 261
Generalichemicals mn dusttye. 22s sce Saco cee ste =a cs yee eee soe cise ie se ec an | 35, 990 38, 048
Glass industry..... OIG TOS STE ee ESI NEUE teat Abe a ant ally SS on Sata eae EE 10,770 11,915
EERO LOSIVES HM GUISE yee see nee tes ik eyes cle onset eae a ae nt ee ERC a= Mineo aye 88, 524 133, 034
Sulphuricsmitric and anixed acids imdustry-seoe sence eee a eee ene ees ce ace tener 27, 406 29, 301
SEO EE eon ame Robe Co re DOO OGRE RICE te once CnC ero: Ce Cee ane aaa rae | 182, 431 254, 772
|
* Journal of Industrial and Chemical Engineering, 1, 298, 1909, by Charles E.
Munroe.
45745°— sm 1909 16
232 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
It thus appears that of the total available supply of nitrate of soda
in the United States but 42.90 per cent was used at the census of
1900, and 41.22 per cent at the census of 1905, in explosives factories,
and of this a notable portion was used in the manufacture of salt-
peter which was sold for other uses in the arts. While all the indus-
tries enumerated show a growing demand, the largest increase in any
single industry is found in the fertilizer industry, where 22,695 tons,
or 116.2 per cent, more of nitrate were used at the census of 1905 than
were used at that of 1900.
While no detailed statement of the consumption of nitrate of
soda elsewhere is available, there is issued semiannually by W.
Montgomery & Co. (Limited), of 63 Mark Lane, London, a statement
of the total shipments, consumption, stocks, and prices of this article
during a considerable period, and the following data are derived
from their circular statement for December 31, 1908:
TABLE 7.—Consumption of nitrate of soda in 1908.%
Locality. Tons.
United Kin edomis 22 see wie saisinee wioiclo sleds 2 ciel cee ce ses es eceeeiwas eee sa Se seaissies seems ciseosee 104, 000
Continent of Europe...........- Sait Aa aR ae ELS rm an A ae CHEE eae th eh 1, 272, 000
WimitediS tatess= scse ese eee hs bie eee ee Sr eS ele Sana ee aces peceat ee aera 309, 000
Otherecountries™e- see. ee eee Sets Senet elton Creme wc Mee aidisig ae cibiois Su eho oie ore ISS tons ere 45,000
Notals2c2 ee Sara SSE Sate ASO SEE he SNS Oe ee ers Rae Se ents See ee Se ene eee tee sie 1,730, 000
4 The circular of Montgomery & Co. for June 80, 1910, gives the revised figures for 1908
as follows: United Kingdom, 99,000; Continent of Europe, 1,233,000; United States,
315,000; other countries, 55,000; total, 1,702,000 tons. From this data the percentage
of the total consumption for the United States is 18.51.
From this it appears that of the total consumption of the year
but 17.8 per cent was consumed in the United States. Analyzing
_ the statement for the previous eight years, it appears that of the
total that consumed in the United States was, in 1900, 12.6 per cent;
1901, 14.1 per cent; 1902, 16.9 per cent; 1903, 18.76 per cent; 1904,
19 per cent; 1905, 19.9 per cent; 1906, 21.7 per cent; 1907, 21.1 per
cent; so that there was a steady increase in the proportion of the
total consumed in the United States up to 1906, but that for the next
two years there was a drop such that in 1908 our proportionate con-
sumption was less than for any year since 1902.
It is commonly understood that a much larger percentage of the
Chilean nitrate is used in agriculture in Europe than is used in this
industry in the United States, and that the proportion is steadily
increasing. This use of nitrogenous fertilizers is in conformity
with the teaching of Baron von Liebig, whose views have become
gradually disseminated among the farmers. A marked impetus
was given to this use of the Chilean nitrate by the remarkable
THE NITROGEN QUESTION—-MUNROE. DOS
address made by Sir William Crookes before the British Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science in 1898, when, in dealing with
the problem of meeting the rapidly increasing demand for food,
he pointed out that while the average yield of wheat was but 12.7
bushels per acre it had been demonstrated that the yield could be
increased to 20 bushels by the use of 14 hundredweight of nitrate
of soda on each acre annually.
This increasing use, however, tends to exhaust the supply. Crookes
estimated that if the nitrate were used over the whole area under culti-
vation at the rate he proposed, the Chilean deposits would be ex-
hausted in four years. Vergara“ estimated that at the rate that the
nitrate had been mined and exported between 1840 and 1903, as shown
in Table 5, the Chilean deposits would be exhausted by 1938. Albert
Hale, however, in a more recent review of the situation,’ points out
that these estimates were based on the contents of the deposits then
known in the province of Tarapaca, and the extent to which they
could be profitably worked, and states that deposits of such magnitude
have since been discovered in the provinces of Antofogasta and
Atacama, and the processes of recovery of the nitrate from low-grade
ore (caliche) have been so improved that, at a rate of consumption of
5,000,000 tons annually, which he expects will be the normal demand
in a few years, there is enough nitrate in these deposits to last three
hundred years.
This is a more encouraging outlook, but, nevertheless, from what
has been said it is evident that the world has for long been largely de-
pendent on these Chilean deposits for the greater part of its supply of
nitrate and the substances derived from it. In time of prolonged war,
in case nitrate has become contraband, most countries have been obliged
to resort to the vicious policy of niter farming, or, as our Navy De-
partment has done since 1863, have accumulated in advance consider-
able stores of niter, and this condition would have continued to hold
but for important advances recently made in the production of nitrate
from atmospheric nitrogen, and through other developments in
chemistry.
We have in our atmosphere an abundant supply of this element. It
is estimated that the air over each acre of ground contains 33,880
gross tons of nitrogen. It is, however, free, and to be available for
use it must be combined. The methods for effecting the fixation of
this nitrogen have proceeded along three lines: (1) The production
of nitric acid and nitrates; (2) the production of cyanides; and (3)
the production of amids, and the first and last have now been brought
to commercial success.
@ Loe. cit.
> Bull. International Bureau of American Republics, p. 27, July, 1908.
234 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
As early as 1755 Priestly had noted that nitrogen compounds were
formed when electric sparks were passed through air, and not long
after Cavendish produced saltpeter by absorbing air, so treated, in
caustic potash solution. Repeated attempts have been made since
high potential currents have become readily available to utilize this
method and an establishment was erected at Niagara Falls, by the
Atmospheric Products Company, to operate the Bradley and Lovejoy
process. This method, for which a United States patent was granted
September 30, 1902, consisted in producing in the air a flaming elec-
tric are of minimum volume by the rapid rotation of electrodes
carrying high tension currents, but while it yielded nitric acid the
method proved too costly.
A more successful device was shortly after put into operation by
Birkeland and Eyde? at Nottoden, Norway, and it has been in opera-
tion ever since. In this the flaming ares produced by high tension
currents were made to move to and fro through the air within the
apparatus by exposure to powerful magnets. This apparatus was
characterized by a narrow chamber through which the air was passed
and within which the electrodes, placed near together, were arranged
between the poles of a strong magnet and at right angles to these
poles. A disk-shaped or deflected electric arc was thus obtained
perpendicular to the lines of force of the magnetic field. Three
such furnaces at Nottoden, using 500 kilowatts and 5,000 volts, gave
deflected arcs about 3 feet in diameter. The nitrogen oxides formed
were quite dilute and they were carried to absorption towers where,
by contact with milk of lime, calcium nitrate was formed, the product
being eventually converted into basic calcium nitrate for use as a
fertilizer. According to O. N. Witt,’ with this apparatus an output
of 500 to 600 kilos of nitric acid per kilowatt year can be regularly
maintained,
A still more efficient form of furnace is that devised by Dr. Otto
Schoenherr for the Badische Anilin and Soda Fabrik. From his
lecture, delivered June 11, 1908, before the Verein Deutscher
Chemiker at Jena, it appears that what is sought in these processes
is to burn the nitrogen with the oxygen of the air. To accomplish
this to any satisfactory degree the gases must be exposed to a tem-
perature of 3,000° C. and upward. To prevent the decomposition of
the product formed it must be immediately removed to a cooler
region. This Birkeland and Eyde accomplish through moving the
are to and fro by the aid of magnets, while Shoenherr effects it by
imparting to his air a gyratory motion about his elongated are.
His apparatus consists of a long iron tube in which an arc 5 meters
“The Electrochemical Problem of the Fixation of Nitrogen, Phillippe A. Guye,
J. Soc. Chem. Ind., 25, 567, 1906.
’Chemiker Industrie, 28, 699, 1905.
THE NITROGEN QUESTION—MUNROE. 935
in length, produced by an alternating current, is maintained con-
stantly, the energy required being about 600 horsepower and the
alternations being 50 per second. Air, which has been heated to
500° C. by the hot discharge of gases, is blown tangentially into this
tube so that it surrounds the arc spirally in its passage through the
tube. This prevents the deflection of the arc, permits of the maxi-
mum exposure of the air to the heat from the arc, and promptly
sweeps the heated and reacting air to the cooler portion of the tube
and beyond. A 2,000 horsepower plant of this character has been in
operation at Christiansand, Norway, since the autumn of 1907, and
its success has been such that the building of a 120,000 horsepower
plant of this character has been undertaken at Rukwan Falls, Nor-
way. The advantage claimed for this process is that it gives a good
yield of concentrated gas.
The third method for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen referred
to above has been brought to a successful realization by Frank and
Caro in their production of calcium cyanamid mixed with carbon or
“lime nitrogen,” or “ nitrolim,” as it is more recently called. This
is produced by heating calcium carbide in vertical iron retorts in
an atmosphere of nitrogen, when the calcium cyanamid, mixed with
carbon, is formed according to the following equation :
CaC,+N,— CaCN,+C.
The nitrogen is obtained by liquefying the air and separating its
constituents by fractional distillation, or by passing the air over
heated copper, by which the oxygen is removed from it and the nitro-
gen separated. A plant with a capacity of nearly 4,000 tons per
year was started at Piano d’ Orta, Italy, in 1906, and with such sue-
cess that the production was carried in 1908 to over 40,000 tons per
annum in five plants, with others building. The material as pro-
duced is used directly as a fertilizer, but it is a simple matter to
obtain ammonia from it and by a contact process this may be directly
converted into nitric acid.
Yet another indirect source of supply of nitric acid and, there-
fore, of saltpeter is found in the manufacture of coke, for an im-
portant product of the by-product coke industry is ammonia, which
is obtained usually nowadays as ammonium sulphate. I have else-
where shown?” that 15,773 tons of ammonium sulphate were pro-
duced in this country in 1905. But as only 3,317,585 tons of the
37,376,251 tons of coal coked in the census year were coked in by-
product ovens it was possible, had all been so treated, to have ob-
%Report on Calcium Cyanamid, Charles E. Munroe, Washington, April 27,
1907.
>Bulletin No. 65, Census of Manufactures, 1905, Coke, p. 18, by Charles EB.
Munroe.
236 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tained 359,560 tons of ammonium sulphate, all of which if desired
could have been converted into nitric acid for use in the manufacture
of saltpeter or of any desired variety of explosive.
From this account of recent chemical progress it is evident that
it is possible to conduct a prolonged war without robbing the soil
on which the people depend for food of its fertility, and further,
that, notwithstanding the enormous and constantly increasing de-
mand for nitrogen compounds in agriculture and manufacture, this
country has reached a potential degree of independence, as regards
its supply of nitrogen compounds for military uses, such as it never
before enjoyed, so that it needs hereafter to consider foreign sources
of supply only from the economic standpoint. However, I desire to
say regarding the plants for the fixation of nitrogen what I have
repeatedly advised regarding plants for the manufacture of explo-
sives, viz, that it is a wise policy for our Government to foster, and
In a measure supervise, these manufacturing operations, and to look
_to it that plants for these purposes are so strategically located
throughout the country as to be reasonably well protected from
attack, so that they may serve the military establishment in case of
foreign invasion from any quarter or of internal uprisings in any
locality.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Stone.
SIMON NEWCOMB
SIMON NEWCOMB.*
[With 1 plate.]
By ORMOND STONE.
Simon Newcomb was a unique figure in American science.’ Per-
haps no other great American scientist was so many sided, no other,
who approached him in versatility, stood at or so near the head in
various departments of science. He was mathematician; celestial
mechanician; astronomical observer, computer, and_ statistician;
fundamental star cataloguer; author of memoirs on the lunar theory,
of planetary tables, of books on popular astronomy, of mathematical
school and college texts, of books on economics; novelist ; president of
a society for psychical research !
Simon Newcomb was born March 12, 1835, in Wallace, a village of
Nova Scotia, but he was of New England descent. At the age of 17
he went to Salem, Massachusetts, and later to Maryland, where he
taught school for several years. When 22 he became assistant in the
Nautical Almanac office, then located at Cambridge, Massachusetts,
ond also a student in the Lawrence Scientific School, where he later
graduated as bachelor of science. At the age of 25 he received an
appointment as professor of mathematics, United States Navy, and
was assigned to duty in the Naval Observatory in Washington. Six-
teen years later he was placed in charge of the Nautical Almanac
office, which had been removed to Washington, and of which he
remained director from 1877 until 1897, when, having reached the age
of 62, he was placed on the retired list. He continued to reside in
Washington until he died, July 12, 1909. Upon the death of Pro-
fessor Winlock, in 1875, he was offered but declined the directorship
of the Harvard Observatory. From 1884 to 1894 to his duties in the
4 Reprinted by permission from Astrophysical Journal, vol. 30, No. 3, October,
1909.
>The portrait of Professor Newcomb, reproduced herewith, is from a photo-
graph made in 1897 by Mr. A. D. Wyatt, of Brattleboro, Vermont. It therefore
represents Professor Newcomb at the age of 62, in the year of his retirement
from active service in the Navy Department.—Ebs.
237
238 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Nautical Almanac office he added those of professor of mathematics
and astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and editor of the
American Journal of Mathematics. In what foilows no attempt will
be made to give more than the briefest outline of the more important
of his astronomical activities.
The first work that called attention to his genius for research was
carried out in Cambridge while he was an assistant in the Nautical
Almanac office there. The final results were communicated in 1860
to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in a paper showing,
among other things, that so far as present theory could determine,
the orbits of the asteroids had never passed through any common
point of intersection. There was thus no evidence that these little
planets were fragments of a larger planet which had suffered a
cataclysm at some epoch in the distant past, as suggested by Olbers.
In 1862 the 8-inch transit circle of the Naval Observatory was
received and placed in charge of Professor Newcomb, who proceeded
to observe the stars of the American Ephemeris and other miscel-
laneous stars. During 1866 and 1867 the observing programme was
so arranged that as far as possible groups of stars were observed
about twelve hours apart in order to determine the systematic errors
of the star places given in the Ephemeris, and thus obtain results
independent of previous observers. In the volume of Washington
observations for 1870 Professor Newcomb published a memoir on the
right ascensions of the equatorial fundamental stars and the correc-
tions necessary to reduce the right ascensions of different star cata-
logues to a mean homogeneous system. In the first volume of the
Astronomical Papers of the American Ephemeris, a magnificent series
of volumes founded by Professor Newcomb and continued by him
curing his directorship of the Nautical Almanac office, he published
another fundamental catalogue, this time giving both right ascensions
and declinations, derived from all the data then available, as had been
the catalogue previously mentioned. And finally, in the eighth vol-
ume, is given a new determination of the precessional constant and a
catalogue of fundamental stars for the epochs 1875 and 1900, reduced
to an absolute system. This catalogue contains no less than 1,596
stars and is a masterpiece of exhaustive research. The positions
given are likely to remain the standard for some time to come, prob-
ably at least until the observations of Piazzi, Maskelyne, Bessel, and
Pond have been re-reduced. They have already been introduced into
the principal national ephemerides of the world.
Professor Newcomb at an early date became interested in the
question of the sun’s parallax, and in 1869 published an investigation
based upon all the data then available. The result at once became
the standard and so remained for many years. Later, as a member
of the Transit of Venus Commission, he took an active part in pre-
SIMON NEWCOMB—STONE. 239
paring for and directing the expeditions sent by the United States
to various parts of the world to observe the transits of Venus that
occurred in 1874 and 1882. Still later he made a careful study of
the transits of 1761 and 1769, obtaining results agreeing well with
those obtained from more modern observations. In connection with
this investigation, after examining the original records, he vindi-
cated the honesty of the much-maligned Father Hell, who was one of
the principal observers of the transit of 1761 and was afterwards
accused of “cooking” his observations. The importance of the
velocity of light as a means of determining the sun’s distance caused
him to become interested in Michelson’s experiments, and led him to
make similar experiments himself. The acurracy secured far ex-
ceeded that of values previously obtained. Professor Newcomb’s
discussion of all the determinations of solar parallax given in the
supplement to the American Ephemeris for 1897 may be considered
the last word on the subject up to the present time.
In 1865 Professor Newcomb published an investigation of the
orbit of Neptune, including tables of its motions. <A similar treatise
on the motions of Uranus was published in 1873. Both of these
memoirs appeared in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge.
Having thus begun the study of the motions of the solar system, on
taking charge of the Nautical Almanac office, he “deemed it advis-
able to devote all the force which he could spare to the work of de-
riving improved values of the fundamental elements and embodying
them in new tables of celestial motions.” This gigantic purpose he
lived to see completed so far as the major planets were concerned.
As the orbits of Neptune and Uranus were the first to receive his
consideration, so the tables of these planets based upon newly re-
vised theories were his last contribution to the Astronomical Papers
before his retirement from the Nautical Almanac office.
For the solution of the problem of their motions the major planets
were separated into three divisions: (1) The four inner planets;
(2) Jupiter and Saturn; (8) Uranus and Neptune. Reserving for
his own consideration the four inner and the two outer planets, he
assigned the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn to Dr. G. W. Hill, stipu-
lating merely that care be taken to make the work of the latter homo-
geneous with the work on the other major planets; for instance, the
values of the masses of Jupiter and Saturn to be used were to be
assigned by Professor Newcomb. In order to obtain an accurate
determination of the mass of Jupiter, a careful study was made of
the motions of the asteroid Polyhymnia, the eccentricity and major
axis of whose orbit are so large that at times it approaches so near
to Jupiter as to give rise to large perturbations.
As a supplement to the American Ephemeris for 1897, Professor
Newcomb published a brief summary entitled “ The Elements of the
240 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Four Inner Planets and the Fundamental Constants of Astronomy.”
All known meridian observations of the sun and of the planets
Mercury, Venus, and Mars were reduced to a uniform equinox and
system of declinations and compared with Leverrier’s tables. A
similar exhaustive comparison was made for the transits of Venus
and Mercury. The results of these comparisons were then combined
and upon them was based a new determination of the orbits of the
four inner planets, including a more accurate determination of the
deviation of the observed values of the motions of the perihelion of
Mercury and of the node of Venus from the values computed in
accordance with the law of gravitation. It was found that the
observed discrepancies could be accounted for by assuming a ring
of matter lying between the orbits of Mercury and Venus. Professor
Newcomb’s conclusion was, however, for reasons which he gave, that
we can not, in the present condition of knowledge, regard this hy-
pothesis as more than a curiosity.
Tt is true the discussion of theoretic methods of celestial mechanics
was carefully subordinated by Professor Newcomb to the practical
purposes kept steadily in view. Only in this way was it possible to
accomplish such monumental practical results. Nevertheless, his
work did not consist merely in applying the methods of others to the
determination of the actual motions of the planets under considera-
tion; his own contributions to planetary theory were important. In
1874 his paper “On the General Integrals of Planetary Motion ”
appeared in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Assum-
ing that the differential equations of motion can be satisfied approxi-
mately by infinite series containing only terms of the forms
p=c cos (a+bdt) and g=a-+bt
where ¢# is the time, and a, 6, ¢ are arbitrary constants, he showed
that these series could be replaced by similar ones having a higher
degree of approximation, and thus the problem of three bodies could
be solved formally by series containing no terms except of the given
form. Poincaré devotes a large part of the second volume of “ Les
méthodes nouvelles de la mécanique céleste ” to applications of Lind-
stedt’s method, which he shows is essentially that of Newcomb just
mentioned.
Professor Newcomb’s researches on the motions of the moon be-
gan with a paper read before the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science at its meeting in 1868 and written to show that
there is no good reason to suppose that there is any want of coinci-
dence between the center of figure and the center of gravity of the
moon as maintained by Hansen. Next followed various papers call-
ing attention to the extraordinary differences existing between the
positions of the moon as given in Hansen’s tables and as obtained
SIMON NEWCOMB—STONE. 241
from the latest observations made at Greenwich and Washington.
The elements used in Hansen’s tables were based on observations made
between 1750 and 1850. Having found that these tables failed to
satisfy later observations, Newcomb compared them with all known
observations made before 1750. This investigation was aided by a
visit to the principal observatories of Europe which led to the dis-
covery, especially in Paris, of numerous and valuable unpublished
observations of eclipses and occultations. Also, a large part of the
published observations had not before been used for determining the
moon’s place. The comparison when completed disclosed discrep-
ancies that could be explained in two ways: (1) By supposing the
‘discrepancies to be only apparent, arising from inequalities in the
axial rotation of the earth; (2) by assuming empirically a correction
to Hansen’s value of a term depending on the action of Venus and
having a period of two hundred and seventy-three years. Later, from
the exhaustive study of the transits of Mercury from 1677 to 1881,
already referred to, it was inferred that the discrepancies between the
observed and the computed positions of the moon could not be ac-
counted for on the assumption of inequalities in the axial rotation of
the earth, and that “ inequalities in the motion of the moon not ac-
counted for by the theory of gravitation really exist.” The last work
performed by Professor Newcomb, while his life was nearing its end,
was a comparison with Hansen’s tables of all the observations of the
moon to date, made with the aid of a grant from the Carnegie Insti-
tution, a result of which was the confirmation of the existence of devi-
ations apparently not accounted for by the law of gravitation. The
larger part of these he found could be reduced to a single term, as
previously suggested, but the existence of well-marked smaller out-
standing deviations of an apparently irregular character was also
clearly shown.
While the comparisons of Hansen’s tables with observations is
probably the permanent result of greatest value that Professor New-
comb contributed to the study of the moon’s motion, laying as it does
a firm foundation upon which to base the determination of the numer-
ical values of the constants employed, whatever method may ulti-
mately be adopted for the analytical discussion, nevertheless, as in
the case of his study of planetary theory, his theoretical study of the
lunar problem would by itself have been sufficient to have secured
for him a high and enduring place in the history of the subject. His
most important contribution to lunar theory related to the action of
the planets on the moon. His first memoir on this subject appeared
in Liouville’s Journal in 1871. Afterward he published a rediscus-
sion of the problem in the Astronomical Papers. Only a few years
before his death he took up the whole subject again and published a
final memoir in 1907 under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution.
242 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Among Professor Newcomb’s other investigations may be men-
tioned determinations of the orbits of the satellites of Uranus and
Neptune from observations made with the 26-inch refractor of the
Naval Observatory, and his paper on Hyperion, explaining the
remarkable retrograde motion of the line of apsides of that satellite.
His Spherical Astronomy and The Stars are both in their way
pioneers and will ultimately be ranked among the classics of astro-
nomical literature. The Stars, while essentially a statistical research
on the structure of the universe, is written in a simple and lucid style
that gives it an interest to others besides astronomers. Asa result of
his remarkable power of discussing scientific subjects in a manner
capable of comprehension by the intelligent general reader, his pop-
ular works on astronomy are models of their kind and have the ad-
vantage that, being written by a master of his subject, they have an
intrinsic and enduring value not possessed by most other works of
that class. His ability as a popular writer is also seen in his Reminis-
_cences, whch is one of the most attractive autobiographies ever
written.
Recognition of the fact that Professor Newcomb was the leading
astronomer of his time was shown by his election to honorary or
corresponding membership in all the great scientific societies of the
world and by the numerous medals, academic titles, and other dis-
tinguished honors that were showered upon him.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Pluvinel. PLATE 1.
JULES CESAR JANSSEN.
SOLAR-RADIATION RESEARCHES BY JULES CESAR
JANSSEN.¢
[With 1 plate.]
By A. DE LA BAUME PLUVINEL.
The scientific career of Janssen was passed far more in temporary
observatories built in remote parts of the globe and with equipments
easily transportable than in fixed establishments provided with
great instruments. Janssen was thus notably a missionary of science
always ready to devote himself to new efforts in the organization
and leading to success of some new expedition for science. This
spirit of enterprise made him love those voyages where he was sus-
tained with the knowledge that he was devoting himself completely
to science rather than working quietly in his laboratory.
The principal missions undertaken by Janssen had for their objects
the observation of phenomena observable only from some limited
portion of the earth or where he must find a sky favorable to some
delicate experiment. But in either case, Janssen carried on researches
which had the same goal, so his work presents a remarkable unity.
We might indeed say that all his studies were made upon the selec-
tive absorption for radiation by gases. His devotion to this class
of researches was determined by Kirchoff and Bunsen’s discovery
of absorption spectra; indeed the first spectroscopic experiments of
Janssen date from 1862, very shortly after the German physicists had
published their results.
Janssen studied the absorption for solar radiation, on the one hand,
by the surrounding envelopes of the sun itself, on the other, by our
own terrestrial atmosphere. It was while observing these gaseous
envelopes of the sun, which may be seen only during the few short
moments of a total solar eclipse, that he accomplished the first part
of this programme, and in undertaking his classic researches on the
telluric lines, the second. We will follow Janssen through his
studies in these two groups of problems.
@Translated by permission from Astrophysical Journal, September, 1908.
243
244 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Janssen impatiently waited for the total solar eclipse of 1868, for
it was to furnish him the opportunity of studying for the first time
with the spectroscope these solar envelopes. In order to prepare him-
self in some manner for the observation of this important phenome-
non Janssen asked that he might be sent, in 1867, to Trani, in Italy,
to observe an annular eclipse of the sun. His purpose for studying
the spectrum of the sun during the annular eclipse was to see if he
could then detect any trace of absorption due to the solar envelopes.
But he found the spectrum of the annulus the same as that from the
central part of the sun’s disk. During this same eclipse he unsuc-
cessfully tried to see the corona.
But the eclipse of 1868 had in store for him the honor of making
a great discovery. We know that, after having seen in his spectro-
scope the brilliant rays of the protuberances, which appeared during
the totality, that he did not hestitate to affirm, with all the authority
which his great experience in spectroscopy allowed, that he would
-be able to see these same rays without an eclipse. On the next day
he had the joy of confirming his predictions.
We know that Sir Norman Lockyer made the same discovery
independently in England, so that the names of these two scientists
are associated with this so fertile application of spectrum analysis.
Janssen appeared to realize from the very first day all the importance
of the discovery which he had just made. Of this we find the proof
in a letter which he sent to his mother and in which he said: “ I read
to-day from a book which, until now, was closed to all and from
which but glimpses could be got during the few short moments of
a total eclipse.”
The results obtained from the eclipse of 1868 were too enticing
for Janssen to stop on the path which he had just opened for
astronomers, and so he decided to go to Algeria for the total eclipse
of December, 1870. He was unfortunately prevented from observing
this eclipse on account of bad weather, but it furnished remarkable
evidence of his devotion to his work. Apparently imprisoned in
Paris by the siege, Janssen did not fear to risk the dangers of a
balloon voyage in order to break through the lines of the enemy.
This act of courage did more to make him popular than his beauti-
ful discovery about the prominences and, for the public which
realized the real dangers of that time in daring a voyage through
the air, this audacious way of escaping from the beleagured capital
gave a measure of the devotion to stience of which Janssen was
capable. Janssen retained from this aerial trip, made under such
perilous conditions, a sincere love for aerial navigation. Many
occasions came for proving his interest in this science in giving to
aeronauts valuable counsel, in consenting to preside over various
SOLAR RESEARCHES BY JANSSEN—PLUVINEL. 245
aeronautical meetings, and in giving bountiful hospitality, at Meu-
don, to the International Congress of Aerostation.
In the year after the eclipse of 1870 there came another, visible this
time in India and Java. Janssen was careful not to lose this new
opportunity for the examination of the solar envelopes. <A careful
study of the meteorological aspects of the various places where the
eclipse might be visible made him adopt a station in India, in the
Neelgheries; the outcome showed the justice of his choice, for it
would have been scarcely possible to observe an eclipse under more
favorable conditions. This time Janssen confined his attention prin-
cipally to the corona. He noted in the spectrum of this, not only
the green ray, whose presence was already known, but also dark
lines, indicating that a part of the light of the corona is reflected
sunlight, and tending to prove that the coronal envelope is not
exclusively gaseous but composed partly of liquid or solid particles.
In 1875 we again find Janssen observing an eclipse, this time near
the island of Malacca, on the return voyage from a trip to Japan.
Then, in 1883, with no fear for the fatigue of a difficult voyage,
he went to the island of Carolina, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,
in order to observe a total solar eclipse remarkable for the duration
of totality. Thanks to the silver-bromide gelatine dry plates, which
had then just been invented, he was able to photograph the phe-
nomena of this eclipse under very varied conditions, and brought
back data of the greatest interest on the extent of the solar corona.
Before terminating this work Janssen wished to observe for a
last time these beautiful phenomena, which for him had always had
such a fascination. So, in 1905, despite his advanced age, he went
to Spain to have the pleasure of seeing an eclipse, more as a curious
human being than as an astronomer.
We have now seen what Janssen accomplished in the investiga-
tion of the gaseous surroundings of the sun by the application of
the spectroscope to the study of solar eclipses. We will now pass
in review his work upon the absorption of our own atmosphere
for the radiation from the sun.
The first of these spectroscopic studies relates to the black bands
which appear in the sun’s spectrum as the sun nears the horizon.
These had already been noted by Sir David Brewster, but the latter
recognized neither the real structure of these bands nor the cause
of their appearance. By observations made in Rome from 1862 to,
1863 Janssen found that these bands were resolvable into lines, and
proved that their origin must be attributed to the selective absorp-
tion produced upon the solar rays by the gases of our own atmos-
phere. Later it was found that the oxygen in the air produced the
bands A, a, and B, which appear in the solar spectrum. But the
oxygen of our atmosphere might not be the only oxygen giving
246 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
birth to these lines, for its existence in the envelopes of the sun could
as well play in the production in the phenomena. With respect to
the theory of the sun, it is of the greatest importance to know
whether oxygen coexists with hydrogen in the solar envelopes.
Janssen, indeed, attributed to the question of this existence of oxygen
in the sun a capital importance, and so he searched by all the methods
available to find out whether the bands, A, a, and B, had their origin
in both solar and terrestrial absorption or were produced solely by
our atmosphere. In order to solve this problem he produced these
absorption bands in his own laboratory in such a manner as to see
whether a column of oxygen equivalent to the oxygen contained in
the air would produce bands of the same intensity as those we ob-
serve in the solar spectrum. The same train of thought caused him
to observe the spectrum of a luminous source so far distant that the
air intervening between it and his apparatus would produce an ab-
sorption equivalent to that of all the air between us and the sun
- and at different heights of the sun above the horizon. Then we find
him making, in a sense, the reverse experiment—diminishing sufh-
ciently the action of the interposed air until the bands under ex-
amination are no longer visible.
The study of gaseous spectra was carried on very extensively by
Janssen. He examined at his spectroscope the light from a source
producing a continuous spectrum after this hght had traversed tubes
containing gases under various pressures and temperatures. His
laboratory, situated in the old stables of the chateau at Meudon,
allowed him to use tubes reaching a length of 60 meters. His re-
searches related chiefly to oxygen. By varying the pressure of the
gas in the tube he could at will make the absorption lines of oxygen
disappear, especially the line B. His experiments showed that cer-
tain absorption lines—B, for instance—always appeared when the
product of the length of the tube by the pressure of the gas reached
a certain value.
The experiments upon the absorption lines of oxygen led Janssen
to a remarkable phenomenon which required repetition with the per-
fected means at the disposal of modern physics. He discovered
that, besides the telluric rays, the absorption spectrum of oxygen
showed, under certain conditions, a system of bands difficult to re-
solve into lines, and whose production was ruled by an entirely
different law than that stated above for the telluric lines. These bands
appear when the product of the length of the tube by the square of -
the pressure reaches a certain value. This law had a remarkable
confirmation when Olszewski studied the spectrum of liquid oxygen.
It was found that the bands of Janssen appeared when the layer of
liquid oxygen reached a thickness which the law of the square of the
pressure would require. Janssen confirmed his law in yet another
SOLAR RESEARCHES BY JANSSEN—PLUVINEL. vay
manner. He calculated that when the height of the sun above the
horizon is less than 4 degrees the thickness of the layer of air
traversed by the solar rays would be sufficient to produce these lines.
And so he went to the Desert of Sahara in order to observe the sun
under these conditions and noted the presence of these bands when
the sun had reached precisely this altitude of 4 degrees.
This remarkable law must have an importance for the theory of
molecular physics which has not yet been sufficiently appreciated.
In his researches at the laboratory of Meudon, Janssen was not con-
tent with trying the effect of the variation of the length and pressure
of his column of gas traversed by the light; he also raised the gas to
high temperatures in order to approach somewhat the conditions as
they exist in the sun. By electrical means, very remarkable for the
time when they were devised, Janssen was able to raise his gas to
a temperature of 900° C. No new phenomenon appeared at that
temperature, but the visibility of the absorption bands was somewhat
increased.
The absorption produced by water vapor also was studied at
Meudon. Already at the beginning of his spectroscopic studies in
1867, Janssen had observed the absorption spectrum of water vapor
by causing the luminous rays to pass through a tube 37 meters long
filled with this vapor. This remarkable experiment, made at the gas
manufactory of Vilette, allowed Janssen to recognize the principal
lines due to the absorption of water vapor. This research was taken
up under better conditions and with better apparatus at the labora-
tory at Meudon in 1887.
The object of this study of the spectrum of water vapor was to find
out whether it exists in the atmospheres of the planets. This question,
which is of capital importance to astronomers, always very greatly
interested Janssen. In 1867 on Mount Etna, and then in 1869 on
the Himalaya Mountains, Janssen observed the spectrum of Mars to
see whether he could detect in its spectrum the principal lines due to
the presence of water vapor. To that end he compared the spectrum
of Mars and the moon when these two bodies were at the same altitude
above the horizon. Janssen concluded from his observations that the
spectrum of Mars gave plain evidence of the presence of the vapor of
water in the atmosphere of that planet and he considered this evi-
dence sufficiently decisive to maintain these conclusions when, in 1895,
Campbell announced that the great instruments of the Lick Observa-
tory would not show to him the trace of any water vapor on Mars.
And now, very recently, Mr. Slipher, of the Lowell Observatory, has
obtained photographs in which the lines due to water vapor appear
more intense in the spectrum of Mars than in that of the moon. This
seems to support Janssen’s conclusions.
45745°—sm 1909——17
248 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Let us return to Janssen’s researches on oxygen. After his labora-
tory studies of the conditions relating to the production of these
absorption bands of oxygen, Janssen wished to obtain them by inter-
posing between the luminous source and the observer a column of air
sufficiently long to produce them. In 1889 the Eiffel tower had just
been constructed and a great electric light placed at the summit
could be turned toward the observatory at Meudon, and furthermore
the distance between the tower and the observatory was 7.7 kilometers,
so that the light, before reaching the observatory, traversed a column
of air exactly equivalent, so far as its absorption goes, to our own at-
mosphere. These conditions produced the lines of the absorption
spectrum of oxygen of exactly the same intensity as in the solar
spectrum and brought a new confirmation of the exclusively terres-
trial origin of these bands.
This experiment of the tower of Eiffel is practically a repetition of
another ingenious one made by Janssen, about 1864, on the shores of
~ Lake Geneva. <A large wood fire was kindled at Nyon upon one of
the banks of the lake; although close-to the spectrum of this fire
appeared continuous, yet it showed, when observed at Geneva, at a
distance from the fire of 21 kilometers, the telluric rays, including
those of water vapor.
We have already said that Janssen was not content with having
produced artificially by one method the absorption lines of water
vapor; he wished to make the reverse experiment and assure him-
self that as we go higher and higher up in the atmosphere the telluric
lines tend to disappear; that is to say, in proportion as we decrease
the layer of air interposed between the sun and the observer. It
was with this object in mind that Janssen undertook several mountain
ascents; that of Faulhorn first, in 1864, then the Pic du Midi, and
more recently of Mount Blanc. In the first ascent of the Grands
Mulets, in 1888, he demonstrated clearly that the lines of the group
B were less intense at an altitude of 3,000 meters than at Meudon, and
in the ascent to the summit in 1893 and 1895 he believed that the last
doublet of the B group had disappeared completely. His lameness
made this mountain climbing particularly difficult, as in order to
reach the summit of Mount Blanc he had to be carried along either
on a litter or on a sledge. From these expeditions to Mount Blane
Janssen came back convinced that an observatory built on the very
summit of this famous peak would render important service to
science and help to solve many problems of astronomy, meteorology,
and physiology. The astronomer ascending to this altitude would be
free from what has been called by some one “ atmospheric mud,” and
the light from the stars would appear less deviated and diffuse; the
meteorologist, placed in the very bosom of the atmosphere, could
SOLAR RESEARCHES BY JANSSEN—PLUVINEL. 249
snatch the secrets of the formation of the clouds; and finally, the
physiologist, in this elevated laboratory, could study the conditions
of life where the atmospheric pressure had become one-half that at
the ordinary level.
When this observatory at Mount Blanc had been decided upon it
required no common strength of purpose in Janssen to carry out
the project. By his convincing words he succeeded in gathering
together the necessary money and then braving his critics he fear-
lessly built his structure upon the snow on the very top of Mount
Blanc, overlooking from that culminating point all the surrounding
Alps. Perhaps jt is in this project of the creation of the observatory
of Mount Blanc that we get the best measure of the energy, the
tenacity of purpose, and the audacity of which Janssen was capable.
And it was indeed concerning the realization of this project that he
said, “I have always thought that there are very few difficulties
which can not be surmounted by a will strong enough or by study
sufficiently profound.” During the last years of his life Janssen had
for this observatory on Mount Blanc the solicitude of a father for
the child. Each year he took delight in giving advice to those ob-
servers who proposed to ascend this giant of the Alps for the purpose
of some new research; he organized the expeditions even to the small-
est details, aided in this task by both Mme. and Mlle. Janssen.
Janssen was an enthusiast of the mountains and never ceased to
praise their benefits. He loved to repeat to the mountain climbers
that phrase of our great physicist, Foucault, “The mountain makes
the man, the city destroys him.”
We have seen the train of thought which led Janssen to observe
eclipses of the sun, to carry out his laboratory researches, to analyze
at high altitudes the light of the sun, to study the absorption pro-
duced by the gases of the sun and by our own atmosphere. But
beyond the limits of these studies Janssen took interest in other
questions which brought with them the opportunity of satisfying his
taste for long voyages. In 1874 and in 1882 he was in charge of the
parties sent by France to observe the transits of Venus over the sun’s
disk. For the study of this phenomenon the idea occurred to him
of using a revolving photographic plate. With this instrument could
be obtained a series of photographs separated by short intervals of
time, so that the precise moment of the contact of Venus with the
solar disk could be told. This revolving photograph was the pre-
cursor of the apparatus of M. Marey for the study of the movements
of animals, and it is upon its principle that the motion pictures of
to-day are made.
The study of volcanoes, and especially the spectrum analysis of
the gases which escape from the craters, attracted the attention of
250 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Janssen and was the cause of voyages to Santorin, to the Azores,
to the Sandwich Islands, and finally to Mount Vesuvius.
Oftentimes these voyages were utilized for the determination of
the magnetic elements of the earth. Indeed, his first scientific expe-
dition had for its object the determination of the magnetic equator
in Peru; then later he made, in the Azores, magnetic observations
for geological purposes, and to him also we owe the determination
of the magnetic equator in India and the neighboring island of
Malacca.
But all these voyages were not enough to use up his energy. Be-
tween whiles he founded, in 1874, the Observatory of Meudon, and
apart from the observations on the absorption spectra of gases, of
which we have already spoken, he was busy with applications of
photography, notably to the solar disk. Janssen was one of the
first to foresee the services which the photographic plate could render
in the observatory, and he tersely indicated the role which it would
‘play in the science of observation when he said that it would be the
“true retina of the scientist.” ;
Assisted first by M. Arents, and then by M. Pasteur, he obtained
at Meudon the remarkable series of solar photographs of which the
more characteristic ones have been embodied in an atlas which is a
true monument to the history of the sun. These photographs were
made especially for the study of the character of the solar surface
and show most delicate details of the photosphere. Examining
them closely, Janssen found that the solar surface has a peculiar
texture, to which he gave the name photospheric “reseau.” The
existence of this reseau was at first attributed to real displacements
of the granulated structure of the photosphere, but later it seemed
more probable that the cause must be looked for in the irregular
refractions produced perhaps by our own atmosphere but possibly
by the gases surrounding the sun itself.
Photography has always occupied a place of honor at the Observa-
tory of Meudon, and, not content with the qualitative results which
it had hitherto given, Janssen wished to make use of it for quanti-
tative observations. And so we owe to him numerous photographic
photometric researches and, notably, the determination of the rela-
tive brillancy of the sun and the stars. He was one of the first to
make use of out-of-focus stellar disks for photometric measures.
Janssen had a predilection for photography which embraced all the
application of this science and of which he gave proof by accepting
the invitations to preside over numerous reunions and congresses of
photographic societies.
Janssen was above all an observer and man of action. He did not
allow himself to be tempted by the desire of giving his name to a
SOLAR RESEARCHES BY JANSSEN—PLUVINEL. 251
theory of the sun. He knew that it is more useful to gather together
observations than to build theories upon facts insufficiently dem-
onstrated. But we must not conclude that the mind of Janssen was
indifferent to speculation. In a number of his writings is found a
depth of reasoning which gives evidence of his care in going to the
very roots of matters.
Born in 1824, Janssen did not devote himself completely to science
until toward 1860, at the age of 36, but his scientific career was,
nevertheless, as long as that of many scientists, for he retained until
late all his faculties for work and died on the 23d of last December,
after having reached his eighty-fourth year.
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THE RETURN OF HALLEY’S COMET.2
[With 4 plates. ]
By W. W.- CAMPBELL,
A celestial event of unusual interest is expected soon—the return
of Halley’s comet. Its appearance will be welcomed as the coming
of a faithful friend, whose visits to the sun’s domains have repeated
themselves every seventy-seven years since long before the time of
Christ. Any day may bring the news that this object has been redis-
covered, near the northern edge of the constellation Orion; but we are
really not expecting the announcement until the last third of 1909.
The comet will be faint when first seen, for we know quite closely
where to look, and the most powerful photographic telescopes in
several countries are periodically “ prospecting ” the critical region.
Why is this comet known as Halley’s? The incidents connected
with its christening form an interesting chapter in the early history
of astronomy. A brilliant comet appeared in 1682, when Halley
was a young man, in England. This was Halley’s comet, but his
name was not connected with it until much later, as we shall explain.
Halley’s friend, the great Sir Isaac Newton, had but recently (about
1670-1680) discovered the law of gravitation, and had proved that
a comet or other body completely subject to the sun’s attraction
must move in an ellipse around the sun. Newton was of a retiring
disposition and took no steps to make known his immortal discov-
eries. * Halley, on the contrary, was a man of action. These charac-
teristics of the two men are apparent from their portraits. The
manuscript copy of Newton’s Principia was intrusted to Halley, and
the latter, in the absence of other funds available for the purpose,
published the book in 1686, at his own expense, though he was a man
of small financial means. This act alone stamps Halley as worthy
of our homage.
Halley realized the wonderful import of the great law, certainly
as early as 1685, but his opportunity for systematic work in astron-
“Reprinted by permission from Publications of the Astronomical Society of
the Pacific, San Francisco. Vol. 21, No. 128. October, 1909.
€
|
2593
254 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
omy did not come until 1704, when he was appointed professor of
geometry at Oxford. He immediately began the study of comets,
basing his studies upon Newton’s law. He became the first great
calculator of comet orbits. Ina little more than a year he had twenty-
four to his credit; orbits of all the comets, in fact, for which he could
find accurate observations. This meant prodigious labor, in those
days, for the good observations and the highly developed methods
of our time were unknown. He found that three comets out of the
twenty-four had traveled from distant space, around the sun, and out
into distant space, along the same path, whereas the other twenty-one
had each a different path. Were these three comets one and the same
body? If so, their common orbit must be an ellipse. . The crude ob-
servations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not permit
him to decide whether the orbit was a long ellipse or a parabola (a
curve extending out to an infinitely great distance). If the latter, the
three comets would have traveled away from our solar system never
-to return. If they were the same body, they should have returned at
about equal intervals of time; and this is what did occur, for the dates
when the three comets had been nearest to the sun were August 24,
1531; October 16, 1607 (interval, 76.2 years) ; September 4, 1682 (in-
terval, 74.9 years).
The small inequality of intervals he correctly attributed to the
disturbing attractions of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. He pre-
dicted that the great comet would complete another revolution in
its orbit in seventy-five or seventy-six years and reappear about
1758. He said that he could not predict the time more accurately,
for the effects of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s disturbing attractions were
not yet computed. Halley (born 1656, died 1742) knew that he
would not live to witness the return, but he confidently and patri-
otically called upon posterity to remember that this prediction had
been made by an Englishman—* ab homine Anglo.”
The comet did return in March, 1759. It was a little later than
expected because of the disturbing attractions of the planets Uranus
and Neptune, which had not yet been discovered, and whose influence
upon the comet’s orbit, therefore, could not be taken into aécount.
This was indeed a great triumph in exact science, made possible by
Newton’s overwhelming genius and Halley’s vigor. It is easy to
predict the returns of comets in the twentieth century, but this is so
because Newton and Halley lived and labored as pioneers.
ITalley’s comet reappeared in 1835, within a few days of the pre-
dicted time. It is due to be again “in perihelion,” i. e., nearest to
the sun, in the first half of April, 1910. The comet, though invisible,
is at present (April, 1909) much closer to us than Jupiter is, and
slowly drawing nearer to the sun. When we may expect to see it
HALLEY ’S COMET—CAMPBELL. 955
without telescopic assistance and how bright it will be at maximum
are too uncertain for prediction. Certainly for a few months in the
first half of 1910 it should be a conspicuous object. Comets brighten
and develop their tails as they approach the sun, reaching their
greatest development when in or near perihelion. For this
reason it is their unfortunate practice to disappear from view in the
sun’s glare just when they are largest, and Halley’s comet will be
out of sight for a few days while it is passing on the other side of
the sun, probably in March, 1910. We should see it at its best just
after perihelion passage.
The history of this most famous of comets prior to Halley’s first
date, 1531, has been traced by three able English astronomers, Hind,
Cowell, and Crommelin, as far back as B. C. 240. In all, twenty-
nine appearances recorded in history have been identified. These
have occurred at average intervals of seventy-six and three-quarters
years. The individual values of the intervals have varied between
seventy-four and a half and seventy-nine years, according as the
disturbing actions of the planets combined to shorten or to lengthen
the period.
There are extant several quaint pictorial representations at many
of its early returns. An especially interesting one, though of mini-
mum scientific value is for the return in 1066—the year of William
the Conqueror’s invasion—as preserved in the famous Bayeux tapes-
try. Sir John Herschel’s drawing is probably our best record of
its appearance at the 1835 return. Fortunately we now have pho-
tography to make permanent records of both its general and its de-
tailed structure. The dry plate puts down details which the eye
can not see, and it does the work with great accuracy. Since Bar-
nard’s pioneer success in the photography of comets at the Lick
Observatory, about 1890, no one seriously attempts to “draw” a
comet. An inspection of the two photographs of comet Morehouse,
just visible to the naked eye in the fall of 1908, will show the rich-
ness of structural detail, none of which could be seen in any existing
telescope.
The long elliptical orbit of Halley’s comet and the nearly circular
orbits of the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are
represented in the figure—approximately to the correct scale; but it
should be said that the plane of the comet’s orbit makes an angle of
18° with the earth’s orbit plane. The comet’s orbit therefore passes
“ through ” the planetary orbits like the two adjacent links of a chain.
The comet will approach within 56,000,000 miles of the sun, and
then recede during thirty-eight years until it is far beyond Neptune’s
path. In perihelion it must travel 34 miles per second, but at the
outer turning its speed will be less than 1 mile a second. (See fig. 1.)
256 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
For purposes of description, it has been found convenient to divide
the structure of a comet into three parts, as follows:
1. The densest and brightest part near the center of the head, called
“the nucleus.” Nearly all the mass of a typical comet resides in the
nucleus.
2. The coma, or envelope, of low density surrounding the nucleus.
In occasional comets the head consists entirely of coma without an
apparent nucleus.
3. The tail, which always points approximately away from the
sun. When the comet is traveling toward the sun the tail follows the
head; when the comet is going away from the sun the tail precedes
the head. This is illustrated in the drawing of the comet’s orbit.
Fic. 1.—Orbits of the planets and the comet. (The smallest circle is the earth’s orbit.)
The fact that a comet’s tail always points away from the sun was
early recognized. There could be no doubt that some force origi-
nating in the sun was repellent to the materials composing the tail;
but to determine the nature of this force defied us for generations.
Since the coming of photography and the accurate recording of
details of comet structure utterly invisible to the eye, it has been
possible to measure these motions. Comparisons of photographs of
the same comet made two or three hours apart have shown that con-
densations and other structural forms have moved rapidly outward
during the interval; only a few miles per second at first, but faster
and faster as the distance out in the tail increased. Some observed
speeds have been nearly 50 miles per second. Fifty miles per second
HALLEY’S COMET—CAMPBELL. 957
is more than 4,000,000 miles per day. If such motions exist, the con-
stituents of the tail on one night are not the constituents of the tail of
the following nights. Photographs of many comets taken on certain
nights seem to bear no resemblance to those taken on the preceding
or following night. The tails of the earlier dates have been driven
off into space, scattered into invisibility, and entirely new tails have
taken their places. The forces acting outwardly from the sun and
responsible for these expulsions were mysterious, and it is only within
the last ten years that a fairly satisfactory theory has been established.
Half a century ago the great physicist, Clerk-Maxwell, in developing
the electro-magnetic theory of light, deduced mathematically that the
so-called light and heat waves, in striking upon any object, exert a
pressure upon that object, very much as ocean waves falling upon
the cliffs press against the obstructing rocks. The pressure due to
hight and heat waves, called radiation pressure, is extremely slight;
so slight, in fact, that skilled experimenters were unable to detect its
existence for many years. At last, about the year 1900, a Russian
physicist, Lebedew, was able to observe this effect; and a few months
later two American physicists, Nichols and Hull, were even more
successful, for their accurate observations showed a satisfactory
agreement with the demands of Maxwell’s theory.
Almost immediately the famous Swedish scientist, Arrhenius, ex-
pressed his belief that in this pressure of the sun’s heat and light
waves we have the force which forms comets’ tails. All the materials
of a comet are necessarily attracted by the sun, according to the law
of gravitation. There can be no doubt that they are also acted upon
by radiation pressure. The former seeks to draw all into the sun, the
latter to drive them into outer space. These are opposing forces. On
the more massive parts of a comet, comprising the nucleus, radiation
pressure is ineffective; and the nucleus moves along in its prescribed
curve with remarkable precision. Not so with the finely divided
materials of the coma and tail. Gravity acts as a function of a par-
ticle’s mass, whereas radiation pressure’s action is dependent upon
the surface-area of a particle in relation to its mass. As particles
become smaller and smaller a size will be reached such that these
opposing forces will be precisely balanced. Particles larger than
these will be drawn nearer to the sun. Particles smaller will recede
from the sun.
What seems to take place in a comet is something like this: Minute
particles of solid matter or molecules of gas are expelled from the
nucleus chiefly on the side toward the sun, probably under the influ-
ence of the sun’s heat. Radiation pressure acts upon these particles
to turn them directly away from the sun; and the cloud of particles
thus projected forms the tail. As the repellant forces act continu-
ously, the particles must travel continuously faster; and this is the
258 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
observed fact. Smaller and less dense particles must travel more
rapidly than the larger and denser ones.
The constant expulsion of matter along the tail into outer space
must of necessity cause a comet to grow smaller. Disintegration is
continuous, and the tail at any moment is made up of materials lost
forever from the nucleus. Several faint comets moving around the
sun In small orbits have been observed to be fainter at each succes-
sive return. Some have even disappeared entirely. Two such com-
ets, now lost to view, reveal themselves. only by virtue of meteor
showers about the middle of August and the middle of November;
the matter composing their nuclei has been scattered along their
orbits, and the annual passing of the earth across these orbits leads
to collisions between the cometary fragments and our higher atmos-
phere. There is no reason to doubt that Halley’s comet is slowly
disintegrating, and, after long ages, will suffer some such fate.
Our knowledge of the chemical composition of comets and of the
‘state in which cometary matter exists is meager and unsatisfactory.
A few give spectra very like that of our own sun, indicating that
they are shining by reflected sunlight, as the planets shine. Other
comets send out their own light, almost exclusively, the radiations
coming chiefly from carbon and cyanogen sources. Still others have
mixed spectra, showing both inherent hight and reflected light. Why
comets shine by virtue of light within themselves is a mystery, for it
is difficult to conceive that such attenuated bodies should have the
heat of incandescence throughout their mass. Although many com-
ets have volumes thousands of times as great as the sun’s volume,
their total mass is insignificant even in comparison with that of the
earth; and such mass as they have is nearly all in the nucleus. The
tails are surely less dense than the most perfect vacuum we can
produce in the laboratory.
Halley’s comet is due to pass near the earth in May, 1910, perhaps
within 10,000,000 miles of us. Let no one draw the inference that
there may be a dangerous collision with the earth, for such is not the
‘ase. Their paths are too widely separated. Even if the path of
the comet were entirely unknown, we could say that the chance of a
collision with the denser nucleus is so small as not to call for consid-
eration. And if we should pass through the tail there would be no
evidence of such an encounter, unless it consist of a harmless meteor
shower, for the tails of comets are certainly composed of exceedingly
minute and widely scattered particles.
The ancients thought of comets as hairy objects, from the appear-
ance of the tails; hence the origin of the term “comet,” from the
Greek kometes, signifying “ long-haired.” This belief prevailed cer-
tainly up to Halley’s day and generation.
HALLEY’S COMET—CAMPBELL. 259
All sorts of fantastic and fearsome ideas have attached to comets,
from early historical times to near the close of the nineteenth century.
The writer remembers clearly that his neighbors of thirty years ago
considered comets to be messengers of disaster. The greatest comet
of the nineteenth century, Donati’s, of 1858, was the accredited fore-
runner of our civil war. Menieral Rone cenr tine of comets as
flaming swords were common. (See fig. 2.)
In Homer’s [liad, XTX, 381, we read:
Like the red star, that from his flaming hair
Shakes down disease, pestilence, and war.
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I'1G. 2.—Representation of comets as flaming swords.
From Evelyn’s Diary of 1624:
* * * the effect of that comet, 1618, still working in the prodigious revolu-
tions now beginning in Europe, especially in Germany.
From Milton’s Paradise Lost, IT, 708-711:
* * * and like a comet burn’d,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In th’ Arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.
Not the least of the services of science to civilization has been the
~ gradual emancipation of humanity from all fear of comets.
Astronomers will welcome the coming of Halley’s comet, full ae
hope that the photo-dry-plate, the spectroscope, and other ways and
means of attack invented since its last visit in 1835 will enable them
to remove something of the mystery of comets, the most mysterious
of all celestial bodies.
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THE UPPER AIR.¢
By E. Goip and W. A. Harwoop.
The past decade has been very fruitful in the investigation of the
upper air. By the use of kites sufficient results have been obtained
to furnish a tolerably complete knowledge of the variation in the
meteorological elements up to a height of 2 kilometers, while register-
ing balloons have furnished information regarding the distribution
of temperature up to heights of 15 to 20 kilometers. The results
of the Berlin manned balloon ascents were arranged and discussed
very fully ten years ago, but no such comprehensive discussion of the
much more numerous kite and registering balloon ascents has yet
been attempted. The present report deals with the instruments and
methods of investigation, and with the results for temperature and
for wind.?
The most important series of the earlier ascents with manned
balloons was that made by Glaisher in 1860-1870. Unfortunately he
was led to believe that artificial ventilation of the thermometers was
unnecessary, with the result that his observations at great altitudes
are untrustworthy. In the series of ascents made from Berlin in
1888-1895 observations made with careful ventilation proved beyond
doubt that large errors would arise in the absence of proper ventila-
tion, and that Glaisher’s results were almost certainly affected by
such errors.
7 Report on the present state of our knowledge of the upper atmosphere as
obtained by the use of kites, balloons, and pilot balloons. Report of the com-
niittee, consisting of Messrs. E.-Gold and W. A. Harwood, presented at the
Winnipeg meeting of the British Association, 1909. Reprinted by permission
from Nature, London, No. 2089, vol. 82, Nov. 11, 1909.
>The full report of the committee is printed in an octavo pamphlet of 54
pages, with diagrams and tabulated observations, and gives an interesting his-
torical review of the upper atmosphere investigations since 1784.
261
262 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The following table shows the nature of the errors, and incidentally
furnishes a comparison with one of the earlier ballon-sonde ascents:
fal oem) Saleen
Height (meters). a ie
Glaisher.| Berson. and. Ballon:
Siiring. | ~* i
O=1 000 Rrrcscemataclcteisistaeiee erorsietainie lei cistererte aiarsicicieteerelseciaietaincie 7.5 5.0 Ue”? 8.3
VOOO=2000: fare oo cs eroeteiaia.d Siarwisaiseye,o.e hm sisininteiee wie rsiaicleleie sles wioses of 6.5 5.0 6.8 6.1
2OOO=SOO 0 arya a atararare Nata (of oYare ct (ol Nota ye iatatare alevolcieisis ete (eaicinisiersisioeisiots 5.0 5.4 3.7 4.2
SOOO —LO0 Oras erecta eetance tere lero totey=te byeieie e istavelelee relate ae lowicjatats cltesersioteiste 4,2 5.3 5.2 5.1
ANDO OOO eer ra mee etcpen cee ie ema ete to ateialeverers<ssieteie te eios nia elaeiererteceere 3.8 6.4 7.4 5.7
HOOO=600 Or Boose co,ciwie wiatet cba ae eine hoe wielio aloe wares Sema ee ciae 3.2 6.9 5.5 6.3
GO00=7000 2 Saas iar ah cic ac lnloc Siete mae lacie jaca we pacieermenieieee 3.0 6.6 We 4.7
TOOO=SO0O = cate ers ict rates ace ave einer sais (e(ssrelace s cierereie avaio aie. s soainieleivic\ayswisizimnale 2.0 7.0 te? 7.6
SOD0=0000 coe Bena se eee aetlacot Chena ee Asan ates eee aee 1.8 O10. ||) SG) | eeezat
Temperature observations in manned balloons are now usually taken
with an Assmann’s aspirator, in which a ventilating current of about
4 m. p. s. is forced by a fan through a polished tube containing the
thermometer and screening it from radiation.
The instruments used with registering balloons are of two types.
In the large type the record is made on a metal or photographic sheet,
covered with lampblack, and wrapped round a revolving cylinder
driven by a clock. Pressure, temperature, and humidity are recorded
by separate pens. The barometer is a Bourdon tube or an aneroid,
the thermometer some form of bimetallic instrument, and the hy-
grometer a bundle of hairs. In the small type the temperature record
is traced on a cylinder or plate, which is itself moved at right angles
to the direction of motion of the temperature lever by the changes of
pressure. The temperature and pressure are then given by the ordi-
nates and abscisse of the trace obtained. The advantage of this
arrangement is that no clock is required, and the instrument can
be made much lighter and is more easily tested. The loss of the
humidity trace is unimportant, because the hygrometric records at
low temperatures are very untrustworthy, and the observations in the
lower layers can be made with kites or manned balloons.
The instruments used with kites are similar to the ballon-sonde
instruments of the larger type, but they have an arrangement for
recording wind velocity. In the Dines instrument the records are
traced on a flat, circular sheet of cardboard rotated by means of a
clock and resting on a wooden tray beneath which the instruments are
placed.
The ballon-sonde instruments are tested either (1) by keeping the
thermometer at ordinary atmospheric pressure in testing for tempera-
ture and the barometer at ordinary temperatures in testing for pres-
UPPER AIR—-GOLD AND HARWOOD. 263
sures, or (2) by testing the thermometer through the temperature
range at different pressures and the barometer through the pressure
range at different temperatures. The second is, of course, the more
desirable plan, but the difficulties involved in applying it to the larger
tvpe of instrument are so considerable that the former method is
generally adopted where such instruments are used. The simplicity
of the smaller type of instrument devised by Dines enables the second
method to be adopted in testing it without elaborate and expensive
apparatus.
Temperature records obtained simultaneously with different instru-
ments show differences which, in the mean, do not exceed 1° C., and
the temperatures may, in general, be taken to be correct to this degree
of accuracy, but lagging of the instruments makes it doubtful if in all
cases the recorded temperatures and heights actually correspond.
In dealing with the observations it is found convenient to express
temperatures in degrees centigrade above the absolute zero, —273° C.
on the ordinary scale. Where necessary the letter A is used to char-
acterize this scale. Atmospheric temperatures, both at the surface
and in the upper air, lie almost always between 200° A and 300° A,
so that the 2 may be dropped without risk of confusion. Gradients
of temperature are expressed in degrees centigrade per kilometer, and
are reckoned +- when temperature decreases upward.
The mean value of the gradient up to 3 kilometers is as follows:
Degrees.
From the Berlin manned balloon ascents, 1888-1897______________________ al
From the Berlin manned balloon ascents, 1897-1907_.____-_-______________ 4.8
Hromeihe Berlinvand windenbersskitesascentse = a ee ea 4.7
Calculated by Hann from mountain observations___---___________________ ay, Uf
It follows from these results that the mountains are colder than the
free atmosphere at the same height, and maney observers have verified
this fact by direct comparison. Shaw and Dines found that in July,
1902, the temperature on Ben Nevis was 2.6° C. below that of the free
atmosphere at the same height to the west of the mountain. Schmauss
found that the temperature on Zugspitze (nearly 3,000 meters), which
lies on the northern edge of a mountainous region, was continually
lower than that of the free atmosphere, but was higher than that at
the same height on Sonnblick, which hes in the middle of the Alps.
It was pointed out by Von Bezold that increase of temperature on
a mountain is limited by convection, whereas no immediate limit is
set in this way to cooling. There is a one-sidedness in the heat
exchange between the mountain surface and the atmosphere which
would tend to produce the result found by observation. Moreover,
convection always tends to raise the temperature of the upper air
above what it would be otherwise, and in addition the cold of winter
is, as 1t were, stored up in the snow, while no such process holds for
45745°—sm 1909——18
264 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the warmth of summer. Both conditions are probably effective in
increasing the temperature difference. The most important deduc-
tion to be made from the results is that the mountains are not cold
because the upper air is cooled by convection, but they are cooled by
their radiation to space.
The mean values of the gradients up to 15 kilometers, found from
registering balloon ascents at ten European stations and for St. Louis,
Mo., are given in the table:
Gradient. Gradient.
Height. > Height. =
Europe. | St. Louis. Europe. | St. Louis.
Km Km
0-1 3.6 Soll 8-0 6.8 7.4
1-2 4.3 583 9-10 5.0 6.7
2-3 5.2 4.7 10-11 3.0 5.5
3-4 5.8 5.2 11-12 0.7 2.9
4-5 6.3 5.9 12-13 —0.8 1.4
5-6 6.8 GRY 13-14 0.0 0.6
6-7 Ub? 7.8 14-15 —0.1 —0.9
7-8 7.4 8.7
The maximum value occurs in the layer 7 to 8 kilometers, and its
magnitude indicates that the effect of radiation is to leave practically
unchanged the natural gradient in air in vertical motion. Gold
showed that in the upper layers absorption exceeded radiation and
in the lower layers radiation exceeded absorption, and both processes
would diminish the temperature gradient. At an intermediate stage
absorption and radiation must balance, and the results indicate that
this is the case at a height of 7 to 8 kilometers. The temperature at
different heights up to 15 kilometers shows practically no variation
for the ten European stations, except in the case of Pavlovsk, where
the temperature is uniformly lower up to 10 kilometers and higher
above 10 kilometers than at the other stations. The difference of
temperature between Strassburg and Pavlovsk, taken to represent
latitude 50° and latitude 60°, respectively, is sufficient to produce a
gradient of pressure at a height of 10 kilometers which would corre-
spond to a steady west wind of about 24 m. p. s. (54 miles per hour).
The difference between Strassburg and St. Louis (representing lati-
tude 39°) would at the same height correspond to a steady west wind
of 15 m. p. s. in intermediate latitudes. The observations are not
sufficiently extensive to warrant much stress being laid on the absolute
values of these velocities, but it is of interest to note that the approxi-
mate ratio of the west winds in latitudes 45°, 55°, deduced from Ober-
beck’s solution by a purely theoretical treatment of the problem of
the general circulation, is 16/21 for the upper strata, a result in toler-
able agreement with the ratio of 15/24 deduced from the temperature
observations.
UPPER AIR—GOLD AND HARWOOD. 265
The problem of the vertical distribution of temperature in cyclones
and anticyclones depends for its solution on upper-air observations.
Hann deduced from the temperatures at high-level observatories that
cyclones were colder than anticyclones, the mean difference of tem-
perature up to 3.5 kilometers being as much as 5° C. Grenander
found similar results by a consideration of the kite and balloon ascents
at Hald and Berlin, while Von Bezold deduced from the Berlin
manned balloon ascents that the relative coldness of the cyclone was
maintained even up to 8 kilometers.
The results in the present report, obtained by taking only those
cases in which the sea-level pressure exceeded 770 millimeters or was
less than 750 millimeters, and correcting the observations for seasonal
and local variations, showed that the cyclone was colder than the anti-
cyclone up to 9 kilometers, while at greater heights the conditions
were reversed, and the anticyclone became much colder than the
cyclone; but the effect of the temperature difference in the lower
layers on the pressure difference is so considerable that even at 14
kilometers the pressure gradient is not reversed. In these circum-
stances it 1s difficult to see how air can be brought into the anticyclonic
and out of the cyclonic regions in the upper air. The cirrus observa-
tions imply a definite outward motion over cyclonic regions, but a
rotation in the same direction as at the surface, which can be the case
only if the gradient of pressure is also in the same direction as at the
surface. These results imply that there is motion across the isobars
from the lower to the higher pressure. Now, although it is possible
for such motion to exist if the velocity in the cyclonic region exceeds
a certain value, or, in the anticyclonic region, lies between certain
limits, it is not possible to have steady motion of this type, and the
effect of damping would be to make the motion from the higher to
the lower pressure. The evidence points to the conclusion either
(1) that cyclones and anticyclones arriving in the European area
are in general dissipating systems which are continually replaced by
other systems arriving from what may be called productive regions,
or (2) that there is interchange of air with regions in which the sur-
face temperature or the temperature gradient differs sufficiently to
produce mean temperatures greater in low-pressure areas and less in
high-pressure areas than are found over Europe.
It is interesting in connection with this part of the subject to note
that Shaw and Lempfert deduced from a discussion of surface air
currents that the central areas of anticyclones were not the regions of
origin of currents, and could not, therefore, be places where descent
of air was taking place to any considerable extent. The temperature
observations in the first 3 kilometers agree with this conclusion, since
they show that there is no approach to a regular adiabatic gradient
near the centers of anticyclones,
266 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon revealed by the observa-
tions from registering balloons is the comparatively sudden cessation
of the fall of temperature at a height which varies from day to day,
but is roughly equal to 10 kilometers. Above this height, which may
be regarded as the height of an irregular, but roughly horizontal,
surface dividing the atmosphere into two regions, the temperature
at any time varies very little in a vertical direction, showing, on the
average, a Slight tendency to increase. The lower and upper regions
are characterized by the terms “ convective ” and “ advective,” respec-
tively, and the height and temperature of the dividing surfaces are
denoted by H. and T,. The following table gives the values of
H,, T., for certain places in Europe:
cs linet ei g
Sli |) ues eo all eae 214 o
ag 4 3 Zz “ Sj 2 qa SI A
=| 8 Bo) ee aaa RU all Te Sa a ee
SS teers ian aie ol ven sabi 4 | SB | & | @
|
Be SSS CEES Cccete | 10.6 10.9 10.8 10.8 10.4 9.6 10.6 10.7 10.2 10.7
4 ee Se EEO ore 16° 16° 18° AC 18° 18° 14° 17° ile 16°
Number of cases..-} 336 53 32 67 57 28 18 25 24 32
atisudeseeeere ease — 48° 52° 49° 49° 60° 56° 45° 48° 52°
There is very little variation for places between latitude 45° and
latitude 55°, but at Pavlovsk H, is about 1 kilometer below the aver-
age. Observations made in the equatorial regions show that the
value of H, there exceeds 15 kilometers, so that there must be a con-
siderable increase in its value in crossing the limit of the trade-wind
region, and it appears probable that the equatorial currents and the
trade winds form a closed system with little interchange of air with
higher latitudes.
The annual variation in H., T, is shown by the following table:
Annual variation in He.
; F ES S : ae :
Bolised aol) ah aloe ayerol eS. luerdh obllecesaes
peer | el Pea ect TES Sly cea 1A Delco al eee a limes
Mean of 13stations....-.... 10.3 | 10.4 9.1 | 10.1 | 10.5 | 10.7 | 10.9 | 11.4 | 10.4 | 11.9 | 10.8 10.1
|
Number of cases Siete eerste 26 22 32 39 31 27 24 61 46° | 38 25 25
MUNCH: acmimct ccc hoces 10.0 | 10.4 9.2 OF DEF eral || aloe ao i) 1033 | LPS es 11.4
Number of cases .......... 4 3 6 4 2 4 3 11 i i 8) 2 5
Strassburg? .-s-ce-sececeess 10.5 | 10.6 9.4 9.4 | 10.6 | 10.9 | 10.8 | 12.3] 10.9} 11.9] 11.0 11.1
Number of cases ..:....... 5 5 5 5 4 5 4 9 8 6 6 5
Annual variation in Te.
ee es el eee ieee
Sui er le ale alive taal ste eneseall eel fess nome eareanall nics
aera eh | a eas
Mean of 18 stations........ 13 11 16 iN || ues 20 20 | 18 22 | 14 15 14
Miumic¢hyce asc aeccceeceect 14 10 16 19 | 25 20 15 16 26). 19) | 10 12
Strassburg issess-neeeeeeeee ae a) aK BIE fe alee Per oa |) ali) | Tey || Te 10
UPPER AIR—GOLD AND HARWOOD. 267
The remarkable feature is the relatively high temperature and low
value of H. in March and September. This peculiarity and the fact
that T. is least near the equator suggest that the general nature of the
process may be as follows. The cool air above the equator moves
polewards, and in the natural course descends again to feed the trade
winds, Owing to the irregularities of the earth’s surface, the change
of seasons, and the very considerable difference between the northern
and southern hemispheres, the process will be neither regular nor
symmetrical. Consequently, the equatorial cold air will encroach on
the advective region of temperate latitudes, and such encroachments
will produce anticyclonic regions. The advective atmosphere would
be reached there at a higher level, and initially at a lower tempera-
ture than in the average state, but the temperature would be gradually
raised by absorption of thermal radiation to the normal value for that
latitude.
The fact that H, has minimum values in March and September,
when equatorial temperatures are highest, appears at first to be con-
trary to this view; but the first effect of increased temperature will
be to increase the strength of the trade winds, and as at the same time
there is a transference of air across the equator to the southern hemi-
sphere, a transference which can be made only through the upper
return current, there will be a deficiency of descending air, and the
equatorial cold air will encroach less than usual on the northern ad-
vective region. The reverse process would be expected to occur in
September, but the autumnal transference of air to the northern
hemisphere will be initially much more intense toward the great con-
tinental regions than to the Atlantic and European area, and it may
well be that the equatorial current again encroaches less than usual
on that region. It may be expected that the value of H, in Asia
and America will not show the September minimum.
The explanation of the discontinuity in the temperature gradient
appears to be this. The fall of temperature is governed mainly by
convection, and a necessary condition for convection to persist is that
the radiation shall exceed the absorption in the upper layers of the
convective system. A limit is therefore set to the height to which
convection can extend, and at this limit the discontinuity in the fall
of temperature occurs. It has been shown that the observed height
is about the same as the limiting height of the convective system
found from theoretical considerations based on the experimental
knowledge of the radiating power of the atmosphere.
The results of the observations of wind velocity may be briefly sum-
marized as follows: In general, the velocity increases with height, the
greater part of the increase up to 2,000 meters taking place in the
layers immediately above the surface; 75 per cent of the total increase
takes place in the first 160 meters. Above 500 meters numerous cases
268 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
occur where the velocity decreases with height. The velocity for
heights up to 10 kilometers is given approximately by the equation
Ve=V.p. (Egnell’s law), where V is velocity and p density, Vop,
being the values near the surface. The law implies that the pressure
gradient remains constant and independent of the height. Now,
owing to the fact that the temperature is higher over regions of high
pressure than over regions of low pressure, the ratio of pressure
gradient to density increases with height. The condition for a con-
stant gradient up to 8 kilometers is approximately
74 0;
— oa degrees C..,
where ¢, is the excess of the mean temperature of the air-column at a
place at pressure ptép above that at a place at pressure p. Observa-
tions show that for 5»=20 millimeters, 7,=4° C. nearly, or double the
amount necessary for constant gradient. It is to be expected, there-
fore, that Vp will increase up to 8 kilometers, and the few pilot-
balloon observations available point to such an increase.
The direction of the upper wind usually veers from that at the sur-
face. The following table shows the deviations for winds from dif-
ferent quadrants in England and at Berlin:
Deviation of the upper wind.
ENGLAND.
Heights.
Direction. ee ae
0.6 km. | 1.0 km. | 1.5 km. | 2.0km. | 2.5km. | 3.0 km.
fe} Oo fo} oO fe} fe)
WiGSEiketee a een ae aioe ccinanc le acenmrsies 9 14 14.5 14 8 8
INOTUR Re ee ce ee Re PEE 4 8 3 —1 — —15
Wast ress os seen nas apa aon eee 15 22 20 28 35 21
DOUGH SEM ee Sener coc ce ae as ome meres 14 26 32 38 41 50
BERLIN.
fo} oO ° ° co] °
WiCSiiren seas ace Sects eee ne See ne ee 18 23 23 20 23 22
INORtn SS! Sees ee eee eee eee eee 13 17 20 20 15 25
TOS ola e Ree eae eee oe oe eae aS Ree aa 27 30 38 45 46 44
Soutbe. eae eo Sie eset eee ee, 38 46 48 49 53 46
The deviation at Berlin is in nearly all cases greater than in Eng-
land, especially for north winds, which back slightly in the upper air
in England.
There is no marked difference between anticyclonic and cyclonic
conditions in the change of wind velocity and direction with height.
UPPER AIR—GOLD AND HARWOOD. 269
The following table gives the values deduced from observations at
Berlin and Lindenberg in 1905:
Height.
Surface. | 1km. 2 km.
Anticyclonie (A):
DD CVs tONeeeles = scicmccsnins vee Sas ae nesee ree Ce clas Seno ne ace abo ceeletemoo eae 380° 33°
AVE LOCI Ye semee cornea a ceaa cc cee Sere ae eRe cele ee ees eS tase 4.1 8.2 ag.4
RAT OO SULIACe WElOCItY=c-a-c cee cee sores ce nae Seen nen eaen aseie 1.0 2.0 2.05
Cyclonie (C):
IN ERROR SS ROG ARS OROCCSCCCOCCA AC GBA CE ACHE ES Suco CARS SeSonE Ben geed RaAsconens 80° 37°
IMC LOCLbYis sa= tc once encisiea echoes nee eed con osencesisne ees sesestiseoeee 5.9 10.5 10.7
RaiOwosuria Conve lOcitvaecr-ascaeccencce eee emeeceoe et eens tecners sical 1.0 | 1.78 1.82
aM.p.s.
The deviation is slightly greater and the ratio slightly less in C
than in A. It would be natural to suppose that surface friction and
irregularities would produce a decrease in velocity which increased at
a greater rate than the velocity itself, and in that case the ratio in C
would be greater than in A, as was actually found by Berson from
the manned-balloon observations.
= i
rr
ery T) -
oh
THE FORMATION, GROWTH, AND HABIT OF CRYSTALS.
By Paut GAvuBERT, D. Sc.,
Assistant in Mineralogy at the Natural History Museum, Paris.
A crystal arouses the interest of the observer not only by the regu-
larity of its forms, the perfection of its surfaces and angles, its trans-
parency, and its brilhancy, but also by the manner in which it grows,
heals its wounds, is dissolved, and modified under the influence of the
inclosing medium. ‘To some authors the crystal, from certain points
of view, appears analogous to living forms, and seems to undergo
a sort of evolution.
Its formation, its growth, the variations of the faces under the
influence of the inclosing medium, have been the object of numerous
researches which have greatly modified our conceptions regarding
them. The purpose of this article is to show the present state of our
knowledge concerning these diverse and interesting questions of
crystallogeny.
I
As early as the seventeenth century Leeuwenhoek, who examined
under the microscope everything that in his time lent itself to this
line of observation, followed the formation and growth of the erys-
tals of various substances (as sugar, tartar, sea salt, etc.). He was
led to conclude that the cubic crystals of sea salt are formed of other
minute cubes, themselves made up from cubes, the existence of which
one has to accept through analogy with what is seen, since they are
invisible under any magnifying power. Later, Baker, Ledermiiller,
and others also examined under the microscope the branched and
varied forms that appear when a substance crystallizes on a sheet of
glass; but it is to Nicholas Le Blanc that we owe the first systematic
and effective researches in crystal genesis, and particularly in the
variation of the form. In his very interesting work “ De la Cristallo-
technie ” he gives methods for the preparation of crystals, and in
particular does he set forth the process of renewing the solution,
“Translated by permission from Revue Scientifique, Paris, 48th year, No. 3,
January 15, 1910.
271
272 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
of “feeding” the growing solids that they may attain a relatively
considerable size.
In what form do we see the crystal with the aid of the highest
magnifying power? Does it present from the first the form that it
will have later? The biologists were the first to take up the matter
of the formation of the crystalline “ germ;” that is, of the form
which it presents at the instant when it first becomes visible; and
most of them have admitted the existence of an embryonic state, or a
state in which the constitution and form are different from that of
the crystal properly called; although this idea has been contradicted
by Frankenheim, to whom we owe numerous crystallogenic observa-
tions. Vogelsang, in 1867, took it up again and made numerous in-
genious and varied experiments to show its correctness. His observa-
tions are generally exact, but he has unfortunately misinterpreted
them. To show the embryonic state of the crystal, Vogelsang tried
to make the bodies crystallize under special conditions with the pur-
pose of retarding their formation so as to enable him to observe all
the steps of development. With this purpose in view he added to a
sulphur solution a viscous body, Canada balsam. There were pro-
duced little spheres, to which Vogelsang gave the name of globulites,
and which were thought to represent an embryonic stage. These
globulites unite to form particular groups, each of which has received
a special name, and at the expense of which the crystal would be
produced only at a later stage.
Moreover, Vogelsang rests his experimental researches on observa-
tions made with crystallites of varied forms existing in a few rocks
rich in silica and more or less vitreous, and in the slags of blast
furnaces; but as was later shown by M. O. Lehmann, who made
numerous researches on the formation of crystals, these globulites are
but drops supersaturated with sulphur, and consequently have noth-
ing in common with the crystalline state.
Brame, as well as Vogelsang, studied sulphur, but in a molten
condition. He observed little supermelted drops (utricules) to which
he attributes a considerable role in crystallization. His ideas differ
from those of Vogelsang, but nothing in his experiments substantiates
the existence of an embryonic state.
The observations of M. O. Lehmann have shown that the crystal
possesses from. the beginning a form identical with that which it has
when it has attained larger dimensions. T. V. Richard and E. H.
Archibald have employed the cinematograph to follow out the for-
mation of the crystal, and obtained only figures of completely formed
individuals.
I myself have made a great many experiments, and have always
found that the first visible particle had all the properties of the
crystal. It is, nevertheless, not to be disputed that in some cases
FORMATION OF CRYSTALS—GAUBERT. 273
there takes place what Vogelsang and his predecessors have observed
with sulphur or other bodies, but who worked with supersaturated
drops or amorphous particles, or little spherulites of unstable form,
which later underwent modifications into more stable forms, and
the normal development of which can then be followed.
Nevertheless, in spite of the observations of Frankenheim, O.
Lehmann, and others, the idea of the embryonic state of the crystal
has not disappeared from science, and the hypothesis of Vogelsang,
supported by De Schoen, Cartaud, and others, resting on misinter-
preted observations, still finds some credit.
108
When the crystal is once formed—that is, becomes visible under the
microscope—how does it grow? Several cases may be presented:
First, the mother liquid is in a state of rest, the cooling or evapora-
tion is extremely slow, and the crystalline particles are built up by
diffusion alone. In this case the growth is too slow to be constantly
followed under the microscope. In the second case the lquid is
cooled or evaporated with such rapidity that the quantity of matter
deposited on the crystal produces an enlargement microscopically
visible. Movements in the liquid are thereby set up. It is an estab-
lished fact that currents called “ currents of concentration” passing
over a crystal, deposit a thin coating of substance, followed by a
second, and so on, until, for example, one can see on a crystal of lead
nitrate, having a diameter of half a millimeter, as many as twelve
of these successive layers deposited. If the process were suddenly
interrupted and the crystal examined any observed face would not be
a plane, but would show a sort of step arrangement, of which the
highest step would indicate the point of contact of the current of
deposition.
These successive deposits have no interspaces and the crystal
may be perfectly transparent. If the crystal of lead nitrate is,
however, subjected to the influence of two or of several currents of
concentration, the corresponding coatings laid upon it start from
different points in the periphery and may not be of the same thick-
ness. Ordinarily they do not join exactly at their point of meeting.
In this way are then produced inclusions and the crystal is no longer
transparent, but becomes milky. On a glass plate it is easy to
produce at will a transparent or milky crystal of lead nitrate. In the
experiment it is necessary to agitate the crystal very slightly with a
needle in order to subject it to the influence of one or several currents.
These concentration currents produce other peculiarities (vicinal
faces, etc.), which it would take too long to describe in detail. I
shall confine myself to calling attention to the influence they may
974. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
have upon the faces of the crystal. The introduction of matter
to one face only of a crystal causes it to develop unequally, and since
all crystals of the same bath or magma are not influenced in the
same way, they may present a number of different forms. The
crystals formed at the bottom may be different from those which
are deposited on the side walls or at the surface.
Il.
If these concentration currents can completely change the habit
of a crystal by producing elongation in one direction, the nature
of the faces is not modified; an octahedral crystal always appears in
octahedrons. But there are two other influences which modify the
faces. One of them is the rapidity of crystallization, the other the
constant absorption of foreign matter by the crystal in process of
growth. Still other factors may intervene, but they are only indi-
“rectly concerned.
It has long been known that crystals formed rapidly possess
simple faces, while those which have grown slowly are more com-
plicated. Thus in nature the crystals rich in inclusions, sometimes
of large size, are poor in faces, while the small crystals of the same
substance, but transparent, are generally limited by a large number of
faces. These differences are due to the rate of crystallization, the
influence of which has been made known by the experiments of
Frankenheim, .Lecoq de Bosbaudran, O. Lehmann, and myself. In
rapid crystallization the crystals have faces with simple symbols;
in slow crystallization these same simple faces persist, but the angles
and edges have been truncated and beveled, giving rise to new facets,
and I have shown that in certain cases these facets make their ap-
pearance always in the same order. With varying rates of crystalli-
zation the dominant forms obtained in the case where the crystalliza-
tion was rapid persist with more or less extensive development, but
it may be otherwise in the case where the faces are modified by the
regular absorption by the crystal during growth of foreign matter
added to the mother liquor. This fact is easily made evident, as I
have demonstrated, by adding a little coloring matter.
Rome de l’Isle and Berniard have observed that the crystals of
sodium chloride formed in urine are regular octahedrons insteac of
oubes, such as crystallize from a pure mother liquor. Vanquelin anu
Fourcroy showed later that this curious modification is due to the
urea present. Boydant also established a few phenomena of the
same class, and tried without success to ascertain why the mere pres-
ence of a foreign substance can be thus effective.
P. Curie developed a remarkable and attractive theory, which
apparently furnished the key to this curious modification. He
FORMATION OF CRYSTALS—GAUBERT. 275
claims that the capillary action existing between the liquid and
the crystal intervenes, an effect varying with the nature of the faces
belonging to the diverse forms and with the nature of the liquid.
Basing his belief on Gauss’s theory of capillarity, he concludes that
such faces develop or require the minimum expenditure of capillary
energy. The dominant forms must consequently be conditioned by
those faces the constant capillarity of which is the least. The addi-
tion of a foreign substance altering the different capillary constants
may consequently induce modifications of form.
It appears, indeed, that the capillary forces must act, but up to
this time there is no fact known which proves that they intervene
sufficiently to modify the forms, in spite of the experiments of
M. Berent carried out in the laboratory of Sohncke; moreover, I shall
describe later an observation showing they are without influence.
le
The crystals of one substance rarely form synchronously with those
of another dissolved in the same mother liquid, and it is on this
property that chemists base their action when they attempt to purify
bodies by repeated crystallizations; but there are exceptions, as in
the well-known coloration of hydrated nitrate of strontium by ex-
tract of logwood, which was accomplished by Senarmont. Since
then M. Lehmann and I have proved a few other cases of coloration
of crystals by artificial organic dyes.
By making use of the artificial coloration of crystals so as to indi-
cate the presence of foreign matter which has crystallized with the
colorless substance I have been enabled to show that the absorption
caused modification in form.
The absorption of foreign matter by crystals in process of formation
is accomplished in two different ways: First, the coloring matter en-
ters into the composition of the crystal, whatever may be its degree
of dilution, and is shared between the crystal and the liquid; second,
the coloring matter is taken up by the crystal only when the liquid
becomes saturated.
The two processes may go on simultaneously. The study of certain
properties of colored crystals, particularly polychroism, and the law
of division, shows that the coloring substance in the first case is found
in the crystal in the same state as in the liquid; in the second, on the
contrary, the coloring matter is in the crystalline state, and we have
to do then with a regular grouping of the crystalline particles of the
colorless substance with those of the coloring material added to the
mother liquor.
Lead nitrate is colored by methylene blue in the second manner;
it appears in cubic crystals with the triglyphic strie of pyrite in-
276 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
stead of in octahedrons. The modifications in the crystals of this
salt produced in a mother liquor which holds methylene blue in solu-
tion, show that capillarity does not intervene to produce them. In-
deed, in a solution depositing lead nitrate and saturated with methyl-
ene blue, without, however, giving crystals of this latter substance,
the crystals of the nitrate are not at all modified. They are in octa-
hedrons and colorless, but as soon as the coloring matter begins to
crystallize synchronously with them the cube faces appear and finally
are formed to the exclusion of all others. Nevertheless, the surface
tension can not have been changed since the quantity of methylene
blue has remained the same in solution. An interesting fact is the
inequality of absorption of the foreign matter dissolved in the
mother liquor by the different faces of the crystal. Thus, on the
octahedral faces of the lead nitrate the methylene blue is not at all
deposited, but only on the faces of the cube and the pentagonal
dodecahedron. Similar examples can be cited which explain the
-appearance, frequent in minerals, known as hour-glass structure. In
the case of cubic crystals, of all the possible faces it is only those
which absorb the foreign matter which will develop.
The idea which first comes to mind is that the molecular structure
of the crystal plays an important part in this synchronous crystal-
lization. It is not so at all; different foreign substances may be ab-
sorbed by different faces, and in such cases the habit of the crystal
is dependent on these diverse substances. If one causes the colorless
substance to crystallize in a solution containing two colors, each one
giving characteristic forms, the crystallizations thus obtained will
be the two combined forms, so that one and the same crystal is com-
posed of pyramids or of prisms of different colors. Thus the crys-
tals of urea nitrate colored by methylene blue and picric acid show,
if the crystallization has been carefully conducted, yellow triangular
prisms corresponding to the faces g’ and h’, and blue triangular
prisms corresponding to the prismatic faces m of the monoclinic
system. é
Not only may foreign crystalline matter be absorbed but also the
liquid matter added to the mother liquid, and even the molecules of
the latter may also pass regularly into the crystal to modify its form.
T have been able to show this fact by crystallizing phthalic acid in a
solution containing ethyl alcohol. This explains why a crystal ob-
tained from different solvents may show different faces.
Consequently a crystal, very pure in appearance, transparent, and
without inclusions, may contain foreign matter, and in the case where
@To show this, it is enough to take a colored liquid, but with the exception of
bromine there is no liquid which has a proper color at the ordinary tempera-
ture.
FORMATION OF CRYSTALS—GAUBERT. et
it is the mother liquid which is absorbed its purification is impossible.
The solvent must be changed.
When the crystals of a determined substance obtained from two
different solutions do not present the same forms, it is incontrovertible
that in one of the cases, perhaps in both cases, since we do not always
know the form of the pure crystal, there has been absorption of the
molecules of the mother liquor. Sometimes it is the water which is
absorbed, and this water has been regarded as water of crystallization
or as water of constitution, according to the temperature at which
it is driven off.
When purification is attempted by recrystallization, if the foreign
substance which passes into the crystal is present in small quantities
in the mother liquid, the first or the last crystals formed, according to
the mode of synchronous crystallization, will be the purest. In case
there is a division of the foreign matter between the crystal and the
liquid, if the coefficient of its solubility in the crystal and the liquid
are known, the number of crystallizations demanded for the purifica-
tion of the crystals may be calculated under proper conditions.
Vv.
The natural crystals appear in such varied habits that before Romé
de l’Isle no one could see the constancy of forms, and the genius of
Hauy was necessary to establish their derivation. It is known that
ordinarily the crystals of the same deposit and of the same generation
are identical, and that those of successive deposits or generations may
have different dominant forms. All these differences may be ex-
plained by the rapidity of crystallization, but especially by the con-
stant presence of foreign substances. Unfortunately it is difficult to
determine the nature of the latter, since the results of analyses made
up to the present time have little value in solving this problem.
Indeed, a very small quantity of matter is required to modify the
forms of a crystal; sometimes an amount even less than one-one thou-
sandth of the weight of the latter is sufficient.
In every case, whether we have to do with natural or artificial
crystals, we need to determine their form in the pure state, a form
which is constant and which I have called fundamental. It may be
distinct from the primitive form chosen by crystallographers.
In closing, I shall observe that the substances prepared in labora-
tories seem rarely to show the numerous modifications of form, so
frequent in the natural crystals. This is due to the fact that the
artificial crystals are prepared almost always in the same manner,
with the same reagents and consequently with the same foreign sub-
stances in the mother liquor. In nature, on the contrary, as the
278 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
analyses of mineral waters show, the composition of the solutions
which deposit the crystals of a given substance varies from one
region to another as much in the quality as in the quantity of the
different elements dissolved. But all crystals do not lend themselves
with the same facility to these modifications of the faces; and just
as there exist in nature bodies like calcite which possess the most
varied habits, there exist also artificial compounds, the crystals of
which may appear in a great number of forms depending on the
condition of crystallization, as, for example, phthalic acid, meconic
acid, nitrate and oxalate of urea.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS
. ~ ROCKS.¢
By Henry S. WASHINGTON, New York, N. Y.
(Chattanooga meeting, October, 1908.)
I, INTRODUCTION.
During the last twenty years or so the chemical investigation of
rocks has made great advances, and it is now generally recognized
that a knowledge of the chemical composition is as essential as that
of the texture or mineral composition, if not more so, for the proper
classification of rocks and study of their origin and relationships.
Rock analyses have vastly increased in numbers and, what is of
greater importance, in quality. New and improved methods permit
of greater accuracy than was possible in the early days, and the list
of chemical constituents frequently determined has risen from the
seven or eight of the greater part of the nineteenth century to twenty
or more. Indeed, rock analyses with determinations of so many con-
stitutents are now commonly made by the chemists of the United
States and Australia, while in Germany, Great Britain, France, and
Italy the rarer constituents are determined more frequently than
formerly.
As a consequence of this modern, accurate work, it has been dis-
covered that some elements which were formerly supposed to be rare
are of widespread occurrence and are often present in considerable
amount. The fact is further being developed that the elements tend
to show certain relations of occurrence or abundance in connection
with each other. This is a fact which is applicable to the rarer ele-
ments, and which also finds a broad geological and _petrological
expression in the recognition of petrographic provinces. We are
beginning to obtain some definite, though as yet rudimentary, knowl-
edge of the distribution of the elements among igneous rocks.
@ Reprinted by permission from Bi-Monthly Bulletin of the American Institute
of Mining Engineers, New York, No. 23, September, 1908, pp. 809-838; also in
Transactions, pp. 735-764.
45745°—sm 1909——19 279
280 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Some of the results along these lines obtained by study of the
vast accumulation of analytical data now available are well known to
petrologists, while others do not seem to be so generally understood.
To the nonpetrologist they are, naturally, mostly unknown, and, as the
general principles involved, and, indeed, some of the specific in-
stances, have a more or less important bearing on the occurrence and
characters of certain deposits of metallic ores and other economically
important minerals, a discussion of the subject may be of interest to
mining engineers.
Indeed, to the observations and operations of mining engineers
and mining interests generally, the petrologist is indebted and must
look for some of his data. This is especially true of those relating
to the precious metals and others of commercial importance, the
amounts of which usually present in rocks are so small as almost or
quite to defy detection by ordinary analytical methods, and whose
presence is often revealed only through search for and the exploita-
tion of localities where they have undergone concentration. It must
be premised, however, that our knowledge is at present very uneven,
allowing fairly safe and detailed generalizations as regards some of
the elements, very rudimentary or general ones as regards others, and
again allowing almost none at all.
Il. GENERAL CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF IGNEOUS ROCKS.
The first and most important fact to be noted of igneous rocks is
that, with the exception of some rare ore bodies due to the differentia-
tion of igneous magmas, they are composed almost wholly of silica
and silicates. The vast majority of igneous rocks are silicate rocks,
in which silica forms the most prominent and the never-failing con-
stituent. Most of the minerals which compose them are combina-
tions of silica with various bases, and it is a striking fact that the
number of minerals which go to make up the majority of igneous
rocks, and which are most abundant and most often met with, is
very small.
The proportions in which these minerals may be present vary very
widely. Some rocks are known which are composed wholly, or
practically so, of but one mineral. Combinations of two are not
infrequent, while most rocks contain at least three, and usually many
more, minerals and in the most widely diverse proportions. It
follows, therefore, that the chemical composition of igneous rocks
may vary within very wide limits, as regards any or all of the
chemical constituents; and that, furthermore, some rocks may be of
very simple chemical composition while others may be very complex,
with many constituents present, since the minerals themselves may
be either very simple or highly complex in chemical composition.
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 281
The most important chemical constituents (stated as oxides, in
accordance with the usual custom) are as follows: Silica, SiO,;
alumina, Al,O,; ferric oxide, Fe,O,; ferrous oxide, FeO; magnesia,
MgO; lime, CaO; soda, Na,O; potash, K,O; and water, H,O. Some
or all of these major constituents, as they are termed, are invariably
present, so far as known, and collectively they constitute about 98
per cent of all known rocks. The chief oxides, from silica to potash
inclusive, enter into the composition of the most important and
most commonly occurring rock-forming minerals, as well as the
glass of imperfectly crystallized rocks.
The rédle of water is somewhat different. It would seem to be
universally present in the magma, and its presence (along with that
of other substances) lowers the freezing point and increases the
tendency to crystallization of the liquid mass. Most of this water
is lost if the magma reaches the surface and it appears in the enor-
mous clouds which accompany voleanic eruptions and the steam of
voleanic fumaroles; and much of it also escapes if the magma
solidifies beneath the surface, giving rise to subterranean water sup-
plies, which are held by many to be an important factor in the for-
mation of many ore deposits. A small proportion of the water
originally present may remain in the solidified rock in a combined
form, as part of the more complex mineral molecules, those of
pyroxenes, amphiboles, and micas, for instance; and some may also
remain as inclusions of water in the minerals of intrusive rocks.
There are almost invariably present in igneous rocks smaii amounts
of titanium, phosphorus, and manganese, though these are often
neglected and thus overlooked in the less complete analyses. Carbon
dioxide is also met with, but its presence, as reported in analyses of
igneous rocks, is almost invariably due to decomposition, and it can
not be usually regarded as an essential or original constituent of
rocks.
In addition to these most important constituents the refinements
and increasing completeness of modern rock analysis show that many
others are frequently present, often in scarcely more than traces, but
again in very appreciable quantities. The most important of these
minor elements are zirconium, sulphur (as sulphides and as sulphur
trioxide), chlorine, fluorine, vanadium, chromium, nickel, barium,
strontium, and lithium. Exceptionally, others may be determined, as
boron, cobalt, copper, gold, silver, molybdenum, the metals of the
cerium and yttrium groups, nitrogen, and others. Indeed, as Doctor
Hillebrand® says, “a sufficiently careful examination of these rocks
would show them to contain all or nearly all the known elements,
not necessarily all in a given rock, but many more than any one has
@ Bulletin No. 305, U. 8S. Geological Survey, p. 20 (1907).
282 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
yet found.” The researches of Sandberger, Stelzner, and Dieulafait
also point to the same conclusion.
Considering the quantitative distribution of the major constituents,
silica is almost invariably present in igneous rocks, and almost
always in greatest amount. In general, the percentage may vary
from nearly 80, as in granites and rhyolites, to a minimum of about
24 per cent. Indeed, it may even form 100 per cent, if some dikes
consisting wholly of quartz are really of igneous origin, as is believed
to be the case; while in some ores derived from igneous magmas the
amount of silica may drop almost to zero. Alumina is usually the
next most abundant constituent, the percentage varying from a maxi-
mum of about 60, as in some corundum-syenites of Siberia and
Canada, to a minimum of zero in certain rocks composed wholly
of olivine. The two iron oxides each show maxima of about 15 per
cent, except in the rare iron ores due to magmatic differentiation,
where they constitute together almost all the rock. Magnesia attains
‘maxima of from 45 to 50 per cent in dunites of New Zealand and
North Carolina; while lime reaches a maximum of about 20 per cent
in the anorthosites of Canada. Jron, magnesia, and lime may be
practically absent in highly siliceous rocks, like granites and rhyo-
lites, and in some’syenites. Soda may be present up to 17 per cent
in some rare rocks in which nephelite is abundant; while potash
attains a maximum of only about 12 per cent in some unusual rocks
rich in leucite, which are found in Italy and in Wyoming. Both
the alkalies may be wholly wanting in rocks composed essentially
of pyroxene or olivine.
The amount of water present in wholly crystalline rocks seldom
rises above 2 per cent, if the rock is unaltered, though weathering
very materially increases this quantity, and high figures for water are
usually to be attributed to this cause. But some perfectly fresh,
glassy lavas may carry up to 12 per cent of water, which was unable
to escape from the magma owing to the rapidity of solidification.
Titanium dioxide may rarely reach figures of about 6 per cent, as
in some basalts of the western Mediterranean which I am now investi-
gating, but is usually present in much less quantity, though it is
seldom or never entirely absent. In some titaniferous iron ores of
igneous origin, as those of the Adirondacks and Norway, it may even
reach 18 per cent. The amount of phosphoric pentoxide is rarely
over 3 per cent, and that of manganous oxide is scarcely ever above
1 per cent, the higher figures sometimes reported for this latter con-
stituent being almost invariably due to errors of analysis. It is but
seldom that either of these three is entirely absent.
The maximum amounts of the other minor constituents may be
briefly stated, as attention will thus be called to their relatively great
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 283
rarity, it being understood that the maxima are seldom attained and
that very frequently these elements are wholly absent.
Zirconium is much less common than the chemically related
titanium, and seldom exceeds 0.20 per cent, though in some very ex-
ceptional cases it may reach 2 per cent. Chromium seldom occurs
in amounts above 0.5 per cent, though a few rocks are known in which
it is reported to range between 2 and 3 per cent. Nickel seldom ex-
ceeds 0.20 per cent, and the allied cobalt is scarcely ever present in
more than mere traces. The maximum amount of copper found in
unaltered igneous rocks may be placed at about 0.2 per cent of CuO.
Barium almost always exceeds strontium in quantity, but only very
exceptionally exceeds 0.25 per cent, though some rocks are known in
which about 1 per cent is present; while the amount of strontium is
usually much less than 0.1, but may occasionally reach 0.3 per cent
in the rocks very high in barium. Although figures of 0.1 or 0.2
per cent have been reported for lithium, these are somewhat doubtful,
and it seldom occurs in more than spectroscopic traces. Sulphur and
chlorine may both be present up to 2 per cent or slightly more, but
both usually occur only in tenths of a per cent, and the latter amount
is the maximum for fluorine. Of the other minor constituents the
amounts present are so small as usually to be insignificant except as
to their actual presence.
Ili. THE AVERAGE COMPOSITION,
The estimation of the average composition of igneous rocks as a
whole is not such a simple matter as may be thought at first, because
of several complicating factors which should be taken into account,
and certain corrections in some of our data which should be made, to
obtain fairly satisfactory results. We are not yet in a position to
make precise allowance for these, into the discussion of which we can
not enter here, so that the results so far obtained can be regarded as
but first approximations, only roughly correct, but of some value.
The most recent and reliable calculations are three made suc-
cessively by Prof. F. W. Clarke, of the United States Geological Sur-
vey, two of the igneous rocks of the British Isles by Prof. A. Harker,
of Cambridge, and one made by myself some years ago.”
Clarke’s latest estimate is based on more than a thousand analyses
of igneous rocks of the United States made by the chemists of the
Geological Survey, and mine is based on about one thousand eight
a}, W. Clarke, Bulletin of the U. S. Geological Survey, No. 148, p. 12 (1897) ;
No. 168, p. 14 (1900) ; No. 228, p. 18 (1904); A. Harker, Geological Magazine,
vol. 36, p. 18 (1899) ; Tert. Ign. Rocks of Skye, p. 416 (1904) ; H. S. Washing-
ton, Professional Paper No. 14, U. S. Geological Survey, p. 108 (1903). I am
at present engaged in new calculations of the average rock, based on more than
three thousand analyses, but this is not yet ready for publication.
284 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
hundred analyses of igneous rocks from all parts of the globe and
made by many analysts of various nationalities. These are shown,
respectively, in columns I and II of Table I, only the more important
constituents being considered and the whole being reduced to 100 per
cent. Harker’s estimates are omitted, but in general they conform
to those here presented.
TABLE I.—Average composition of igneous rocks,
United II. Gonmpiee IV
| States, sees average, Clarke,
Crarke; ton, 1903. Clarke, | 1904.
STO) i ae en 60. 48 BE78)|" - /SOSSTA DINO Sore-e- eee mente eae | 47.09
NORE a ie UR ane 15.17 15. 67 159020 AIGie et ee a Patent 28. 23
TOES O MP eas acy eee ae a 2. 61 3.31 OCH eee eam ec 7.99
TPE ee ay Pas ge ae Me 3.44 3.84 COE | |i ee eee ee 2. 4. 46
IMPOR ess te ccn scecenaes 4.10 3.81 4. 06 Caseteeaws sient cee nebo 3. 43
(CRYO ae. aR nt Sere 4.84 5.18 BN 79 An Nat he a 2. 58
Nas O ROS etn te se act 3. 43 3.88 S¥SO lpia tts 2e ete here 2. 46
KOA LE eek eke ee 2.96 3.13 DIGS Wh WKerde tes nese eae 2. 44
eG (UIOEP) ek cece 1. 48 1. 42 A AbH esl | Pie ee taxtees nn. eee . 43
Eig O) (U1O2=)tc.ceesece cece 41 .36 Mage ail EIee Abts Pat eas Ee 17
UO sacocacdsacpecscdecsetbe St? 1.03 aie) Cie eh eee 14 —
le ORs daceas shane bussseooctar . 26 nays - 26 Pee iancecesee re naueeeee Aili
MnO Mestad one .10 .22 S10) WI ESceeewes cee eee “it
(OO see Seo nACD ASO HORE ER OeEad Beronaa coed badadacacacr <2 — val || PBB oasecrccenate ceo eerie . 089
ee DAE See an. GES eee Sepa Eee ee Lae AMIN Ae Seer oe eer 084
1S OSS GOR SCOR EEE See Henn HA neceeencere aaconsesasoc sili | ( 0) eae sear a -07 —
Cl see ee SI A on SAL Sas ee TOZS/llluGr ete ee eee tae .034
(OHO ocd Gan tanec na cbbeae Rotel oncaaesl beeposaasane O5==9)l)| (Crease. accep aere oe aeeeeee - 034—
SO eres Zeid sn, epee dee Le Ae SI E (0 Saran 7 Aces yea uk es oe . 026—
(5 (CT ee SU, Bade er a S| ee a See dP) Wee hd a Oe 4 Ne Rae ae seen ee [oz
INTO ett Pe hte Seah laine lng es RN p(s Salli oe Oa oc Seer cre 02 +
WO ste recis Sone neonate mere re ee ere al (Npeenae ek Sart a . 03— AY ENR et ae eS Se aL I Oe -02 —
RE ae oe Sake SA See Cae Pe Oa. AiO | a ie epee eet ie Pa aP 01
lO RON a a sce a tS eee SHOT Se ae ae ee Bal AReBsaAaecne 01
| 100. 00 100. 00 100. 00 100. 00
It is evident that the two are very closely alike, the only noteworthy
divergence being in the amount of silica. he higher figure in I
may be ascribed in part, as pointed out by Clarke, to the inclusion of
many separate silica determinations, which were undertaken on rocks
comparatively high in this constituent; in part to the inclusion in the
estimate of some analyses of siliceous gneisses and schists, rocks which
were not regarded in my estimate; and probably in part to the fact
that in Clarke’s estimate only rocks from the United States were
considered. But notwithstanding the slight discrepancies and the
uncertainty introduced by nonallowance for the disturbing factors
mentioned above, the results of the two calculations are so concordant
that we may feel a high degree of confidence in the belief that the
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 285
data given here approximate closely to the average composition of
the earth’s accessible igneous rocks.
In column III are given the results of a more complete estimate by
Clarke, which includes the minor constituents frequently present in
igneous rocks, but which are only determined in the more complete
analyses, as those made by the chemists of the United States Geo-
logical Survey. It will be seen that the data are in agreement with
the general composition of the most common rock-forming minerals,
their constituents, silica, alumina, ferric and ferrous oxides, magnesia,
lime, soda, potash, and water, making up 97.9 per cent.
The estimated amount of carbon dioxide is undoubtedly too high,
and is due to the number of analyses of altered rocks which were
included in the estimates.
We may examine the matter further and, resolving the oxides
into their elementary components, ascertain the average amounts of
the elements in the igneous crust of the earth. This problem has
been studied by Clarke in the papers already cited, and by Vogt? in
Norway. The results of Clarke’s latest calculations are given in
column IV of Table I, the figures including those for the minor con-
stituents of column III, just noticed. In an earlier computation
Clarke introduced estimates of the elements which make up the air,
the water of the oceans, and such nonigneous rocks as limestone and
coal. But the introduction of these into the calculation does not ma-
terially alter the final results from those given here, in which they are
omitted, since these bodies are of relatively very slight quantitative
importance compared with the whole mass of known rocks, however
large they may loom to our eyes. Ore bodies also are quite negligible
in this connection.
These data show that oxygen composes almost one-half, silicon
more than one-quarter, and aluminum about one-twelfth of the
earth’s crust (the three together amounting to 83.3 per cent), while
iron, calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, and titanium follow
after in the order named in decreasingly small amounts. Thus,
only nine elements together constitute 99 per cent of the igneous
crust. This is certainly a very remarkable fact, and one doubtless of
great significance for the proper understanding of the true constitu-
tion of our globe, could we but interpret it aright, as some day we
may hope to do.
The relatively high position occupied by titanium, ninth on the list
in the order of abundance, is also a striking feature, as this element
is commonly supposed to be rare. The establishment of this fact is
largely due to the accuracy and completeness of the rock analyses
made by the chemists of the United States Geological Survey, and
«J, H. LL. Vogt, Zeitschrift fiir praktische Geologie, pp. 225-2388, 314-325 (July
and September, 1898).
286 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
its great abundance was unsuspected before they began their long
series of excellent analyses, though its wide distribution had been
noted.
It is also noteworthy that, with the exception of iron, aluminum,
manganese, and nickel, none of the metals commonly used as such
appear in the list, while others, which are of very limited practical
application, are present. While nearly, if not quite, all of the ele-
ments are presumably present in igneous rocks, the average amounts
of those not given in the list are so extremely small that they may
be regarded as minor corrections to be applied in the future to cer-
tain of those here given, since nearly all of them would be precipi-
tated and weighed in the course of analysis with some of those more
abundant. .
In the important paper cited above, Vogt has discussed the probable
amounts of these missing elements, and a brief statement of those of
his results which pertain to the more important metallurgical elements
‘may be given. The estimates, it must be premised, are but approxi-
mations, and only indicate the magnitude of the several amounts as
percentages of the earth’s crust. But they serve to show the average
extremely small quantities of many metals and other elements which
are usually regarded as quite common or at least not very rare.
The percentage amounts of tin, zinc, and lead are expressed by a
digit in the third or fourth decimal place, that of copper in the fourth
or fifth, that of silver in the sixth or seventh, that of gold in the
seventh or eighth, the amount of platinum being about the same.
Mercury is rather more abundant than silver, and arsenic, antimony,
molybdenum, and tungsten less than copper and greater than silver ;
while bismuth, selenium, and tellurium are less abundant than silver
but more so than gold.
III. PETROGRAPHIC PROVINCES.
More than thirty years ago Vogelsang * pointed out that the igneous
rocks of certain districts—called by him geognostische Bezirke—
showed certain textural or mineral characters in common, which
served to distinguish them from the rocks of other districts. The
same idea was expressed later by Judd,’ who introduced the term
petrographic province, and was afterwards elaborated by Iddings,’
who lkened the districts of similar rocks to families and referred to
their relationships as “ Consanguinity.” Neither Judd nor Iddings
“@H. Vogelsang, Zeitschrift der deutschen geologischen Gessellschaft, vol. 24,
No. 3, p. 525 (May-July, 1872).
oJ. W. Judd, Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, vol. 42, pt. 1, No. 165,
p. 54 (Keb. 1, 1886).
¢ J. P. Iddings, Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington, vol. 12,
pp. 128-144 (1892),
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 287
seems to have been aware of Vogelsang’s prior publication. . The first
two statements referred only to geological occurrence and to textural
and mineralogical peculiarities; while Iddings, writing at a time
when the chemistry of rocks had begun to assume its due prominence
(largely owing to the earnest labors of the chemists of the United
States Geological Survey), showed that the relationship is also indi-
cated by the chemical composition of the various rocks, and is funda-
mentally dependent on this, and he consequently devotes much space
to the chemical evidence of consanguinity.
The doctrine of consanguinty, as it may be termed, has now received
general acceptance, and it is commonly recognized that the igneous
areas of the earth’s surface are divisible into districts the rocks of
which show certain features in common which serve to distinguish
them from those of other districts. It is also assumed that the posses-
sion of these common features, especially those dependent on the
chemical composition, indicates that the rocks of a given district
have a common genetic origin; that is, are derived from a common
parent body of magma. The processes by which this differentiation
and derivation from a common magma are brought about are still
obscure, and form the subject of much modern investigation and dis-
cussion, into which we can not enter here. Such areas of related
rocks are usually called petrographic provinces, though the term
comagmatic region, which indicates more clearly their derivation
from a common magma, has recently been introduced.*
Though petrographic provinces represent one of the prominent
phases of the distribution of the elements in the earth’s crust, and
though their existence is, in general, undeniable, yet their characters
are so complex and made up of so many factors that the characteriza-
tion in most cases can not be made very precise or the limits very
sharply drawn. Their study is still almost in its infancy, and the
accumulation of many more data, especially from the analytical side,
is needed before definitive studies can be undertaken, and the charac-
ters of any petrographic province be precisely defined.
The geological evidence of consanguinity is at times clear. Thus,
as Iddings? says:
The constant recurrence of particular series of rocks, often with a certain
order of eruption in different localities, and the frequent occurrence of such
series at neighboring centers of volcanic activity, would be enough to justify
the belief that there was a definite connection between the members of a
group.
On the other hand, cases are known where such geological evi-
dence is lacking or conflicting, or where the relations are so generally
observed as to be meaningless in this connection.
“H. S. Washington, Carnegie Publication No. 57, p. 5 (1906).
Loc. cit., p. 43:
288 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Geologically speaking, a petrographic province may belong to any
period of geologic time, or may conceivably extend over more than
one period. The region may be small or large, covering hundreds
or hundreds of thousands of square miles. It may be of any shape,
forming an elongated band or zone, a highly irregular area, or one
more or less equidimensional. It may consist of a single, large area
of connected intrusive or effusive rocks, or of adjacent but isolated
areas.
The chemical characters which, being common to the rocks of a
province, indicate consanguinity are manifold. The rocks may be
uniformly high in soda or in potash, or in potash and lime, low in
magnesia and high in iron, generally deficient in silica, and so on.
Throughout one province the soda may increase relatively to potash
as silica decreases, while in another the reverse holds good. Or
again, there may be some combination of such two kinds of charac-
ters, called respectively absolute and serial. The subject is com-
‘plicated by the possibility of local differentiation, so that in a region
of unquestionably related rocks we may meet with some whose
characters do not conform to the general law of the region, but
whose presence is to be explained by the extreme differentiation of
some portion of the general magma.
Conforming to the chemical features, and in general largely de-
pendent on them, are the common mineralogical characters. These
ure very important, not so much in themselves, as because they often
enable one practically to determine the general relationship without
the necessity of a long series of analyses. The mineralogical simi-
larity may be evident in two ways: Either by the general presence of
certain minerals which are rare or are not usually found in certain
kinds of rock, as the rare zirconium minerals, or nephelite, or
leucite, the occurrence of hypersthene in the basalts and andesites,
or of biotite in peridotites; or by certain peculiarities of color, form,
or other characters shown among the more usual mineral groups,
and which are dependent on the introduction of certain chemical
constituents into the molecule, as bright green, pleochroic augites or
blue hornblendes, due to their containing much soda, purple augites
or red-brown hornblendes, due to titanium, and so on. Here again
the possibilities of difference are numerous, but the mineralogical
evidence of relationship is often so marked as to be unmistakable to
the petrographer.
A good illustration of such petrographic provinces and of their
distribution is furnished by the United States, which may be briefly
described, though our knowledge is still incomplete. Stretching along
and rather close to the Atlantic coast is a zone of small, isolated
areas of igneous rocks which are chiefly characterized by a high con-
tent in soda, resulting in the common presence of nephelite-syenites
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 289
and other rocks containing nephelite, peculiar hornblendes, and other
minerals characteristic of such magmas. This zone includes areas in
Quebec, New England, New Jersey, Arkansas, Texas, extends into
eastern Mexico and the West Indies, and probably as far south as
Brazil and Paraguay. Parallel with this, but usually farther inland,
is a second zone of areas of rocks which are low in silica and the
alkalies, but high in lime and iron. This starts in the great anortho-
site area of eastern Canada and Labrador, appears in New England,
the Adirondacks, Delaware, Maryland, and extends to Georgia and
possibly farther south. The rocks of this region are typically gab-
bros, diabases, and pyroxenites, dunite and other peridotites, with
some granites high in lime, and are often accompanied by very basic
ores and other products of differentiation which are very rich in
iron and titanium. Farther inland and west of the Appalachian
Range is another belt, less well defined but apparently in general
parallel to the others, of widely isolated small occurrences of peculiar
peridotites and other rocks, low in silica and very high in magnesia
and iron, with little lime or soda but much potash. This last feature
gives rise to the common presence of peculiar micas, which dis-
tinguish these peridotites mineralogically from those of the preceding
region. These areas occur in Quebec, New York, Pennsylvania, Ken-
tucky, Arkansas, and probably still farther south.
Passing over the broad central part of the continent, where igneous
rocks are very sparingly present, we find a province east of the Rocky
Mountains which is characterized by high alkalies, especially potash,
so that the usually rare mineral leucite is here quite common. This
region is best known in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, and may
possibly extend into western Texas. In the region of the Rocky
Mountains and the cordilleras generally the occurrences of igneous
rocks are so numerous and the relations so complex that it is some-
what difficult to unravel the various petrographic provinces. As a
whole, however, the igneous rocks of this part of the continent seem
to belong to one very extensive province, which is continued into
Alaska on the north and along the Andes to the south. In general
chemical character the rocks show rather low alkalies, with more
soda than potash, rather high lime, and but moderate amounts of
iron and magnesia, leading to the abundance of such ordinary rocks
as feldspar-basalts, andesites, dacites, and some rhyolites. There is
some evidence that the province as a whole may be divisible into
several subordinate districts, but it is noteworthy that rocks so high
in soda or potash as to contain nephelite or leucite are practically
unknown west of the Rocky Mountains. There are also indications of
what may be a distinct region along the coast ranges which is char-
acterized by high soda and generally high silica, but this demands
further investigation.
290 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
A number of petrographic provinces outside of the United States
may also be briefly indicated. One of the best known is that of
southern Norway, which is prominent through the classic researches
of Brégger, the rocks of which are characterized by high alkalis,
especially soda, and the presence of many minerals elsewhere rare.
This is possibly connected with the region of the Kola peninsula in
northern Finland. The British Islands, with the Faeroes, Iceland,
and probably Spitzbergen, form another well-defined province, the
rocks of which resemble on the whole those of our Rocky Mountain
region, though they differ in some respects. Leaving aside Germany,
Austria, and France, each of which contains several petrographic
provinces, the relations of which appear to be somewhat complex, in
the basin of the Mediterranean we find at least three well-defined and
quite distinct provinces. In the eastern part, including the Grecian
Archipelago and parts of Asia Minor, the rocks are rather siliceous,
with fairly high lime and rather low alkalies, soda dominating potash,
‘so that dacites, andesites, and feldspar basalts are prominent.
Hypersthene is here rather common. The Italian peninsula shows a
second, very well-defined province, which embraces seven distinct
voleanic centers along the west coast. The rocks of this are remark-
able for their high content in potash, which at times reaches extraor-
dinary figures, and leads to the abundant presence here of the
mineral leucite, which is elsewhere decidedly rare. Lime is also
rather high, while soda, iron, and magnesia are low. The other
provinces of continental Italy have not been thoroughly studied and
are less well known. In the western basin of the Mediterranean, in-
cluding localities in Spain, Sardinia, some islands south of Sicily,
and probably southern France, there appears to be a third province,
which differs from the others in that soda is much higher and the
more basic rocks (basalts) contain very large amounts of titanium,
and in other ways. This last may be connected with a province in
eastern Africa, running down the Great Rift Valley and including
parts of Madagascar, in which rocks rich in soda are very common.
A somewhat similar province appears to exist in New South Wales
and Queensland in Australia.
The descriptions just given, which are but the barest sketches of
only some of those which are known, and with no reference to
authorities, will serve to give an idea of some of the leading distin-
guishing features of petrographic provinces, and how multifariously
they are scattered over the earth’s surface. Their existence and dis-
tribution indicate clearly that the underlying magma basins, or the
sources from which the igneous rocks are immediately derived, are not
everywhere uniform and alike, but that there exists a certain hetero-
geneity in the nonsedimentary parts of the earth’s crust. It should,
however, be noted that two provinces, though widely separated, may
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 291
be essentially alike in all their features, as is the case with that of the
eastern Mediterranean and that which extends from the Andes to
Alaska.
IV. THE CORRELATION OF THE ELEMENTS.
The existence of petrographic provinces is a broad phase of the
distribution of the elements among igneous rocks, the distribution
being essentially a spacial one and the evidence resting almost
entirely 6n the relative proportions of the most abundant elements.
But apart from this spacial distribution there is evident, also, a cor-
related variation among the elements; that is, a tendency for certain
ones to increase or decrease, to be relatively abundant or not, accord-
ing to the presence or absence of others. The causes of this behavior
are obscure and apparently complex. In part they may be probably
referred to certain fundamental relations among the elements, as
shown by the pericdic classification and chemical affinity; in part to
the effect. of certain physico-chemical laws leading to the mutual
segregation of elements affected similarly; and possibly in part to
the degradation of some of the elements, as indicated by recent ex-
periments by Ramsay. But any discussion of the causes is outside
the province of this paper, in which we can only deal briefly with
some of the facts of distribution.
The study of these mutual relations among the elements in igneous
rocks is of recent date, and has been made possible, especially so
far as the rarer elements go, only by the completeness and accuracy
of modern chemical analyses of rocks. Such analyses supplement
the evidence afforded by study of minerals, mineralogical associa-
tions, and ore deposits, and, deaiing as they do with what must
be regarded as the ultimate source of the ores, are of the highest
significance and importance. In the following brief discussion,
therefore, stress will be laid on the evidence afforded by rock analy-
ses, with some reference to chemical mineralogy, while ore deposits,
as being more technical and better known to the mining engineer,
will be alluded to only occasionally.
Considering first only the most abundant elements, study of the
igneous rocks in general shows that silica, alumina, soda, and potash
tend to increase or decrease together, though not always at the same
rate; while, on the other hand, the iron oxides, magnesia, and lime
tend to vary together and in general inversely as the preceding con-
stituents. The more siliceous rocks almost invariably show rela-
tively high alumina and alkalies and low iron oxides, magnesia, and
lime, leading to the common presence in abundance of the alkali
feldspars and the comparative paucity in calcic feldspars and the
ferromagnesian minerals, which tend to increase rapidly with dimi-
nution in the silica content. Highly siliceous rocks which contain
292 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
more jron, magnesia, and lime than alumina, soda, and potash are of
very exceptional occurrence. The rule mentioned above is so gen-
erally true that it may be regarded as the normal one for igneous
rocks in general, and is commonly accepted as such in petrology.
At the same time, there is considerable evidence that certain sub-
sidiary relations obtain among the constituents other than silica,
which, while by no means universal, are at times very pronounced,
and occasionally seem to supersede the more general law. ‘Thus,
soda not uncommonly tends to vary with the iron oxides, while potash
shows similar relations to magnesia, resulting in the presence of
potassium minerals in highly magnesian rocks and the abundance
of sodium minerals in those high in iron. Again, while neither iron
nor magnesia shows any marked affinity toward or tendency to vary
with alumina, this constituent and lime are occasionally found to
occur together in great abundance and to the general exclusion of
the others. These relations are also evident in certain facts of chemi-
‘cal mineralogy, as the usual predominance of magnesium over iron
in the potassic biotites and phlogopites, the abundance of soda and
absence of potash among the highly ferriferous augites and horn-
blendes, and the numerous silico-aluminates containing much calcium,
while those with iron or magnesium are comparatively very rare.
But this tendency to selective and correlated variation among the
chemical constituents of igneous rocks is not confined to those which
are present in greatest amount. It is equally well, and indeed in
some respects more strikingly, shown among the rarer elements, both
as compared with those which are most abundant and with each other.
Furthermore, the distribution of some of these rare elements would
seem to have important bearings on some of the problems of economic
geology and the distribution of ore deposits.
The general facts of this distribution and variation of the rare
elements have been summarized in several recent publications,* but
many of the details are still. uncoordinated and widely scattered
through the vast mass of petrographic literature, and there are cer-
tain aspects and recent developments which are either neglected, or
only briefly alluded to, in the publications referred to.
It is now commonly understood that certain elements are prone
to occur most often and in largest amounts in rocks which are high
in silica, the. so-called “ acid ” rocks; while others are met with simi-
larly in those low in silica, the “basic” rocks. This is essentially
the only set of relations recognized by Vogt, while De Launay in
“Jj. H. L. Vogt, Zeitschrift fiir praktische Geologie, p. 326 (September, 1898) ;
J. KF. Kemp, Ore Deposits, 3d edition, pp. 34-387 (1900); H. S. Washington,
Manual of the Chemical Analysis of Rocks, p. 14 (1904); L. De Launay, La
Science Géologique, p. 687 (1905); W. F. Hillebrand, Bulletin of the U. S.
Geological Survey, No. 305, p. 21 (1907).
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 293
addition to these two groups proposes two others, the “ mineralizing
agents ” and the vein metals.
Evidence, however, is accumulating that the relations of the rare
elements to the igneous rocks can not be expressed so simply as is
done by Vogt and De Launay. Their relative abundance is not
dependent on the silica alone, and hence referable only to the “ acid-
ity ” or “basicity ” of the rock. The relations are more complex
and dependent, not so much on the amount of silica, as on the rela-
tive amounts of other constituents, notably soda, potash, iron, mag-
nesia, or lime. They conform, on the whole, to the general relations
of the most abundant constituents, some of the rarer elements being
characteristically at home in the rock groups which show high
alumina and alkalies, and which include those high in silica; while
others again are most abundant in the rocks high in iron, magnesia,
or lime, and which consequently most often show low silica percent-
ages. Further than this, on the one hand, certain rare elements are
not equally at home in the alkalic rocks in general, but are most
abundant either in those high in soda or in those high in potash.
On the other hand, some of the elements segregated in the basic rocks
seem to be most at home in those which are highly ecalcic, others in
those which are high in iron or in magnesia, though here the evidence
is not so clear and the distinctions apparently not so well marked as
in the preceding case.
We may consider first those minor constituents of rocks which are
determined in the most modern and complete analyses, and next those
which exist in rocks in such small amount as almost to defy determi-
nation by the usual analytical methods, but whose presence is made
known either mineralogically or by their segregation in ore deposits.
The second group includes almost all of the commercially important
metals (except iron and manganese), while the former includes many
elements which are assuming an increased practical importance as
their economic possibilities and uses become better known. In a
general way the elements will be taken up in the order of their posi-
tions in the periodic classification. No references will be given, as an
attempt to render them complete would unduly lengthen the paper.
This course seems the more advisable, in spite of the apparent injustice
to those whose invaluable work and contributions must thus be ig-
nored, since the present paper may be considered as merely a prelimi-
nary one to a more exhaustive and monographic treatment which it
is hoped to publish later.
Lithium is very widely distributed among igneous rocks, but always
in very small amounts. While it frequently is to be detected by the
spectroscope, it seldom occurs in weighable quantities, and the diffi-
culty of its exact separation from the other alkali metals and its com-
parative unimportance cause it to be but seldom estimated quantita-
294 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tively. Although such minute traces are present in both acid and
basic rocks, yet it is undoubtedly more closely connected with those
which are highly siliceous and alkalic. The minerals in which it
forms an essential component, as spodumene, lepidolite, amblygonite,
and some tourmalines, are most often met with in granites and peg-
matites derived from granitic magmas. Unfortunately, the granites
and pegmatites which carry lithium minerals most prominently do
not appear to have been analyzed, but there is reason for the belief
that they are sodic rather than potassic in general character. The
very common association of lithium with soda rather than with potash
in many minerals also points to the same conclusion.
Beryllium is much like lithium in its associations, beryl and other
rarer minerals which contain it occurring for the most: part in granites
or pegmatites. Few analyses exist of such beryl-bearing rocks, and
beryllia has seldom been estimated separately from alumina in rock
analysis, but such data as are available and the common mineralogical
association of beryllium and sodium point to the conclusion that the
element is most at home in sodic magmas.
Attention may be called to the fact that beryl, in spite of its com-
mon occurrence, is not given in the list of descriptions of the rock-
forming minerals, such as those in the standard works of Zirkel,
Rosenbusch, and Iddings, though Lévy and Lacroix briefly described
it in their work and it is placed on their large colored table of
birefringences. In its optical properties it closely resembles nephelite
and apatite, and being hexagonal in crystallization as well, might
readily be mistaken for one of these minerals. I have noted the fact
that analyses of nephelite-syenites and other highly sodic rocks fre-
quently show a decided excess of alumina which can not be explained
by the apparent mineralogical composition of the rock, and the sug-
gestion is made that this is possibly due to the presence of beryl, the
beryllia of which would appear as alumina in the course of analysis,
unless special means were taken to separate the two. On the other
hand, the excess of alumina may be real and due to the composition
of the magia. .
Strontium has been shown by the analyses of the United States
Geological Survey to be widely distributed in the rocks of this
country. I have found it almost invariably when looked for in many
European rocks, and it is almost constantly present in those of
Australia. But it seldom occurs in more than traces, and the evi-
dence in regard to its distribution is as yet inconclusive, in spite of
the many modern analyses in which it is now determined, chiefly
because of the small amounts usually met with. It would appear
to be most abundant in rocks somewhat high in lime and with mod-
*Les Minéraux des Roches (Paris, 1888).
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 295
erate to rather low silica, though it is worthy of note that the highest
figures recorded for it are in some rocks of Wyoming which are low
in lime and extraordinarily high in potassium and barium. Being
but rarely a constituent of silicate minerals, decisive evidence from
this side is wanting, though it occurs with lime in some heulandite
and brewsterite.
Barium is another element which the analyses of the Washington
chemists showed to be widely distributed, and almost invariably in
decidedly greater amounts than strontium. It is now often deter-
mined by analyses of superior quality, and in a recent study, embrac-
ing the rocks of Italy, the United States, and New South Wales, I
have shown that it is specially prone to occur in potassic rocks, some-
times when the potash is accompanied by considerable lime, but that
it is rarely met with in notable amount in decidedly sodic or calcic
rocks. Neither the amount of silica nor the relative proportions of
iron and magnesia appears to be a determining factor of much im-
portance. This association of barium and potassium in igneous rocks
is in harmony with the mineralogical evidence. Barium is a frequent
minor constituent in potassium minerals, as orthoclase, muscovite,
and biotite, while potassium accompanies barium in hyalophane and
harmotome. On the other hand, barium is not reported in analyses
of sodium minerals, but occurs in small amounts in the calcium zeo-
lites, brewsterite, and phillipsite. Barium also seems-to tend to asso-
ciate with manganese, as shown by its common occurrence in psilo-
melane and the occurrence of minerals of the two metals in certain
mines.
Boron is seldom or never mentioned in rock analyses, chiefly
because of the complexity and difficulty of its exact determination,
especially in very small amounts. But it is not infrequently present
in weighable amounts in granites and pegmatites, chiefly as a con-
stituent of tourmaline. The few analytical data that we have of
such tourmaline-bearing rocks are not decisive, but boron does not
appear to have very decided preferences for either soda or potash.
Its associations in minerals are likewise not strongly marked, but
among the silicates calcium is the basic element which most fre-
quently accompanies it, and soda is more commonly met with in
boron-bearing minerals than is potash. Boron is commonly regarded
as one of the pneumatolytic elements.
Cerium, yttrium, and the other metals of the so-called “ rare
earths.” as well as ¢horiwm and uranium, are only rarely deter-
mined in rock analysis. Minerals containing them are commonly
associated with acid pegmatites, which, judging from occurrences in
Norway, Greenland, and elsewhere, are most apt to be sodic, though
the few determinations available of the rare earths are in highly
potassic igneous rocks.
45745°—sm 1909——20
296 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Titanium is, as we have seen, far from being the rare element
which it was formerly considered, and it is probably never wholly
absent from any rock. It is distinctly much more abundant in basic
than in acid rocks, and its affinities in the magma seem to be de-
cidedly rather with iron than with magnesium, and still less with
lime. While it is not commonly associated with alkalic rocks, yet
when these are low in silica it shows a tendency to be present in con-
siderable amount when the rock is sodic, as indicated by recent rock
analyses; and this tendency to association of titanium with sodium
appears mineralogically, as in the soda-amphiboles, some of which
are highly titaniferous, and in certain rare minerals, as astrophyllite
and rosenbuschite. Highly potassic and highly caleic rocks seldom
show large amounts of titanium, though most of the mineral titanates
contain calcium as the base.
Zirconium, so closely allied to titanium chemically, also shows
certain analogies in its magmatic relations. While unlike titanium
in being rare in the basic rocks, those high in iron, magnesia, and
lime, and referred by Vogt to the acid rocks, presumably because
of the common occurrence of zircons in granites, it is now commonly
recognized by petrographers that zirconium is by far most abundant
in the rocks which are high in soda. Indeed, zirconium may be
considered to be a characteristic minor chemical constituent of the
sodic rocks, whether the silica be so high that quartz is present, or
whether it be so low that nephelite is abundant, as in the nephelite-
syenites and phonolites. Practically all modern, complete analyses
bear out this view, which is confirmed by the common association of
sodium and zirconium mineralogically, as in eudialyte, catapleiite,
wohlerite, and the zirconium pyroxenes.
Phosphorus, as a constituent of apatite, is universally diffused in
small amounts through igneous rocks, and is most abundant in the
basic ones, though its relations to the constituents other than silica
are not clear. Study of large collections of analyses indicates that it
is usually, but not always, associated with high lime, rather than
with high iron or magnesia, and in some distinctly sodic provinces
the more basic rocks with high soda and abundant nephelite show
high figures for phosphorus pentoxide. Some of the phosphates are
met with in granitic and syenitic pegmatites.
Vanadium has been shown by the researches of Hillebrand to be
quite widely distributed, but always in very small amount and al-
most wholly confined to the basic rocks. As it exists as the sesqui-
oxide, V,O,, replacing alumina and ferric oxide in ferromagnesian
minerals, it is especially abundant in rocks composed largely of
pyroxene, hornblende, or biotite, while it is present only in traces
or not at all in rocks very rich in olivine, where the iron is present
mostly as ferrous oxide, as in the peridotites, It is associated with
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 297
iron rather than with magnesium, and occurs in most abundance in
some iron ores of magmatic origin, but no definite relations to the
alkalies can be made out. Its common occurrence in ashes of coals
and its abundance in certain carbonaceous deposits recently described
are noteworthy, though outside the present discussion.
Sulphur is, by far, more abundant in the basic than in the siliceous
rocks. It may exist, in the oxidized condition, in the minerals hauy-
nite and noselyte, in which case the rocks containing these minerals
are almost invariably distinctly sodic; or it may form sulphides, as
pyrite, pyrrhotite, and chalcopyrite, these being most common in
rocks rather high in iron, magnesia, and lime.
Chromium, like vanadium, is a constituent of the basic rocks, but,
unlike this, is most abundant when magnesia and not iron is high,
and when olivine, rather than pyroxene or hornblende, is abundant,
in spite of the fact that it occurs as the sesquioxide, Cr,O,. Presum-
ably this is because, instead of replacing alumina and ferric oxide in
the ferromagnesian minerals, it is most commonly met with in the
minerals chromite and picotite. It is reported to reach very high
figures again in certain effusive rocks which are so high in lime and
low in silica that the rare mineral melilite is present.
Molybdenum is seldom looked for in rock analysis, and our knowl-
edge of its magmatic relations is based almost wholly on an investi-
gation of Hillebrand. He found that it is much less common and is
present in smaller quantity than vanadium, and that, unlike the
latter, it is present only in the more siliceous rocks, though in quanti-
ties too small to permit of further discrimination. As molybdenite
it occurs most often in quartzose rocks. ;
Fluorine is almost universally present in very small amount as a
constituent of most apatites, and is usually regarded as a “ mineral-
izing agent,’ and, as such, is frequently present in pneumatolytic
minerals. <As stated by Vogt, it seems to be more common in the
acid rocks, but there seems to be a marked tendency on its part to
favor especially rocks which are high in soda. This is seen in the
fact that fluorite is frequently present as an original constituent of
such highly sodic rocks as nephelite-syenite, phonolite, and tinguaite;
the association of fluorine and sodium in certain rare minerals, as
leucophanite, meliphanite, johnstrupite, rinkite, etc., which are al-
most always found in sodic rocks; and by the recent discovery by
Lacroix of sodium fluoride in nephelite-syenites of West Africa.
Chlorine resembles fluorine in being a pneumatolytic constituent,
and is present in igneous rocks chiefly in the minerals sodalite and
noselite, which are almost wholly confined to sodic rocks and especially
those which are low in silica, in this resembling the occurrence of
BOn
298 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Manganese, though as widely distributed as titanium and phos-
phorus, is usually present in such small amounts as not to allow a
clear judgment of its magmatic relations, especially as the high
figures often reported for it are apt to be due to analytical error. As
a general rule, its amount is greater in the basic rocks, and certain
considerations indicate a preference for rocks high in iron rather
than in magnesia or lime, but the variations are not very significant.
We have already noted above the tendency to association of barium
and manganese.
Nickel is preeminently at home in the basic rocks, especially in the
peridotites and serpentines, where it replaces iron in the olivine,
while it likewise occurs in small amounts in hornblende, biotite, and
in pyrite and pyrrhotite. Certain rather high figures reported for it
may be ascribed to analytical confusion with platinum derived from
the utensils employed; but researches now in progress indicate that
it may be present in considerable amount (up to about 0.20 per cent),
not only in the “basic” but in the more siliceous rocks of certain
localities where its presence has not hitherto been suspected. It is
reasonable to suppose that it is most apt to be present in rocks which
are relatively high in iron rather than in maganesia and lime, and
the results of the investigation Just mentioned are in harmony with
this supposition.
Cobalt almost always accompanies nickel in igneous rocks, but
always in extremely small and scarcely weighable amounts.
The elements belonging to the next group to be discussed, those
which are scarcely detectable in igneous rocks by the usual analytical
methods on account of the excessively minute amounts usually
present, need not detain us long, even though they are commercially
among the most important. Since the analytical data are either very
scanty, untrustworthy, or wanting altogether, and their presence is
revealed to us mostly through secondary processes of concentration
in veins, placers, and other ore deposits, we are not yet in a position
to generalize with confidence as to the magmatic relations of most
of them.
Furthermore, having but slight affinity for silica, and thus (with
few exceptions) seldom forming silicates or entering as minor con-
stituents into the silicate minerals of other elements, we are deprived
to a very great extent of this kind of evidence.
Copper is not infrequently reported in analyses of igneous rocks,
but, as pointed out by Hillebrand, its apparent presence may often
be attributed to contamination during the course of analysis, or as
may be suggested here, to confusion with platinum likewise due to
contamination, as was suggested in the case of nickel. But notwith-
standing these sources of error, copper seems to be widely distributed
among igneous rocks, though in very small amounts. There seems
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 299
to be little doubt that it is most abundant in the more basic rocks,
especially those which carry pyroxene and hornblende rather than
olivine, but no evidence seems to exist as to its relations to the
chemical constituents other than silica.
Silver and gold have both been detected analytically in igneous
rocks, while metallic gold has also been observed as an apparently
primary ingredient of some rhyolites and granites. Both of these
metals are “ cosmopolitan in their relations,’ as Kemp puts it, and
they are known to occur in such highly siliceous rocks as granite,
rhyolite, and quartz porphyry, and, on the other hand, in diabase
and gabbro. There is, however, good reason for the belief that gold,
and probably silver as well, are most apt to occur in rocks high in
silica, but their relations to the other elements are still quite unknown.
Zine and cadmium (which latter is found only in connection with
the former) are also very uncertain. There is, however, some reason
for thinking that zine is more apt to be present in acid rocks, as
granites, this opinion being based on a few analytical data and the
facts of some of its occurrences. The common occurrence of zinc in
limestones, due presumably, at least in part, to the precipitating
effect of the sedimentary rock, has no apparent bearing on its rela-
tions to igneous magmas.
Mercury is considered by G. F. Becker to be associated with
granites, but his evidence is not very convincing. Its usual occur-
rence in sedimentary rocks tends to obscure its true relations, and,
to the best of my knowledge, it has never been looked for or reported
in an analysis of an igneous rock.
Tin, as the oxide cassiterite, almost invariably occurs as the re-
sult of pneumatolytic processes in pegmatites, granites, and other
rocks high in silica, and the mineral has been found in some rhyolites.
Judging from the common association of cassiterite with lithium
and beryllium minerals, and the presence of small amounts of tin in
certain feldspars, micas, zircons, and in the rare mineral stokesite, it is
probable that tin is associated rather with distinctly sodic than with
potassic or calcie magmas, but much more chemical study of the
rocks in which it occurs is needed to elucidate its relations.
Lead can often be found in rocks by using large amounts of material,
and is occasionally reported, as in the analyses of rocks from British
Guiana by J. B. Harrison and in those of rocks from New South
Wales. No generalization in regard to it is possible as yet, but I
am inclined to think that, like zinc, it favors the acid rather than
the basic rocks, though it has been observed in both. The remarks
in regard to the-occurrence of zinc in limestones apply as well to
lead.
Platinum and the other metals of this group are, as is well known,
most commonly found in connection with peridotites, rocks low in
300 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
silica and high in magnesia, though it has been observed by Kemp
in gabbros, which were presumably connected genetically with peri-
dotitic rocks. Recent developments point to a somewhat wider dis-
tribution than was formerly thought to be the case, and indicate that
platinum not infrequently is associated with copper ores.
The true relations of such elements as arsenic, antimony, bis-
muth, selenium, and tellurium to igneous magmas are quite un-
known. It is possible that arsenic and selenium are most at home
in the basic rocks, while antimony, bismuth, and tellurium are more
apt to occur in siliceous ones.
We may summarize the observations recorded above as follows:
Of the rarer elements whose distribution is better known, lithium,
beryllium, cerium, and yttrium, zirconium, uranium, thorium, sul-
phur (as trioxide), fluorine, chlorine, and possibly tin occur most
abundantly in sodic magmas; barium in potassic magmas; titanium,
vanadium, manganese, nickel, and cobalt in iron-rich magmas; chro-
*mium and platinum in magnesian magmas; and phosphorus (?) and
chromium (7?) in calcic magmas.
Of the other elements it can only be said that boron and molyb-
denum are certainly, and zinc, cadmium, lead, antimony, bismuth,
and tellurium are possibly, connected with magmas high in silica;
sulphur and copper almost certainly, and arsenic and selenium pos-
sibly, with those low in silica; while the relations of gold, silver, and
mercury are very uncertain, but they are probaby most at home in
acid rocks.
This statement, it will be seen, differs from that of Vogt, in that,
in the best-established cases, silica plays a less determinative role
than some of the other major constituents. At the same time, the
influence of the general law of the association of the most abundant
oxides comes into play, and in a general way the potassic and sodic
magmas are most apt to be highly siliceous (though the facts of dis-
tribution are shown in them even when silica is low); while those
which are high in iron, magnesia, and lime are most apt to be low
in silica.
Possibly the most striking feature of the distribution as thus shown
is the great number of elements which are prone to occur in highly
sodic magmas. As is well known, such magmas are those which show
most tendency to differentiation and the formation of a great variety
of rocks, many of them characterized by the presence of rare or other-
wise unusual and interesting minerals, and there may probably be
some connection between the two features of these magmas.
It will be noted that some of these elements, as fluorine, chlorine,
sulphur (as trioxide), and boron, are among those to which is usually
attributed the role of so-called “ mineralizing agents,” they being
supposed to be present as dissolved vapors in the magma and to exert
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 301
a marked effect on the crystallization of the mass, the formation of
pegmatites, and so forth. It may be argued that such mineralizing
and pneumatolytic elements are universally, and presumably quite
uniformly, distributed among the rock magmas, and that their pres-
ence in the highly siliceous and sodie rocks is due to the greater vis-
cosity of these when molten, which would hinder the escape of gaseous
constituents, while the basic magmas are more fluid at low tempera-
tures and would hence allow such gases to escape before or during
consolidation. On the other hand, it may be urged that the unde-
niable distribution among magmas of distinctly different general
chemical characters, of elements to which no such mineralizing or
pneumatolytic réle can be reasonably assigned, as barium, beryllium,
zirconium, titanium, manganese, nickel, chromium, and platinum,
would lead to the inference that the apparent distribution of the
gaseous and “ mineralizing ” elements in igneous rocks is real and not
dependent on physical causes. The subject is highly complex, and
our knowledge of the fundamental facts and of the physico-chemical
laws involved is as yet inadequate for solution of the problem, further
discussion of which would be outside the scope of this paper.
V. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS.
When the facts of the relations of the occurrence of the rarer
elements to the chemical characters of igneous magmas are considered
it is evident that their distribution over the earth’s surface must be
largely determined by that of the petrographic provinces. In other
words, in any given petrographic province those rarer elements and
minerals containing them would be most apt to occur abundantly
which show a correlative tendency to association with the character-
istic major constituents of the province. Thus, zirconium-bearing
minerals and those of the “ rare earths ” should be most abundant in
provinces whose magmas are highly sodic and where such rocks as
nephelite-syenite and phonolite are common; while chromium, nickel,
and platinum would not be expected in these, but would rather
be likely to occur in provinces where such rocks as gabbros and
peridotites are the prevailing ones.
This idea has been recognized by Spurr? in his proposed term of
“metallographic provinces,” which is based largely on ore associa-
tions, and which he apples more especially to those metals of most
economic importance, such as gold, silver, copper, lead, and zine.
The probable very close connection between “ petrographic” and
“ metallographic ” provinces is pointed out by him, but the two classes
seem to be regarded by him as distinct, at least to a certain extent.
4Trans., 33, 336 (1903) ; Professional Paper No. 42, U. 8S. Geological Survey,
p. 276 (1905) ; and No. 55, p, 128 (1906). ;
302 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
When we deal with such complex bodies as veins and other ore de-
posits, the matter is complicated by such factors as geological struc-
ture, the existence of faults, the occurrence of the igneous rock as
plutonic masses, dikes or effusive flows, climatic conditions,‘ and other
disturbing features. These may tend either to favor or to retard the
processes of concentration which result in economically exploitable
metalliferous deposits. But these, though undoubtedly of the highest
commercial importance, are subsidiary to the more fundamental facts
of the distribution of the elements in igneous magmas, and it seems
reasonable to suppose that a study of these latter features should be
susceptible of results of great practical importance.
It seems that, at present, the knowledge gained by exact chemical
analysis that the granites of a certain region contain minute traces of
gold or of copper would be of little use in guiding one in the search for
the location of a gold or a copper mine. The prospector must always
remain a valuable, indeed an invaluable, member of the mining fra-
.ternity. We can not enter here into the vast and vexed subject of the
genesis of ore deposits, but if it were known by future researches that,
for instance, gold or copper is normally associated with magmas of a
certain general chemical character, a knowledge of this might con-
ceivably be of material assistance in a search; not so much by indicat-
ing the exact position of a favorable location, but, in a more general
way, by leading the prospector to confine his attention to a given
region of favorable igneous rocks and to disregard one whose rocks,
on theoretical grounds, would probably result in loss of time and
effort. Such a knowledge could be gained not only by the complex
and laborious methods of accurate and minutely complete chemical
analysis, but more readily, at least in many conceivable cases, by
simple petrographical examination and field study of the most abun-
dant and characteristic rock minerals.
These considerations, it is true, are scarcely applicable as yet to
search for such metals as gold, silver, or copper, concerning the mag-
matic relations of which our knowledge is of the vaguest description.
But, in view of what has been ascertained by petrographical and
chemical means of the distribution of other elements, it is not un-
reasonable to think that we shall eventually obtain well-founded and
definite knowledge concerning the distribution of these also. Indeed,
the opinion may be expressed that future petrographers will wonder at
the fact that, for instance, the presence of such deep-seated and ex-
tensive deposits of copper as those at Butte and in Shasta County,
California, was so long unsuspected, and that their discovery came as
a surprise.
4H. V. Winchell, Popular Science Monthly, vol. 72, No. 6, pp. 534 to 542 (June,
1908).
cy
ELEMENTS IN IGNEOUS ROCKS—WASHINGTON. 303
At the present time a knowledge of the distribution of the ele-
ments is practically applicable not so much to the metals of greatest
human utility as to certain elements whose economic possibilities
are only recently beginning to be appreciated as their chemical and
physical properties and the application of these to commercial and
economic purposes are becoming better known. Some illustrations
may be permitted of the practical application of the facts set forth
in the preceding pages.
If, for instance, one were in a new country or were engaged in a
search for minerals containing such elements as zirconium, uranium,
the rare earths, or beryllium, one would welcome a district of highly
sodie igneous rocks, where albitic granites, nephelite-syenites, and
phonolites were abundant; in this the chances of success would be
most favorable. If the rocks were prevailingly gabbros, diabases,
or feldspar-basalts one would reasonably assume that such minerals
could not be expected to occur, at least in such amount as to repay
exploitation, and they would be neglected, or prospected for plati-
num or chromium, let us say. Similarly, if the platinum metals were
found in the sands of a river the watershed of which covered areas of
gabbros, granites, and limestones, one would naturally turn to and
explore the first in an attempt to trace the grains to their source, and
would, with good reason, leave the others alone.
Instances of this kind could be multiplied, and, indeed, some
present applications of the general principles are now practiced not
infrequently, but without any suspicion of the true principles under-
lying them or realization of their more general applicability. Thus,
in certain districts the occurrence of topaz or spodumene may be
recognized as generally indicating the possible or probable presence
of cassiterite, without appreciation of the more general and funda-
mental fact that the conjunction of tin, fluorine, and lithium is due
to the distinctly sodic character of the igneous rocks.
With increase in our knowledge of the origin of ore deposits, and
a general agreement as to their ultimate source in igneous rocks
(whatever be the divergence of views as to the processes of concen-
tration), the probability of the future importance of such observa-
tions as have been outlined above, from a practical as well as from
a theoretical standpoint, is fairly evident. We can not as yet predict
the probable presence of gold, silver, or copper in economic quanti-
ties from the petrographical and chemical study of the country rock;
but the time may come (and our increasing knowledge of igneous
rocks justifies us in a certain degree of confidence that it will come)
when such seemingly erudite and impracticable studies will be able
to guide us in certain regions, as to either the probable absence or
presence of ore bodies of such metals.
304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The problem is admittedly very complex, and is one which has
not yet been studied enough to do much more than enable us to make
a few broad guesses at the truth. But we are beginning to discern
some glimmer of light, and the fact that we can not make out
clearly our guiding stars, veiled as they are by the mists of imperfect
_ knowledge, should not cause us to disdain such help as glimpses
of them may now afford, or underrate their possible importance when
the mists shall have been dispelled.
THE MECHANISM OF VOLCANIC ACTION.
[With 3 plates.]
By H. J. JOHNSTON-LAVIS, M. D., F. G. S., ete.,
Professor of Vulcanology in the Royal University of Naples.
In a discussion of this kind it is advisable to be as concise as pos-
sible, eliminating minor details, so as to give prominence to the main
outlines of any theory one holds. This communication, which the
Council of the Ninth International Congress of Geography have hon-
ored me by asking me to address to you, I propose to put into the
form of a “credo.” To this I shall add a few fundamental facts
upon which my reasoning was based, leaving minor ones for discus-
sion at greater leisure elsewhere. For convenience, I propose to
divide my theory into two sections. In the first I shall review what
may be conveniently called deep volcanic action, and in the second,
that group of phenomena that occur when igneous matter nearly
reaches the surface or actually finds ap exit thereon. Unfortunately,
in the first case I am obliged to rely on hypotheses and deductions,
whereas in the second section, that of superficial volcanic action, there
are a number of fundamental facts and observations upon which to
base speculation, and to which I propose to draw your attention.
Of one fact we are certain, and that is our globe is surrounded by
a solid crust, which wherever it can be examined shows unmistakable
and almost universal evidence of compression, wrinkling, and dis-
location. This crumpling and crushing are equally inexplicable,
unless we admit that since the initial solidification of the earth’s
crust its lower, still cooling part or support has undergone contrac-
tion so as to crowd together the already cooled burden of the upper
part that this contracting mass carries.
No one has yet attempted to even suggest that the part of our globe
subjacent to the solid crust has shrunk from other causes than a loss
of heat. We may, therefore, look upon the idea of contraction as
due to cooling to be a universally accepted fact.
@ Reprinted by permission from The Geological Magazine, London, new series,
decade v, vol. 6, No. 10, October, 1909. Address to the International Geo-
graphical Congress.
305
3806 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Im the old theory of the earth crust crumpling over a contracting
and cooling nucleus, fluid, or partially so, it always appeared to me
to be inexplicable how fluid matter could be squeezed out, or why the
water on the surface of the earth did not rush down to fill up the
vacancy that the contracting interior tended to produce between
itself and the arch of the crust. This perhaps is expressing the facts
in simple commonplace terms, but is sufficient to illustrate the in-
compatibility of this hypothesis with the fact of some of the liquid
interior of the earth rising through the fissures toward the surface
and being squeezed out by the contracting crust.
The hypothesis that tangential thrust did not exist, but that the
earth crust was shrinking on an entirely or partially fluid nucleus,
would have satisfied the vulcanologist, but is contrary to the incon-
trovertible evidence of tangential compression, as seen in the plica-
tions and overthrusts existing upon the entire surface of the globe,
or at least that part above sea level. This hypothesis was based upon
the conception that the earth’s crust was acting as a single unit.
To Messrs. Mellard Reade and C. Davison? is due the credit of
making an analytical study of the functions of different parts of the
earth’s crust. That work demonstrated that theoretically we can
divide the cooling surface of the earth into a series of shells. The
outer shells that have reached approximately the mean atmospheric
temperature will, of course, have stopped contracting, whereas the
shells nearest to the heated nucleus will be those losing their heat
most rapidly, and therefore undergoing greatest contraction. This
contraction must inevitably cause crowding, crushing, and crumbling
of those shells that are nearer the surface, just as a stretched sheet
of rubber coated with a layer of stiff clay would do when allowed to
contract.
Somewhere between the surface shells of compression and the
deepest shells of greatest cooling and contraction there will be a
shell in a state of equilibrium, which the authors call the zone of no
contraction. This zone, which was originally quite at the surface of
our globe, tends to sink lower and lower as the general refrigeration
or isotherms of our planet proceed downward. Were the shells of
cooling and contraction of great tensile strength, such as the experi-
2@©. Davison: “On the Distribution of Strain in the Earth’s Crust result-
ing from Secular Cooling, ete.’ (Phil. Trans. R. S., 1887, vol. 178) ; “ Note on
the Relation between the Size of a Planet and the Rate of Mountain Building
on its Surface” (Phil. Mag., Nov., 1887); ‘‘On the Straining of the Earth re-
sulting from Secular Cooling” (Phil. Mag., Feb., 1896) ; “On Secular Straining
of the Earth” (Geol. Mag., May, 1889, Dec. III, vol. 6, No. 299, p. 220).
T. Mellard Reade: ‘‘ The Origin of Mountain Ranges,” 1886. Seealso H. J. John-
ston-Lavis: ‘‘ The Extension of the Mellard Reade and C. Davison Theory of
Secular Straining of the Harth to the Explanation of the Deep Phenomena of
Voleanic Action ’”’ (Geol. Mag., June, 1890, Dee. III, vol. 7, pp. 246-249).
MECHANISM OF VOLCANIC ACTION—JOHNSTON-LAVIS. 307
mental sheet of rubber, already referred to, we can quite understand
how any fluid in the earth’s interior would tend to be squeezed out,
but are met by two difficulties—(1) is there any fluid in the earth’s
interior? and* (2) is the tensile strength of the contractile shells
sufficient to have a squeezing power ?
Three classes of views have been held as to the constitution of our
globe. Some hold that it is like an egg, a solid shell with a fluid
interior; others maintain that by the increase of gravity as the center
is approached there is a solid nucleus which is potentially fluid were
it not for this gravitational condensation, so that there would be a
solid nucleus, a solid crust, and a stratum of liquid rock séparating
them. Finally, there is a third school who holds that the highly
heated nucleus, although potentially fluid, is really solid in conse-
quence of pressure or, more correctly, gravitational condensation.
No known rock that we are acquainted with gives the conception
of having sufficient tensile strength to be capable of exerting any
really contractile or squeezing power on fluid inclosed within it or
surrounded by it. There will be a tendency as the inner shells
contract to split by fissures. Such fissures would extend from
within outward, and would be top-shaped in section, with the edge
extending up to the neutral zone of no contraction, and their lower
limit at the inner surface of the lowest shell (pl. 1, E, F.) Such
a fissure might be simultaneously filled by the fluid rock paste beneath.
How this filling will take place requires consideration. As there is
reason to disbelieve in any considerable constricting power of the
inner cooling shells, and that even if such constricting power did exist
is would be annulled by the development of fissures within its mass, it
is evident one must look to other causes. The welling up into the
fissure of the fluid rock, if we admit a fluid nucleus or a stratum or
shell of such fluid, might be due to the settling down by gravitation of
the cooled blocks * of crust limited by the fissures. If, on the con-
trary, we admit the immediate contact of the lowest cooling shell
with a highly incandescent nucleus (P), solid by pressure, but poten-
tially fluid when this pressure is removed, we can well see what would
take place. As soon as the fissures and therefore fluid in the inner
cooling shells begin to form, their location and their edges will repre-
sent a site of diminished pressure. The subjacent and neighboring
but potentially fluid rock will in consequence liquefy and expand and
fill the fissure. As the fissure broadens and extends so will the
expansion and liquefaction increase pari passu.
Liquid rock may thus reach up to the neutral zone of no contraction,
but its extension further must be a matter of chance. It is evident
that if the shells of compression were in every part homogeneous and
“These blocks are quite different to the blocks referred to by some recent
writers on terrestrial mechanics,
308 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
coherent, then no upward-pointed fissure could be formed. In prac-
tice neither of these conditions is fulfilled. It is obvious that the
crowding and crushing will be most complete in the shells of com-
pression (pl. 1, C) where these are carried on a continuous block
of contraction (pl. 1, A). I mean by a block a portion bounded by
fissures formed in the contracting part of the earth crust. Where the
shells of contraction are fissured (E, F) there the crowding of the
superincumbent masses of cooled rock will not take place. As a
result, each block or island of contractile crust, with its compressed
burden, will tend to tear away from the adjoining blocks or islands,
so that the limiting fissures in the contractile joints will extend up
into the compressional shells (G, H).
This exactly fits in with what is frequently found in the distribu-
tion of volcanoes along the edges of areas of marked compression or
mountain regions. It will explain also the presence of volcanoes
having a linear arrangement between closely situated mountain
‘chains or areas, as in South America. Great rifts, such as those of
Central Africa and some canyon districts, are probably of such
origin. In earthquakes of tectonic origin it has been pointed out ¢
that the piers of damaged bridges have usually been found to have
approached each other. This would evidently take place in the
areas of positive compression (pl. 1, C, C). On the other hand, in
exceptional cases the piers have been found to have been separated.
This might well occur in the area of negative compression (R), or
what might well be termed the areas of retraction. The much larger
proportion of the former effect on the bridge piers would no doubt be
in the much greater ratio of compressional areas to retractional areas
on the earth’s surface.
May not ocean basins be in part due to blocks or islands of the
contracting zones exerting that diminution of volume in a vertical
more than in a horizontal direction, as we have so far been con-
sidering it to be? The peculiar abysmal ocean troughs, often at the
edge of ocean basins and parallel to chains of volcanoes or inter-,
rupted by them, could well be explained by the same circumstances.
I do not claim that ocean basins are alone due to this cause, but to a
combination of these conditions, with perhaps the slipping, shearing,
and corrugating of the primitive crust over a fluid envelope, and
even the tetrahedral collapse of a cooling globe. I lay down here but
a general principle to which there may be many exceptions, due to the
vicissitudes of cooling and the variation in the materials concerned
in any particular region, not to speak of the changing position of the
earth’s axis, the crustal inertia of Prof. G. H. Darwin, etc.
«Professor Hobbs, Ninth International Congress of Geography, 1908.
MECHANISM OF VOLCANIC ACTION—JOHNSTON-LAVIS. 309
Liquid rock having thus reached a considerable way to the surface,
either as simple dikes (pl. 1, I, 1), laccolites, or sills (pl. 1, L, L),
and so forth, is now in a situation suitable for the second series of
phenomena, constituting what I call surface volcanic action, to come
into play.
Surface volcanic phenomena.—Two schools of vulcanologists have
held opposed views as to the origin of the volatile constituents con-
tained in fluid igneous rock. One class of writers maintain that the
gaseous contents are primordial, and have been contained in the
igneous paste from the time that our globe condensed from the
nebulous state. Others attribute all the volatile matter still retained
in cooled igneous rock or evolved at voleanic mouths and fumaroles
to the volatilization of water met by the igneous rock in its journey
toward the surface Probably both are right, but I propose to bring
before you a series of my observations that point incontrovertibly
to the fact that by far the major part of the volatile constituents of
a magma are acquired by it on its journey toward the surface.
As condensation took place in our planet from a nebulous state,
as each layer or shell of rock materials passed from the gaseous to
the liquid state, and probably solid, it is evident that those most
volatile would be the last to change their physical state. That some
of the more volatile ones were entangled or held in solution by the
less volatile is quite likely, but the amount must have been small.
Another possible source of volatile matter in the deep-seated
igneous matter may well be due to a slow osmosis or diffusion ex-
tending over vast periods of time and directed by the varying affini-
ties of one class of matter for the other.
A quarter of a century ago, as a result of a careful and detailed
study of Vesuvius” and other volcanoes, I was able to show that a
voleano the more continuously active it was in the emission of
igneous material the more tranquil was the character of emission,
and that practically under such conditions lava was the only product.
I showed also that the longer were the intermissions in the extrusive
efforts of a voleano the more the ejecta tended to issue in a broken
up and fragmentary condition, from the larger and more violent
evolution of volatile or gaseous materials. We thus had the whole
gamut of products—scoria, pumiceous scoria, scoriaceous pumice,
pumice, and pumice dust—bearing a distinct ratio to the time that
any volcano had been in a condition of “ repose.”
Two explanations offered themselves to my mind for this state of
things. One was that the persistent evolution of volatile materials
primordially stored up in the original voleanic paste escaping con-
«“’Mhe Geology of Monte Somma and Vesuvius;” Q. J. G, S., 1884, vol. 40,
pp. 35-119,
310 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tinually therefrom had collected in the voleanic chimney and blew
out the magma; the other that the volatile materials were acquired
by the igneous magma where in contact with water-bearing rocks
in the upper strata of the earth’s crust.
Were the former the case one would expect that the first products
of an eruption should be less gas filled or gas bearing than the latter,
but this is not the case. My observations, which demonstrate the
fundamental facts upon which eruptive action of a volcano depends,
shows unmistakably that the first materials yielded in a normal
eruption after a long period of “ repose ” of a volcano are the richest
in volatile elements, and that as the eruption proceeds the amount of
gases in the issuing magma steadily diminishes, as shown by the
diminished vesicularity and increased crystalline individualization of
the essential ejecta.
The class which interests us in the present question is the group of
the essential ejecta. I found that when one examines the stratified
.deposits of the ejecta thrown out during an explosive eruption—that
is, an eruption of great violence taking place after a long period of
repose of an old volcano, or the initial outburst of a new one—the
materials, as they fell from the air, show a definite arrangement,
and vary in character in correspondence with different phases of the
eruption.
To illustrate what these characters are I propose to choose a
classical example in that of the great outburst of Vesuvius that over-
whelmed Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabia, Oplontis, and other towns
around the foot of Somma Vesuvius. If we examine the deposit of
materials that fell during the eruption of A. D. 79 in the streets of
Pompeu, or preferably outside the town, as the falling houses have
disturbed the regularity of the stratification within the walls, we
find it made up of several beds. Immediately reposing on the old
land surface is a stratum of very white light pumice. I use the word
“white ” in comparison with that above it. If we collect a quantity
of this we shall see that its bulk is very great for its weight. To the
naked eye it is composed for the most part of a glassy vesicular base,
with here and there scattered crystals of felspars, hornblende,
pyroxene, and biotite, besides occasionally extraneous minerals
7JIn my paper ‘“ On the Fragmentary Hjecta of Voleanoes” (Proc. Geol. Assoc.,
vol. 9, pp. 421-482 and 8 figs.) I divided such ejecta into three classes. Hssential
ejecta are those materials that issue in a fluid state, and consist either of the
volatile constituents or the magma in which these were contained, that produced
the particular emission in question. Accessory ejecta consist of the older
voleaniec materials of the same vent torn away, expelled, and mixed with the
essential ejecta of an eruption. Accidental ejecta consist of either volcanic
materials from other centers, or sedimentary or other rocks of the subvolcanic
platform, also torn out, expelled, and mixed with the two before-mentioned
ejecta.
MECHANISM OF VOLCANIC ACTION—JOHNSTON-LAVIS. 3811
caught up in the magma. Microscopically it is made up of a net-
work of straw-colored glass, with innumerable minute micro-crystals
of leucite, all of a remarkably uniform size, besides which are a very
few scattered microliths of hornblende, augite, mica, and felspars,
obviously preeruptive in birth. (PI.3, figs.5 and 6.) At wide inter-
vals, of course, occur the porphyritic crystals above named. The
main mass, however, is made up of glass, so that all the vesicles have
been able to assume well-rounded outlines. The size of the vesicular
spaces is very great in proportion to the amount of solid material
inclosing them, making the pumice a very light one in weight.
Reposing on the bottom stratum, and rather suddenly graduating
up from it, is the main bulk of the ejecta. The pumice composing
this is much heavier, darker in color, ranging from a brownish gray
to a greenish gray. The porphyritic inclosed crystals are the same
as those in the bottom, white pumice, and practically average the
same size. They appear to be more frequent, but this is due to the
pumice being denser; more of them are therefore to be seen in the
same area, as it were more crowded together.
Microscopically this pumice very much differs from the subjacent
white variety. (PI. 3, figs. 7 and 8.) Nearly the whole of the glass
has been replaced by innumerable microliths. The small leucites
have increased but little in size, though they seem more numerous.
This I attribute to the less amount of open space left by the vesicles.
The augite microliths constitute the main bulk, and minute grains
of magnetite are abundant. Some small microliths are probably
distinguishable as felspars. Generally the vesicular cavities are
much smaller. The vesicle walls are no longer smooth, but rough
from the projecting microliths that in the process of rapid cooling
grew and projected in all directions, and are not arranged with such
parallelism that is seen in flow structure with rods already in ex-
istence at an earlier date.
Both these divisions of essential ejecta are more or less mixed with
accessory and accidental ejecta torn from the sides of the crater and
the subvoleanic platform. I mention this as it has a bearing on the
composition of the third and uppermost part of the materials shot
out during an explosive eruption. This third or uppermost portion
consists of a coarse or fine dust (ash), and when examined micro-
scopically is seen to be to a large extent composed of detached
microliths and loose crystals mixed with a large quantity of pulver-
ized accessory and accidental ejecta. Whenever one examines the
ejecta of explosive eruptions the same order is found. The above-
mentioned characters are better seen in the case of very fluid inter-
mediate or basic magmas, and I have given figures of the ejecta
of an earlier explosive eruption of Somma Vesuvius, Phase ITI,
which is free from leucite. (PI, 2, figs. 1-4.)
45745°—sm 1909——21
312 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
When eruptions are of a less violent explosive character the first
part may be pumice and later a more compact and micro and par-
tially crystalline rock may issue, such, for instance, as the black
pumiceous trachytic scoria ejected by the last efforts of Monte Nuovo,
the main mass of the cone having been built up of a light buffish-
white trachytic pumice.
In still less marked explosive eruptions, or where a large amount
of material is ejected extending over some time, the final product
may issue as a continuous mass and constitute a lava.
What, then, is the interpretation of this regular succession of ejecta
having different characters? We know that the surface rocks of the
earth’s crust are as a body usually very aquiferous, and that as one
descends the rocks become drier and drier. All the water has beep
squeezed out by superincumbent pressure. Of course, we know that
according to the nature and composition of the rocks the depth to
which aquiferous material extends will be extremely variable.
Let us figure to ourselves what would take place in a mass of
fused silicates and oxides filling a fissure extending up through non-
aquiferous into more and more aquiferous rocks. The prolonged
contact would result in the gradual solution of the H,O of the
aquiferous strata in the fused paste, just as carbonic acid would be
dissolved under pressure, but at ordinary temperature, in water. In
the former case the critical point of H,O does not come into the
question. We know little of the temperature and pressure that
this compound can exist at when dissolved in silicates and oxides.
Furthermore, even if dissociated probably its components could pass
into solution and recombine again when temperature was lowered
sufficiently. A careful study of volcanic action leads me to believe
this process to be a slow one, so that if a fairly regular flow of melted
rock takes place up the fissure through the aquiferous strata little
H,O is absorbed, and igneous outflow shows little violence, so that
lavas are the chief products.
If the voleanic canal has never reached the surface, or is cut off
from it by an old plug of solidified ejecta, then as the igneous magma
acquires more and more H,O its tension will steadily rise. Its loss of
heat energy will be very little, as the H,O and other volatile matters
it has dissolved occupy a small volume. Still, in certain cases the
magma may, as the result of different sources of heat loss, undergo
complete cooling and consolidation. Not unlikely many hydrated
rocks owe their origin to this cause. All evidence points to the heat
energy or specific heat of basic rocks being lower in relation to their
fluidity, which would explain in part why hydrated rocks are more
frequent amongst them than are acid ones, as more frequently they
would be cooled to consolidation before they found issue at the surface.
“MECHANISM OF VOLCANIC ACTION—JOHNSTON-LAVIS. 313
In many cases, however, the tension of the magma will steadily
rise as it acquires more and more volatile matter from the surrounding
rocks... A moment will be reached when the tension has gradually
attained such intensity that the earth’s crust is rent by an extension
upward of the fissure. This fissure may reach the surface and make
a new volcano, or the obstructing plug of an old one may be cleared
away. In either case an explosive eruption will result.
Now the first portion to issue will be that part of the magma at the
top of the fissure that has been in contact for the longest time with
the more aquiferous rocks, and consequently will be richer in acquired
volatile materials than that below. It may be a pure glass, or a
certain number of crystals may have individualized under the intra-
telluric conditions of slow cooling. Once free from compression
H,O, ete., will separate from the nonvolatile silicates and oxides as
bubbles, undergo enormous expansion, escape in great part, and afford
the explosive agent in the ejection of the remaining fluid-froth still
holding much gas in the vesicles. This sudden expansion means a
tremendous loss of heat energy, and the vitreous matter is so rapidly
cooled that it has no time to individualize into microliths or crystals,
or the crystals already existing to grow in size.
We know from the effect of pumice on combustible substances, as
wood, bread, cloth, etc., as at Pompeii, that nearly all the latent heat
has been used up in this expansion, so that only partial roasting has
resulted. Thus has been produced the first white light pumice of an
explosive eruption by the extremely rapid expansion and cooling of
a pure or nearly pure glass.
As the upper contents of the volcanic canal blows out, that part of
the magma lower down follows. This next portion has been a shorter
time probably in contact with aquiferous rocks; these latter, being
deeper, are usually poorer in H,O. The consequence is that this
second batch of magma will contain less volatile matter, expansion
will be slower, there will be less loss of heat required for expansion,
so that there will be time and other more favorable conditions for
part of the glass to individualize into microliths. (Compare 1, 2, 5, 6,
with 3, 4, 7, 8, pls. 2 and 3.) This second batch of magma further-
more will have lost less heat energy in consequence of having had
less H,O to dissolve, but also being deeply seated and in hotter rocks
it will have lost less heat by conduction.
“T use H,O not to assume any special physical state of that substance. I also
refer to it specially as being the principal volatile material of igneous magma 3
but I fully appreciate the salts and gases derived from their decomposition, as
likewise the rarer materials that were acquired by and can be separated from
igneous rocks by a high temperature, to which Monsieur Brun and others have
furnished us with such interesting details by their studies.
314 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
As we go deeper in the volcanic.conduit these same differences will
be exaggerated, so that as the magma escapes almost all the glass
may be converted into microliths so as to leave little material to hold
them together, whilst the evolution of volatile gases will be sufficient
to separate them into dust, producing the pulverized material con-
stituting the essential part of the last and topmost deposit -of an
explosive eruption.
If the igneous paste rises from still greater depths it may come
from little or nonaquiferous parts of the conduit, which, together with
a higher specific heat from fewer losses thereof, will allow it to gush
forth in a nonfragmented state as a lava.
The want of uniformity in the water-bearing rocks at different
depths is too well recognized for us not to see the influence on pos-
sible departures and irregularities which might result in the sequence
of ejecta having the characters I have shown you as the simplest ex-
pression of an eruptive phase.
In an open chimney of a volcano in chronic activity the constant
circulation up the voleanic conduit allows of too little time for the
magma to acquire much volatile materials, and it is only when this
outflow is more or less impeded at the vent that more volatile ma-
terials are acquired and the volcano assumes paroxysmal or explo-
sive fits.
In conclusion, I may say I have tried to summarize the trend of my
researches for the last thirty years, and if you will try to read the
whole phases of voleanic activity in this ight you will find it the only
satisfactory explanation universally applicable to all cases of the
eruptive mechanism. No other theory that has been advanced has
ever been based on the characters of the actual essential ejecta, and no
other one fits without exception the whole range of the very varied
phenomena of volcanicity.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES 1, 2, AND 3.
PLATE 1.
A Shells of contraction.
B Neutral zone or zone of neither contraction nor compression.
C Dry shells of compression.
D Aquiferous shells of compression.
BE Fissure between shells of maximum cooling and contraction filled by lique-
faction of the edges of these shells by diminished pressure.
F Same, but in the shells of less cooling and contraction.
G Fissure extending up between two areas of compression and islands of con-
traction, but not reaching the aquiferous shells.
H The same, but reaching into the aquiferous rocks.
I The same, but having reached aquiferous shells, has been enabled to extend
upward by explosive action into a laccolite and sill in one case and directly
to a voleano in the other. ;
MECHANISM OF VOLCANIC ACTION—JOHNSTON-LAVIS. 315
I, Laccolite and sill exposed by erosion at M.
N Volcano supplied from uncooled part of laccolite, aquiferous rocks, and from
rift I.
O Volcano supplied from rift I and aquiferous rocks around top of same.
P Portion of globe undergoing practically no cooling.
R Area of ineffective compression or retraction and depression.
S Area of ineffective contraction and of low pressure.
Pumices and pumiceous scoria from explosive eruptions of Monte Somma and Vesuvius
(essential ejecta).
PrArey 2:
Fig. 1. Light white pumice, bottom part of Phase III, period 1. The section is
seen to be mostly composed of a clear glass with only an occasional porphyritic
erystal or microlith. Magnified 11 diameters.
Fig. 2. Part of the same section, magnified 50 diameters. Most of the vessels
are sectionized and open, and support the very rare porphyritic crystal by sec-
tions of the thin shells of glass. A few vesicles still contain air.
Fig. 3. Heavy chocolate-brown pumiceous scoria produced later by the same
eruption, Phase III. Notice how much smaller are the vesicule and how the
mass of rock material is principally composed of microliths. Magnified 11
diameters.
Fig. 4. The same, magnified 50 diameters. Here the numerous large smooth-
walled vesicles of figure 2 are replaced by few small rough-walled spaces into
which the microliths project.
PLATE 3.
Fig. 5. Light white pumice, bottom part of Plinian pumice that buried Pompeii,
Phase VII, period 1. The section shows the material to be mostly a clear glass
crowded by microliths of leucite only with few exceptions. Magnified 11
diameters.
Fig. 6. Part of same section, magnified 50 diameters, showing these characters
more accentuated.
Fig. 7. Heavy greenish-gray pumice from high up in the pumice stratum.
Here the rock is composed of a dark, almost opaque network of microlithic
matter in which magnetite is abundantly distributed. The microliths are
almost hidden by the opacity of the magnetite and augite grains. Magnified 11
diameters.
Fig. 8. The thinnest possible section to make is shown in this figure, magnified
75 diameters, exhibiting the extensive indivdualization of the glass into opaque
microliths. The leucite microliths are represented by spots of imperfectly
transmitted light where the crystal grains reach both sides of the slice, but
are partially overlapped by augite and magnetite all around.@
“Wad this specimen been chosen from the top of the essential ejecta of Phase
III the thinnest section capable of being cut would have been opaque. It was
taken, therefore, from a transition stratum (see p. 312).
‘QS1LVYS9D9VX"F AILVAYS SNOILYOdOYdq ‘“SNIIOOD 34O SS300Hd AW
ASNYOD SiHLYVA SHL NO ONIYNSSI4 GNV ‘NOISSSYdWOD ‘NOILOVYLNOD 4O STISHS IVOILSYOSH] SHL ONIMOHS WVHOVIG
“|, SLV1d "SIAB-UOJSUYOC—'G6Q6| ‘oday UeIUOSY}yIWS
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Johnston-Lavis. PLATE 2.
Phase TIT, Monte Somima, showing vast
difference between the pumice eyected
at the commencement and middle cof
un explosive eruption.
Dro UT. Johuston-Laris mierophat
PUMICES AND PUMICEQOUS SCORIA FROM EXPLOSIVE ERUPTIONS, MONTE SOMMA AND VESUVIUS.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Johnston-Lavis. PLATE 3.
Phase VIT, period 1, Pompeii eruption
of a.p. 79, to illustrate same
difference as last Plate.
Dr. H. J. Johnston-Lavis mierephot.
PUMICES AND PUMICEOUS SCORIA FROM EXPLOSIVE ERUPTIONS, MONTE SOMMA AND VESUVIUS.
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CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
By JAMES Doucuas, New York, N. Y.
(New Haven meeting, February, 1909.)
In discussing the waste upon which hinges, or is supposed to hinge,
so largely the preservation of our national resources, the conclusions
reached would be more reliable if actual experience were consulted,
and fewer deductions were drawn from general statements, which are
often the product of the imagination.
It can not be questioned that the value of by-products has not been
sufficiently appreciated by us, and that our tardiness in recovering
the useful ingredients of the escaping gas of our coke ovens is one of
the most glaring instances of shortcoming in that direction. And yet
even for that sin there is some palliation in the immature condition of
affiliated industries. I presume that it is admitted without argument
that, except under very exceptional conditions, all the elements can
not be recovered from most of the ores or natural products which we
treat. While it is a shame that the by-products from our coke ovens
should be dissipated, Edward W. Parker’s report to the United States
Geological Survey for 1906 ¥ supplies a fairly good excuse in justifica-
tion of this appalling waste. He says (pp. 773 to 774) :
What has been already commented on in previous reports about the slowness
of manufacturers to change from the better known but wasteful beehive practice
to the by-product recovery method of coke manufacture is particularly empha-
sized in the statistics presented in this chapter. For it would appear from the
table following that the construction of by-product ovens had about come to a
standstill, especially when the records for the preceding five years are taken into
consideration. At the close of 1901, when there were only 1,165 by-product
ovens completed in the United States, there were 1,533 in course of construction,
498 of which were completed during the following year. At the close of 1902,
1,846 retort ovens were building, 298 of which were added to the completed
plants in 1903. At the close of 1903, 1,885 new ovens were building and 954 of
¢ Reprinted by permission from Bulletin of the American Institute of Mining
~ Engineers, New York, No. 29, May, 1909, pp. 439-451; also in Transactions of
American Institute of Mining Engineers, 1909, with discussion thereon.
> Mineral Resources of the United States for 1906, U. S. Geological Survey
(Washington, 1907).
317
318 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
these were put into blast before January 1, 1905, at which time 832 new ovens
were in course of construction. At the close of 1905 there were only 417 new
ovens building, and at the close of 1906 new work was limited to 112 Otto-
Hoffmann ovens, which were being added to the 260 ovens already built at
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, by the Cambria Steel Company. These new ovens
were completed and put in blast in February, 1907.
This condition is somewhat difficult to understand when the economies effected
by the use of retort ovens have been so clearly demonstrated. These economies
consist not only in the higher yield of coal in coke, but in the recovery of the
valuable by-products of gas, tar, and ammonia. One of the reasons that has
been assigned for the comparatively retrogressive condition exhibited by the
statistics for 1905 and 1906 (comparison being made with beehive oven construc-
tion, 5,893 new beehive ovens having been completed in 1906, with 4,407 building
at the close of the year) is the lack of a profitable market for coal tar, and yet
the United States is importing coal-tar products to the value of several million
dollars annually, while the development of the fuel-briqueting industry has been
held back because of the lack of assurance of a steady supply of coal-tar pitch
for a binder, and users of creosoting oils for the preservation of timber complain
of an insufficient domestic supply of this product of coal-tar distillation.
The truth is that one branch of industry is so dependent upon
another that there must be equal progress along the whole line of
industrial life if complete recovery of all the available elements of
our natural resources is to be effected. The chemical industry must
keep pace with the mining and metallurgical industry. We may
be moving too slowly in that direction, but we can distinguish a
steady movement toward this needful cooperation. It is encourag-
ing, for instance, to find that the waste gases from the furnaces of
the Tennessee Copper Company are being turned into sulphuric acid
for the manufacture from southern phosphates of the superphos-
phates which the fertilizers of the southern cotton fields need. Fail-
ing this mutual relation between the metallurgist of Tennessee and
the chemical manufacturer, the blame should not rest entirely upon
the metallurgist for wasting that for which, heretofore, he has been
unable to find a market. The same justification exists abroad as in
this country for similar waste in other branches of industrial activity.
It is nevertheless true that legal compulsion alone has driven
manufacturers to introduce improvements and economies which were
demanded by public safety, and which have redounded to the benefit
of the reluctant corporations. In Germany and England the disposal
of noxious vapors and noxious liquors has been required of the
manufacturers, but their compulsory removal from the atmosphere
and the water has resulted in their conversion into useful products,
and the building up of new technical industries. An agitation is
springing up in the West against the fumes from smelting works
being turned loose into the atmosphere. While in some cases the ~
injury done to vegetation may have been falsely attributed to the
smoke from metallurgical works, the agitation has been followed
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—DOUGLAS. 819
by some good results. For instance, the Mountain Copper Company,
having been driven out of Shasta County, California, by the farmers,
has erected chemical works as an annex to its smelter at Martinez, on
San Francisco Bay. Here, as elsewhere, manufacturers are reluctant
to go to the heavy expense involved in abating such nuisances, even
though they may know that in the end the abatement will be profit-
able. As far back as 1881 Mr. Vivian admitted that in recovering
47 per cent of all the sulphurous acid emitted from his furnaces in
Swansea he condensed 3,666 tons of oil of vitriol at a great profit.
This valuable asset, though he does not so state, was secured in spite
of bitter opposition on the part of those who were ultimately the
most benefited by it. One looks with wonderment at the clouds of
valuable fumes which float from the New Jersey shore over Staten
Island to the sea, instead of flowing inland as acid to the chemical
manufacturers in the neighborhood.
Our industrial development, however, has reached such a state of
advancement, especially in the densely populated portion of the
country, that however averse some of us may be to expend a large
share of our profits in improvements, designed primarily to relieve
the public of nuisances, we must submit whether we will or not.
And having obeyed the mandate of the law, not many years will
elapse before we come to realize that what we do under compulsion
is as much for our own good as for that of our neighbor.
T promised, however, to confine myself in my remarks to matters of
experience. I have been identified with the copper interests of the
Southwest since 1881. Though the Southern Pacific Railroad had
only just traversed the territory, mining was immediately stimulated
by railroad transportation, and the Copper Queen Company, at Bis-
bee, the Old Dominion Copper Company, at Globe, and the Lezinskys
(the predecessors of the Arizona Copper Company), as well as the
Detroit Copper Company, were actively at work at Clifton. All
three of the most productive districts, therefore, of southern Arizona
were being explored, and, through the influence of the railroad, vigor-
ously exploited at that time. But none of them were situated on the
main line, or were linked to the transcontinental road by branches.
The Copper Queen was 60 miles from its nearest railroad station,
Benson; the Old Dominion was 140 miles from either Wilcox or
Bowie; and the mines of the Arizona Copper Company and the
Detroit Copper Company were 80 miles from Lordsburg. Coke
and supplies had to be hauled in and copper teamed out those long
distances.
The ores in all three camps were thoroughly oxidized. At the
time this was supposed to be a condition of the highest advantage,
upon which the only possibility of economical treatment depended;
and not without good grounds, for the tedious methods of treating
820 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
sulphide ore, so expensive in labor and fuel, were still practiced. We
all, therefore, imagined in our shortsightedness that the day of doom
for the copper interests of southern Arizona would date from the
transition from oxidized to sulphide ore. Of the three districts, the
only prosperous one during the succeeding fifteen years or so was the
Warren, and for reasons which we now more clearly appreciate than
we then did. The ores of the Copper Queen, or rather such of them
as were then selected for treatment, were self-fluxing. They contained
about 10 per cent of copper. The slags of that period, which we are
now resmelting, contained about 2.5 per cent of copper. Assuming
the slags to represent 65 per cent of the charge, about 16 per cent
of the total copper content was being stored away in them. Less
favorable conditions, however, existed at both Globe and Clifton.
The ores of both these districts were extremely siliceous and the
furnace charge of ore had to be diluted with from 40 to 50 per cent of
limestone. The siliceous ores as treated were probably of about 12
“per cent. The furnace charge was reduced by fluxing to between 7
and 8 per cent of copper. The old slags—65 per cent of the total
charge—yield at Glebe about 3.5 per cent and, therefore, must have
carried from 30 to 32 per cent of the total copper fed into the fur-
naces. We have retreated all the old slags of the Detroit Copper
Company, at Morenci, near Clifton, and know that they carried on an
average of 4.5 per cent of copper and must, therefore, have contained
at least 40 per cent of the copper in the ore. At neither Clifton nor
Globe was the dust collected, which probably represented a loss of
another 5 per cent. Considering the high cost of fuel and labor,
it is not to be wondered at that neither the Old Dominion, the
Arizona Copper Company, nor the Detroit Copper Company, was
financially successful for the first fifteen or sixteen years of their
existence. It was not until all the richer carbonate ores had been
wasted by being largely converted into slags that the companies
recognized that their salvation depended upon securing sulphide
ores; upon making metallic copper through the medium of matte,
and throwing away less copper in their slags. So little, however,
was this fact appreciated at first that we all envied the Arizona
Copper Company, because it could turn the San Francisco River
into its works and granulate and wash away this valuable refuse.
And when the Old Dominion mine struck large volumes of water,
the Old Dominion Company committed the same act of folly, wash-
ing its 3.5 per cent slags into Pinal Creek.
Had the companies realized the losses they were incurring and the
only remedy applicable, they would have been obliged to lees both
mines and furnaces; for except at the Copper Queca where sulphide
ores were encountered within three or four years after the mine was
opened and were considered a nuisance, heavy sulphides are rare.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—DOUGLAS. 821
Though the Old Dominion Consolidated Company has explored its
property to the sixteenth level, between 100 and 200 tons daily are
imported from California and Bisbee, the company’s own mines pro-
ducing only about 60 per cent of the sulphur required by the furnaces.
And at least one of the Clifton smelting companies is obliged to draw
daily from abroad by railroad about 160 tons of sulphides high in
sulphur and low in copper. It follows, therefore, that there was no
alternative in the early. days between either suspending operations
or making copper in the wasteful manner which the companies then
pursued.
Looking at the situation from the standpoint of to-day, if we place
the advantages and disadvantages side by side, we have on the side
of the advantages:
1. The experience which was gained during that long period of
adversity, which is now being turned to good account, not only by the
original companies, but by the many other enterprises which have
entered the same field and are profiting by the losses of the pioneers.
2. The southern portion of the territory has increased in popula-
tion and in wealth, mainly through the exertions of these copper com-
panies, even while they were losing money on the copper produced.
They not only employed thousands of men, but they made a market
for the agricultural development of the small amount of arable land
within reach of the mines. Had the mines of Globe and Clifton not
been operated because pecuniarily unsuccessful, and had not the
shareholders been willing to accept hopeful promises in lieu of divi-
dends, Arizona would not to-day be making an unanswerable plea
for admission to the Union as a State.
3. The ultimate success has been due to the advent of the railroad;
for railroads are seldom built into unproductive regions in the expec-
tation of creating traffic that does not exist.
If we turn to the disadvantages, they are, of course, palpable. At
the present time, when we are matting our copper ores instead of
making black copper direct, the slags from those three groups of
copper furnaces run from 0.4 to 0.5 per cent of copper. Even when
the slags are re-treated, copper in the slags resulting from the slag
treatment runs higher than in slags from the treatment of ore, owing
to the difficulty of reducing silicates. Thus, when the slags are re-
treated, there is the double waste of fuel and the double waste of labor.
Even supposing that our economic system were different, and that
necessity did not drive public corporations to utilize wastefully the
resources they acquire, I think that the balance of advantage to the
country at large, as well as to the district, would indicate that it is
better to make progress and thereby gain experience, even at the ex-
pense of such waste as I above indicate, rather than stand still and do
322 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
nothing, in the hope of more favorable conditions being brought about
by Providence rather than by our own efforts.
Certain lessons, however, the above recital of experience teaches.
One of them is, never to throw away anything that contains material
of any value, even though it may seem to be valueless. The time
inevitably and invariably comes when, through improved conditions
or better methods, what was waste to one generation becomes of value
to another. Most of the filling of the old stopes in the Copper Queen
mine and in the Old Dominion mine has already been re-treated. In
the case, therefore, of sulphide ore, which is too lean to handle, it
should be stored underground rather than exposed to the weather at
the surface. I am not sure whether we are justified in ballasting our
railroads with the slags which we are making now, lean as they are.
One can not see how 0.5 per cent of copper and a little gold and
silver can possibly be recovered to any advantage, and yet the future
may reveal secrets which will convert such impossibilities into possi-
“bilities. The slags from the iron blast furnaces, which were deemed
valueless a generation ago, are made into hydraulic cement to-day.
We all recognize the waste that has resulted in the past from wash-
ing away gold tailings, which often ran several dollars in gold to the
ton. Had they been impounded, the minerals now, through weather-
ing, would be in the fittest possible condition for cyaniding, and
would give up to this process their residual values to within a trifle
of their contents. The same rule of preservation should be appled
to the tailings from copper works. The sulphides, no matter how
small their percentage, slowly decay, and give off their copper as
soluble sulphate, which can be precipitated on scrap iron at a very
inconsiderable cost. If the locality be such that these waste materials
can be stored, care, and some outlay, if necessary, should be expended
in their preservation.
There seems, however, to be a fascination in contemplating loss
rather than saving, and while we can not exaggerate the follies of
waste, it is not fair to the profession to overlook the efforts that have
been consistently made within the last three-quarters of a century,
and are still being made, to eliminate waste. One of the anomalies,
however, of the problem is that the accused mining and technical
engineers compose the only section of the public which really appre-
ciates the cost of waste and tries to save.
The recovery of heat units in our domestic fireplaces and furnaces
is far less than the recovery of heat from coal burned under our best
boilers, when measured as power generated in our steam engines.
And the waste in our kitchens and at our tables involves a greater
national loss than the waste in our coal mines. In the one case the
people at large are making no effort to minimize it, while every tech-
nical man of repute is putting his best endeavors into devising means
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—DOUGLAS. 323
of getting the highest efficiency out of nature’s forces, with a view to
turn nature’s resources indirectly to the greatest good for the greatest
number.
If we look backward to what has happened within our own day
and experience we may justly feel some resentment at the harsh
criticism which is now being so generally aimed by the press and the
public at technical men. And this is partly true likewise of the
strictures so indiscriminately passed upon the corporations which are
instrumental in developing the country’s natural wealth.
In the middle of the last century less than one-half of the iron made
in this country was smelted with anthracite, and the balance with
charcoal or charcoal and coke.t The devastation of the forests was
awful. Pearse® gives the consumption of wood in Berks County,
Pennsylvania, in making 19,000 tons of charcoal iron in 1828, 1829,
and 1830 at 250,528 cords. To secure this amount about 8,000 acres
of the finest forest land in the country must have been stripped. In
England, where most of the iron was made with coke as fuel, at the
same date and until 1875, there were consumed from 35 to 37 hundred-
weight of coke per ton of pig iron. In 1875, when the Whitwell
stove was introduced to heat the blast, the quantity of fuel con-
sumed was reduced by 3 or 4 hundredweight. By improved me-
chanical and metallurgical appliances that consumption in the Mid-
dlesbrough district is now lowered to 22 hundredweight.°
This saving of fuel in the blast furnace has, in this country as
well as in Europe, been effected through the sleepless activity of
metallurgists and engineers, by modifying the size and shape of the
great iron stacks, increasing and regulating the temperature and the
pressure of the blast, and by the introduction of appliances for utiliz-
ing the waste heat. The difference between the 37 hundredweight
of coke formerly needed to make a ton of pig iron and the 22 hun-
dredweight now consumed, multiplied by the number of tons of pig
iron made in the United States in 1906, represents a saving (assuming
1.75 tons of coal as required to make 1 ton of coke) of approximately
30,000,000 tons of coal.
The progress along this line in blast-furnace practice has been
steady and wonderful, and has culminated in the ingenious device
of James Gayley, which still further economizes fuel, by freezing the
blast before admitting it to the stove, in order to eliminate moisture,
@Tn the Iron Manufacturer’s Guide (1866), Lesley gives the total production
in 1854 at 724,833 tons, of which 417,128 tons was charcoal or charcoal-and-coke
iron.
> Concise History of the Iron Manufacture, p. 156.
¢ A description of Messrs. Bell Brothers’ Blast Furnaces from 1844 to 1908,
and other papers, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, vol. 78. (No. 3,
1908. )
324 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and thus supply the stack with a gaseous element of as constant and
reliable a composition as the solid elements of fuel and ore.
The advances in blast-furnace practice in the direction of fuel
saving have been great. But they are not as startling or as pic-
turesque as the economies which followed the introduction of the
pneumatic method as applied through the mechanical and metal-
lurgical skill of Bessemer, and as developed in the United States
through the genius of Holley. We can all recollect the distressing
sight, especially in summer weather, of the puddler, stripped to his
waist, toiling over his furnace, while burning up from 20 to 27
hundredweight of coal in converting 1 ton of pig iron into puddle
bar. Leaving out of the question the fuel used in generating the
power for operating the Bessemer converters, which, however, is
generally recovered from the waste heat of the blast furnace, the
amount of coal saved in making Bessemer steel instead of wrought
iron during the same year of 1906 exceeded 22,000,000 tons.
The metallurgy of copper has benefited as acutely as the metallurgy
of iron and steel from the combined science and skill of the mechan-
ical and metallurgical engineers. One recollects distinctly how, in
the old brick furnace, a campaign of ten days, with a daily charge
of 10 tons of ore, was looked upon as almost phenomenal; and that
from the time we began roasting sulphide ore in heaps until the
refined copper was turned out after endless handlings of the mattes,
as they were worked up from lower to higher grades, about three
months was occupied. Now, by means of mechanical roasting fur-
naces, large jacketed cupolas, electrical cranes, the Bessemer con-
verter, and the Walker casting table, the ore is turned into metal in
fewer hours than it formerly took weeks, and at the same time almost
dispensing with hand labor.
While these industrial changes were going on in the mining and
metallurgical fields, the electrical engineer was bringing under con-
trol that tremendous force which Faraday. investigated as dynamic
electricity; and we metallurgists have not been slow to apply it, both
to the saving of fuel and other natural resources, and to the con-
servation of human labor. The modern rolling mill, in which a
motor replaces the small engine and boiler that used to operate the
rolls, and the modern electrolytic plant which turns out electrically
pure copper, are only the more visible benefits that electricity is
conferring. When some of us commenced our technical experience
the deduction in precious metals made by the refiner of copper be-
fore any contribution was made to the miner or the seller was $60
worth per ton of ore or metal. Under such heavy charges com-
paratively small amounts of gold or silver were or could be saved.
To-day, through the application of electrolysis to the metallurgy of
copper, about $8,000,000 in value, which was formerly lost, is now
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—DOUGLAS. 325
recovered annually and goes into commerce as a by-product; for
the world’s copper may be assumed to carry an average of $10 per
ton in gold and silver.
The last application of this mysterious force, by transmitting
from stationary engines electric current for the movement of trains,
aims at reducing what is certainly one of the most wasteful uses of
coal—its consumption in the locomotive for the generation of steam.
In distributing our coal supply, the railroad burns up from 20 to 25
per cent of the total production of our coal mines. This will be
notably reduced, though to what extend has not yet been determined.
But before this desirable consummation is attained, if electrical
engineers continue to extend the limits within which long-distance
transmission can be applied economically, they will bring the latent,
neglected forces of the whole continent to our doors, and the water
powers a thousand miles away, as well as the winds and tides, will
propel our railroad cars as well as heat our houses. The service
which coal now performs will be fulfilled without the expenditure
of human labor and the diffusion of so much obnoxious smoke and
vapor. Long before our coal supplies are exhausted, even on the
most pessimistic calculation, our children will gladly leave the bal-
ance in the ground, and charge off to profit and loss some of what we
now consider our most valuable natural asset.
There is no doubt whatever that the destruction of our forests is
attended by a host of such terrible consequences that a halt must be
called. In the early days at Bisbee, when we were at a distance from
the railroad, we of necessity almost stripped the hills of their scanty
clothing of stunted wood, for we were forced to use wood for the
generation of steam. I find from one of the earliest statements that
the company burned about 4,000 cords of wood for the year. The hills
for miles around were completely denuded, with the result that dis-
astrous floods have ever since almost annually deluged and damaged
the town, which is built in the troughs of two converging valleys.
As mining engineers we are sensible of the ruin which reckless lum-
bering involves, and we lower with regret every stick of timber that
we bury underground. Nor are we satisfied to bemoan the fact with-
out making some effort to remedy the evil. It has been suggested,
and we are trying the experiment, to replace wood by iron. The
forests can be restored in time by reforestation, but iron ores can
not be replaced. And, therefore, it is a false economy to attempt to
save a reproductive material by substituting one which rusts and
can not be regenerated. Concrete is also being used more and more
in mining operations, and against its substitution for wood there can
be no objection; but the most notable economy will result from im-
proved methods of mining, especially from the introduction of the
caving and slicing systems. These were introduced into the Cananea
326 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
mines when Arthur S. Dwight was manager; and Doctor Ricketts
and Mr. Kirk have extended the use of the methods and applied them
so successfully that less than half the timber is used per ton of ore
extracted to-day than was buried in the mine three years ago. The
following data, kindly supplied by Doctor Ricketts, represent the
saving which is going on at Cananea, and in many mines where the
same method is applicable:
Timber consumed per ton (wet) of ore produced at Cananea, Mexico.
‘ Tons ore| Feet tim- | Feet per
Period. mined. | ber used. ton.
ATISUSts e190) LO) AU AV TOG OUG =o asereiaicteteteelels aietetetete/=iminieisiemsietaietatsiatersts 463,039 | 10,774, 342 23. 27
HMebriary leet 90 tO duliyn sl 907) See. eraicieleeieialeiceletatelcieeteissieteterrereistcteterieee 554,473 | 8, 268, 682 14. 95
ATS USt T1908 tO) SEPLEIMDET 30; 1 S08 Faint claleratalateinia eteteioiainisielsialeiatete sistas 97,510 | 1,091, 837 11.30
While it would be presumptuous to pretend that, as a people, we
are economical, and to deny that, under modern corporate control
of large national resources, the temptation, under necessity of mak-
ing large profits, is not betimes stronger than the appeals which
conscience makes to subordinate personal gain to the national wel-
fare, I am sure that neither our largest mining and metallurgical
companies nor ourselves, as their working agents, are recklessly
indifferent to the preservation of those very materials upon which
the wealth of the corporations and our own salaries depend. No
large corporation would to-day ‘use an old boiler and slide-valve
engine with a consumption of 6 pounds of fuel per horsepower hour
in preference to a triple-expansion, cut-off engine which will do
the same work with 1.5 pounds per horsepower hour, and so on
through the whole gamut of operations which these large corpora-
tions conduct and which we, as their managers, advise them to adopt,
because we believe them to be the best and most economical methods.
While public policy may not be the prime motive for saving, every
thinking man in a large institution, from the manager downward,
takes a pride in knowing that he is saving and feels a sense of shame
when he is conscious of wasting. And in economic life—I do not
speak of social and domestic life—the rules against waste are be-
coming more and more rigid and are better enforced. The public
outcry, therefore, against the large corporations for wasting the
natural resources of the nation is unjust, in so far as it fails to
recognize what they have done and are doing in the direction of con-
servation, and inasmuch as it gives the working staff of these great
corporations so little credit for the marvelous progress the world
has made through their instrumentality. They have saved where
formerly, through ignorance and inexperience, their predecessors
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—DOUGLAS, Sra
were wasting. With more profound knowledge and better instru-
ments for observation and investigation they are patiently unravel-
ing nature’s secrets and learning how to turn her forces to human
uses. I cited a case of the unavoidable waste of copper ore, of fuel,
and of human labor in the treatment of the oxidized copper ores of
Arizona twenty years ago. The men who were wasting acted upon
their knowledge and skill. So now it often happens that in response
to the urgent call which modern society makes by fits and starts
for enormously increased productiveness of various commodities, the
demand can be met only at the expense of waste of nature’s resources,
of human energy, and even of human life. If a more staple balance
could be maintained between supply and demand; if the current
of domestic and economic life would run more smoothly; if wealth
were not accumulated so easily and spent so lavishly; if those
marvelous improvements to which we have referred were not period-
ically made, which give these irresistible impulses to world-wide
human energy, thereby bringing about these oscillations between
hard times and good times, between labor dearth and labor surplus;
if all these disturbing elements were obliterated, certainly there
would be less waste, and possibly there would be more happiness.
But it is neither our part nor within our power, as mining and
metallurgical engineers, to reconstruct society or renovate the world.
Yet it is our duty to continue using our best efforts—whether the
world recognizes our merits or not—to get the utmost energy out of
human life as well as out of the inert material we handle, with the
least possible exhaustion of human tissue and the smallest possible
waste of mineral or vegetable material.
DISCUSSION OF THE PAPER OF JAMES DOUGLAS, PRESENTED AT
THE NEW HAVEN MEETING, FEBRUARY, 1909.
James Douglas, New York (communication to the secretary) :
In my paper on the Conservation of Natural Resources I referred to
the slow replacement of beehive ovens by the by-product ovens as a
most notable instance of waste. And I quoted from Mr. Parker’s
report for 1906 an explanation given by him in accounting for the
small production of by-product coke. It was that the market for
the by-products of the coke ovens was so limited that some of the
ovens constructed were out of operation. His report on the manu-
facture of coke in 1908% does not record an improvement, and at-
@ Received February 2, 1910. Reprinted from Transactions of the American
Institute of Mining Engineers, 1909, pp. 341-343.
® Mineral Resources of the United States for 1908, Part II, U. S. Geological
Survey (1909).
45745°—sm 1909 22
328 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIGN, 1909.
tributes the strange fact that we alone of all the industrial peoples
delay the adoption of this cardinal improvement from the con-
tinuance of the same almost inexplicable cause. To quote again
from his report, he says (p. 241):
The year 1908 was not marked by any notable gain in the construction of
by-product coking plants, though some new work was done. There was a net
increase of 115 in the number of completed ovens in 1908 over 1907, the totals
for the two years being, respectively, 3,892 and 4,007. The additional equip-
ment consisted of 140 Koppers regenerative ovens built at Joliet, Illinois, by
the United States Steel Corporation, but this increase was partly offset by
the dismantling of 25 Semet-Solvay ovens at Sharon, Pennsylvania, the net
gain being 115 ovens. Included in the total of 4,007 completed ovens in 1908
are 152 Newton-Chambers ovens at Vintondale, Pennsylvania, but as no re-
covery of by-products was made at this plant in 1908, the production of coke
is included with that from beehive ovens. The 56 ovens of the same type at
Pocahontas, Virginia, have not been in practical operation since they were
first installed. In addition to these there was one other by-product plant of
120 ovens that was not operated during the year. The number of retort ovens
producing coke in 1908 was 3,679, as compared with 3,811 active ovens-in 1907.
In describing the anomaly he says (p. 249) :
It has been contended that the development of the by-product coking industry
would have shown more rapid progress if markets for the by-products were
assured. This pertains essentially to the coal tar and its products, as there is
no difficulty in disposing of the surplus gas, and there is practically at all
times a fair demand for ammonia. As to the coal tar, the total value of this
by-product from retort ovens at first hand in 1908 was $1,007,613. The value
of the coal-tar products imported into this country in 1908, including duty paid,
was $8,560,406. The values in all cases of imports are at point of shipment,
and do not include ocean freights, commissions, and other expenses. It is
probable that these importations have reached the consumer at a total cost of
not less than $12,000,000, and in the three preceding years the cost probably
reached $15,000,000.
These coal-tar products, however, which are imported into the
United States at such a heavy figure, are all chemical extracts from
coal tar, such as salicylic acid, aniline dyes, and alkaline salts, the
manufacture of which has passed in great measure into German
hands. Some peculiar attribute of the German temper, and the thor-
ough character of their technical educational methods, have given
them a monopoly of this delicate branch of the chemical industry.
Even England, where originated the manufacture of the coal-tar
products, and where the first patents were taken out, has been un-
able to compete with her more precise and painstaking rival.
As the utilization of the tars is therefore the function of the
chemical manufacturer, and the production of the crude material
alone falls to the coke maker, the one industry must keep pace with
the other if progress along either line is to be made. As the profits
of certain European coking plants collecting the by-products are
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—DOUGLAS. 829
generally supposed to be from $0.75 to $1.25 per ton of coke on the
by-products alone, it would seem as though capital, skill, and science
could not be more profitably employed in the United States than
in removing this crying disgrace by turning the waste products
from our coking establishments to such profitable use.
With regard to what will happen in the distant future when our
coal supply is exhausted, Dr. Robert Thomas Moore, in his presi-
dential address* before the Institution of Mining Engineers in
London on May 27, 1909, says (p. 455) :
Whether, indeed, it is a profitable matter to attempt to imagine the state of
Britain three hundred years after this, with its coal exhausted, or a world,
say, two hundred years later when it is all finished, is open to question. It is
certainly beyond the scope of the objects of the Institution.
I do not think it commends itself as an economic principle to restrict in any
way the legitimate development of our mineral resources. They are a source
of wealth to ourselves, and we are helping to develop the world. Is it not
more reasonable to trust to the progress of science to discover some fresh
method of utilizing the resources of nature to provide a substitute? Who
would have expected, even thirty years ago, the immense possibilities for dis-
tributing light and heat and power that the development of electricity has
opened up? We have the forces of the rainfall, the wind, and the tides to
utilize to the utmost. We may even get our heat and power direct from the sun!
Those who come after us have a long time in which to consider the problem,
and we may safely leave it to them to solve in their own way.
But that of which we should be careful is, that we should use our coal
in the best possible manner; that in the working of it and in the using of it
there should be no waste, either of men, of material, or of treasure; and it is
the duty of an institution such as ours to afford every aid to the presentation
of any plan which will further the attainment of these objects.
His remarks upon the ever-increasing consumption of coal, despite
the efforts of the engineer to economize, are worthy of quotation.
He says (p. 453):
It is a striking fact that notwithstanding all the improvements which have
been introduced to economize coal in the various industries, the total consump-
tion has gone on increasing. It seems as if the greater the economy becomes
the larger is the consumption.
. There have been atmospheric engines, Watt’s condensing engines, high-pres-
Sure engines, compound engines, triple and qaudruple expansion engines, tur-
bines, and gas engines, each being an improvement on its predecessor, until
the coal consumed per horsepower per hour has been reduced from over 10
pounds to three-fourths of a pound; the methods of iron smelting have been
improved until the amount of fuel used has been reduced from 8 tons per ton
of pig iron to considerably under 2 tons; the processes for the manufacture of
gas have been improved; and the whole history of the century has been a long
series of savings in fuel. Yet the total consumption goes on steadily increas-
ing. It would seem that the more the cost of power is cheapened, the more
are the purposes for which it becomes available.
“Transactions of the Institution of Mining Engineers, vol. 37 (1908-9).
mT ui nl io
Made: ean o
THE ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA. FROM THE
VOYAGE OF THE “ DISCOVERY.”
By Maurice ZIMMERMANN.
It is now possible to measure the full significance of the results
obtained by the great British national expedition of the Discovery to
the Antarctic Land of Victoria and Ross Barrier during the period
from 1901 to 1904. Prior to 1905 fairly abundant but preliminary
information was furnished by the Royal Geographical Society of
London, faithfully kept up-to-date by its former president, Sir
Clements R. Markham, who had been one of the most ardent pro-
moters of the enterprise. Then came the admirable account of the
expedition by Capt. R. F. Scott, one of the most sincere, humane,
and substantial, which it has been our privilege to read, and the
book of Lieut. A. B. Armitage.?
Finally, there began to appear in December, 1906, under the direc-
tion of the Royal Society of London, the volumes of scientific
memoirs. Their publication has been effected with remarkable ra-
pidity, nine volumes having already appeared and an album of
maps, of which the Geographical Society of London has assumed
the expense of publication. The Royal Society had given the sur-
veillance of elaboration of the various documents into the hands of
a special commission and Sir Archibald Geikie, its secretary. The
trustees of the British Museum took the collection of natural his-
tory in charge. The distribution of the collections and the selection
of specialists was the work of Mr. E. Ray Lankaster, director of the
Natural History Museum, and of Mr. Jeffrey Bell.
The scientific results appear in very luxurious form. The selec-
tion of paper, the beauty of the photographs, the abundant pano-
ramic views and the colored plates, the frequent reproduction of
“Translated by permission from Annales de Géographie, Paris, No. 98, 18th
year, March 15, 1909.
5 Capt. R. F. Scott, ‘The Voyage of the Discovery,” London, 1905, and Lieut.
A. B. Armitage, ‘Two Years in the Antarctic, Being a Narrative of the British
National Antarctic Expedition,’ London, 1905.
3381
332 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
certain documents for the reader’s benefit, all attest a disposition to
do the work on a very liberal scale.?
I, GEOLOGY.
Victoria Land, to-day elevated and clearly delineated, constitutes
a chain, or rather a series of mountain chains extending in a nearly
straight line from 71° to 83° south latitude, for a distance of nearly
1,300 kilometers. Some portions rise to an altitude of 3,900 meters,
and it may here be remarked that none sink much below 1,200 meters.
Victoria Land thus presents to the sea an imposing coast line in the
form of an abrupt wall aligned at the foot by volcanic islands and a
sea (350 to 500 meters deep, according to the soundings of Ross and
the Discovery) which might well constitute a gulf. Doctor Mac-
Cormick, of the Hrebus, believed that the entire chain was volcanic.
The observers of the Discovery, which cruised nearer the coast,
showed that this could not be so; the regularity and tabular aspect of
the coast line and the readily perceptible lines of stratification indi-
cating rather a plateau structure. Mr. Ferrar was later able to study
close at hand a portion of the range which they have called the
“ Royal Society Chain,” and to determine its geological structure.
The subbasement of Victoria Land seems constituted of a plateau
of gneiss and crystalline limestone which elsewhere forms, on many
portions of the coast, a belt or zone of some 1,200 to 1,500 meters
mean height, in advance of the great tabular escarpment so charac-
teristic, to which reference has been made. These foothills, or
“ avant-monts ” are themselves separated by a north-south depression,
or rather by a series of north and south valleys from the mountain
wall, perhaps 3,000 meters in height, which succeeds it, and is cut
up into pyramidal peaks. This structure is very plain for a distance
of 400 kilometers between Cape Adare and Cape Washington; it is
found also in the Royal Society Range. A sort of piedmont or low
foothill region lies in front of the bold escarpment of the chain and is
separated from it by a valley, the Snow Valley, filled by a glacier.
This platform of gneiss carries a series of beds some 3,600 meters
in thickness composed, from below up, of granites, sandstone, and
doleritic basalt. Mr. Ferrar noted in particular the escarpment of
Cathedral Rocks forming the right bank of Ferrar glacier, as fur-
nishing an epitome of the geological history of the region, with its
base of gneiss, surmounted by granite and cut by granite dikes, while
the upper horizons comprise a bed or sheet of dark dolerite capped
“The full title of the book is: ‘“ National Antarctic Expedition, 19014; ” (a)
Natural History. Vol. 1, Geology (Field Geology; Petrography). Vol. 2,
Zoology. Vol. 3, Zoology and Botany. Vol. 4, Zoology; (b) Physical observa-
tions; (c) Meteorology; (d@) Album of photographs and sketches with a port-
folio of panoramic views.
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 3338
by yellow sandstone (the “ Beacon sandstone”). This aspect is
presented with great uniformity, the pronounced color of the doler-
ite forming a contrast apparent even in the photographs, with the
clear, often yellow or white tints of the sandstone. It is, nevertheless,
ordinarily the strikingly horizontal sheets of the dolerite which con-
stitute the crown of the cliffs and whence they derive their tabular
aspect. The dolerite frequently alternates, moreover, in thin sheets
of surprising regularity with the beds of sandstone, from which they
are scarcely separable. Mr. Ferrar thinks that these volcanic out-
pourings have formed a continuous sheet, at present more or less
eroded, and he calls attention, above all, to the fact that in spite of
their striking regularity the beds have, beyond doubt, an intrusive
origin, and there is nothing to indicate that they were superficial
outpourings (lava flows). Mineralogically, this rock greatly re-
sembles, according to G. T. Prior, the augitic diorite which, in form
of dikes, cuts the granulite and gneiss of meridional India. The
Beacon sandstone has a total thickness of about 600 meters. It is
distinguished by the very evident stratification and horizontality
of its bed, by a remarkable uniformity of texture, and by the vertical
escarpments which it affords. These beds are in places impregnated
by irregular dark bands, due to carbonaceous matter. Samples
collected by Mr. Ferrar in the cliffs overhanging the glacier bearing
his name were examined by the paleobotanist, Mr. Newell Arber.
Unfortunately the impressions were too greatly altered to permit the
drawing of exact botanical conclusions therefrom; but they were,
nevertheless, regarded as of vegetable origin, though no opinion was
rendered as to geological age. One can only draw the conclusion
that at some earlier, undetermined period, plant life flourished in
latitude 77° 30’ south.
The complex of sandstone and dolerite of Victoria Land has been
studied in detail only in the Royal Society Range on an area that Mr.
Ferrar estimates at 7,000 square kilometers; but it probably occupies
as vast an extent to the south as to the north. The reports and photo-
graphs of Lieutenant Shackleton, and, above all, the marvelous pano-
ramic drawings of Dr. E. A. Wilson, show that even above 80° of latitude
the same horizontality of the escarpment prevails. During a period
of some weeks the three men of the southern expedition skirted along
this escarpment, the summits of which appeared, according to the
angle of view either as table-land or as pyramidal peaks. These “ mas-
sifs,” of which Mounts Longstaff and Markham, latitude 83° south,
mark the terminal boundary, with altitudes of 3,150 and 4,600
meters, are ordinarily upward of 2,000 meters. They are divided into
five distinct groups by four fjords or inlets into which debouch
immense glaciers and to which were given the names of the officers
of this expedition. The four inlets, then, are, from north to south,
304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Skelton, Mulock, Barne, and Shackleton. In this assemblage of
mountains, seen for a distance of 700 kilometers, Captain Scott and
his companions had for a long time as a familiar landmark Mount
Albert Markham (38,200 meters), which they had at first named
“Table Mountain,” and its southern satellite of geometric aspect,
Pyramid Mount. Elsewhere, toward latitude 74° 30’ south, Mount
Nansen, with its plainly horizontal crest and abrupt escarpments,
recalled strikingly to mind the Table Mountain of Cape of Good Hope.
Finally, in the excursion that he made to the east and which carried
him 450 kilometers into Victoria Land, Mr. Ferrar, in company with
Captain Scott, reported that the geographic features we have de-
scribed continue as far as land remained visible. In proportion as one
advances into the interior, the inland ice submerges the mountains.
The ancient rocks of the subbasement are first to disappear, then the
lower and upper bed of sandstone. The last peak, the ‘“ Depot Nun-
atak,” presenting only a huge mass of columnar dolerite of an actual
height of 2,330 meters, but projecting only 150 meters above the snow
fields. This is situated about 95 kilometers from the coast and in com-
plete isolation, since separated some 13 kilometers from the dolerite
crowned table-land to the east.
It appears that the eastern escarpment of the mountains thus con-
stituted corresponds to a profound north and south line of fracture.
The escarpment thus formed has evidently undergone a reelevation
which Mr. Ferrar believes to have been recent, since the beds of
both dolerite and sandstone were dissected by erosion before the
tectonic movements occurred to disarrange the continuity of the
latter. That these tectonic movements occurred is attested by the
fact that the sandstones, without losing their horizontality, have
undergone a reelevation en masse in those chains that border on the
coast. Thus is explained the fact that the Royal Society Range
affords altitudes of 38,000 to 3,900 meters (Mount Huggins 3,918
meters, Mount Lister 3,960 meters), and that the outlines of the coast,
so clearly reelevated and cut by the profound breaches of the gla-
ciers take on a pyramidal aspect. Farther into the interior, toward
the inland ice, the altitude is peculiarly less; Knob Head 2,530 meters,
Beacon Heights 2,400 meters, Depot Nunatak 2,330 meters. This
last height is maintained for immense distances over the interior ice
sheet. There is, then, no reason for surprise that the lands which
have a constant tendency toward a diminished elevation toward the
interior become finally entirely submerged by the snow fields of the
inland ice cap.
The probability of a line of fracture is confirmed by the align-
ment of the isolated volcanic cones which are arranged along the
low hills immediately bordering the coast, in constant parallelism
with the mountain wall. These cones are individually distinct.
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 885
That of Cape Jones (78° 30’ latitude south, 170° 30’ longitude east
from Greenwich) may be taken as the type. Of the same general
class are Cape MacCormick (72° latitude south) ; Mount Brewster,
900 meters; Mount Melbourne, 2,540 meters; Mount Evans and,
finally, the twin cones of Mount Morning, 1,760 meters; and of Mount
Discovery, 2,770 meters, adjoining the Royal Society Range. It is to
be noted that there are no cones between Cape Washington and Cape
Bernacchi, over a distance of 3 degrees of latitude, and that this gap
accords with the disappearance of the zone of gneissic hill constitut-
ing the foreland of the mountains. The mighty chain of the Admi-
ralty to the north of Mount Melbourne is, in its turn, preceded by
a coast uniformly constituted of basalts and tuffs, of which the prin-
cipal type known is the promontory of Cape Adair, now celebrated
because there was witnessed the first landing upon the Antarctic Con-
tinent. This abrupt basaltic coast appears to extend without inter-
ruption, with altitudes of from 300 to 600 meters, between Cape Adair
and Cape Jones.
Beside these cones and coulées of basalt, Ross Sea is besprinkled
by a series of archipelagoes and volcanic islands, sometimes notably
distant from the shore, as is the case with Franklin Isle (76° lati-
tude south) and Ross Island. These succeed each other from north
to south, Coulman Isle, the Possession Isles, Franklin Isles, and
Beaufort Isle, and, finally, Ross’s Archipelago. The group has been
studied close at hand by the Discovery, the winter quarters of which
were situated at the south point of Ross Island.
It is in Ross Island that rear themselves the two famous cones
Erebus (3,938 meters) and Terror (3,278 meters), discovered in 1842
by Ross. Mount Erebus was then in eruption and was emitting
flames and smoke in abundance. During the two years’ sojourn of
the expedition of the Discovery, the cone was covered with a per-
fectly white blanket of snow from base to summit and but little
smoke was seen issuing from it. The observers of the Discovery
have reported that two other cones contribute to the form of Ross
Island to which they give a triangular outline, Mount Terra Nova
and Mount Bird. The island, situated between 77° 9’ and 77° 49’
south latitude, is about 80 kilometers on each side; the diameter of
each of the grand volcanoes is about 35 kilometers. The soundings
made in the waters that bathe the island have revealed the curious
fact that the depth is greater near the shore than toward the open
sea. It is impossible to determine whether this increase of depth,
with marked decrease on the side of the open sea, results from the
additional weight imposed upon the crust by the colossal accumula-
tions of material or from a depression due to the vacuums which
are produced in the depth. The contours of Mount Erebus, the
appearance of which on the whole is very massive, indicate three
336 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
successive phases of eruption in the history of its formation. The
first was much more violent than the others; it gave birth to a cone
about 13 kilometers in diameter. The walls of this crater are still
standing and form about the present cone a circular wall, a sort of
“Somma,” about 1,800 meters high. To the second stage of activity
belongs the rim of a higher crater (3,350 meters). Certain coulées,
bared of snow, can still be distinguished. Finally, the present small
crater was built in a symmetric position in the interior of the pre-
ceding one. It is from this crater that the vapors now issue. Many
other jets of vapor, not visible from the ship, may have been observed
by Doctor Wilson. The general appearance of the volcano recalls
very closely that of Etna; the dome shape is much more perceptible
than in the better known active volcanoes.
II. GLACIATION.
The glaciation of Victoria Land is much less intense and less
exclusive than is generally supposed. This, however, is far from
meaning that it is mediocre. This glaciation should be studied by
and for itself, and in comparison with all that is known in the boreal
world, with the possible exception of certain far distant portions
of the Arctic region, as the extreme north of Greenland, constitutes
a new and original type. The very numerous and beautiful photo-
graphs, and above all the panoramic views published in the account
of the expedition, present at a glance the full extent of these
phenomena.
The type is characterized by features unknown elsewhere. The
Piedmont glaciers (which we would call simply “ fringing glaciers,”
or “de rivage”) and floating barriers, which Mr. Ferrar classes
wrongly, as we believe, with the Piedmont type. It is also char-
acterized by the unusual and inexplicable manner in which the snow
is transformed into ice. One can not see directly this transforma-
tion. The actual climatic conditions are such that thawing, either
partial or local, is exceptional, and all the surfaces were formed
either of white granular snow or of compact ice. -Even at the head
of Ferrar Glacier the transformation of the snow into ice is abso-
lutely abrupt, and along the foot of the grand cascades the ice
presents the banded surfaces so characteristic of snow. In the
slightly elongated depressions there are local accumulations of snow,
but the line separating the granular snow from the glacier ice is
always abrupt. If one can not perceive the manner of the trans-
formation, nevertheless one is obliged to recognize the fact that it
is accomplished with extraordinary facility. Very little snow
suffices to give birth to a glacier, and one is struck with the dispro-
portionate size of the glacial lobes as compared with the extent of
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. gat
their gathering ground. Numerous glaciers are formed with in-
significant reservoirs of snow. Nay, more; such a glacier, cut off
from its feeding ground by the gradual cessation of the glacial
phenomena, continues, nevertheless, to give rise to the ice slabs, which
represent nothing more than lobes no longer supplied with snow,
and without doubt deprived of motion. This observation will suffice
to show the difficulty of comparisons with familiar glacial forms,
such as those of the Alps or Norway. An appearance purely super-
ficial and fallacious has led Mr. Ferrar to group certain glaciers of
the Cathedral rocks and the Kukri Hills, which border the Ferrar
Glacier, among the Alpine glaciers. Certainly their régime, their
physiology, if we may so call it, is not Alpine. Finally, one gen-
eral trait seems to us to characterize the glacier, properly called,
of Victoria Land. It is the surprising contradiction which exists
between the very marked external appearance of glaciation and,
on the other hand, the slowness of its evolution, which seems to-day
to reach the point of almost complete stagnation. To be sure, the
observers of the Discovery have not made many measurements be-
cause of the great distance of their winter quarters from them.
Nevertheless, Mr. Ferrar gives some interesting estimates. The
south arm, the meridional feeder of the Glacier Ferrar, beyond ques-
tion does not advance into the east fork at a rate greater than 6 Eng-
lish feet a month. The Blue Glacier, one of the independent glaciers
which cover the gneissic foothills, advances at a rate of less than 4
English feet a year. The fact that the crevasses of the Ferrar
Glacier remain always covered with snow is explained by these in-
significant figures, as is also the fact that neither the Ferrar or Blue
glaciers cause any marked disturbance in the fringe of coast ice.
Really, then, one would have ground for saying that the glaciers
of Victoria Land are inactive; that they have no motion. What
is a rate of 6 centimeters, or one-fourth of a centimeter a day, com-
pared with the figures to which the lowest of the Alpine glaciers
have accustomed us? It is difficult, too, after the facts to which
the glaciers of our own mountains or of the boreal world have ac-
customed us, to imagine a glacial covering of such magnitude as
shown by the photographs of the Ferrar Glacier, or above all those
of the Royal Society Range. From base to summit, except for rocky
surfaces of little extent, the mountains of this range are buried be-
neath snow and ice; only the surfaces turned toward the east and
the south seem notably free (particularly the slope south of the
Kukri Hills). There is therefore every external appearance of in-
tensity of glaciation, and at the same time stagnation, almost com-
plete rigidity of this frozen cuirasse. That at some point these
masses of ice are in a state of tension the following observation
proves: In the midst of the amphitheater of the Ferrar Glacier
3388 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
networks of tiny crevasses are formed, with loud explosions, as soon
as the mountains cast their shadow on the ice. The detonations
sometimes last for an hour and a half, and crevasses of 50 meters
length, traversing the surface of masses of ice 30 centimeters thick,
have been seen produced by the blow of an iron rod. The glaciers of
Victoria Land are thus in a state of equilibrium, or rather or inertia,
quite without counterpart and wholly unexpected for these latitudes.
But though this glaciation may appear to be highly developed, yet
it is nevertheless in a marked state of recession. The Antartic no
more escapes the law of glaciary decrease, the proofs of which have
been accumulated in the last years over the entire globe, than do the
latitudes of Grahams Land, as reported by the expeditions of the
‘Belgica and by Nordenskjéld. The north fork of the Ferrar Glacier
no longer reaches MacMurdo Sound; the glacier has retreated
far toward the interior of the land, leaving in its place a valley
bed about 15 kilometers long, encumbered with morainic..materials,
‘and in which occur, not far from the actual extremity, three con-
stantly frozen glacial lakes. More striking yet seems the retreat
in the system of glaciers formerly dependent from Snow Valley.
This valley occupies the depression which separated the Royal
Society Range from the gneissic foothills; it served as the gathering
grounds for a series of glaciers, the sole remnant of which is now the
Blue Glacier. All the other emissaries of Snow Valley are to-day
cut off by cross melting from their reservoirs of supply. They exist,
nevertheless, in the state of ice slabs. Thus, one counts a sym-
metrical succession of seven ice slabs in the ravines which descend
precipitously from the gneissic foothills toward the MacMurdo
Sound.
Without seeking the cause of such retreat, which seems to be gen-
eral, and which is also observed, as will be noted later, in the Ross
Barrier, certain reasons present themselves at the outset to one who
seeks the explanation of the indolent glacial régime which we have
just described. First of all is the natural dryness of the climate of
Victoria Land. This climatic trait is clearly brought out by certain
geological observations; the insignificance of the role of water in
effecting erosion and the persistence in place of their formation of
certain salts, as sulphate of soda and carbonate of lime, due to the
chemical decomposition of the rocks. A white powder sometimes
covers the surface of the rocks, and there is found on the floating ice
heaps 2 feet in height and from 4 to 5 feet in diameter, composed en-
tirely of glauber salt, due to the progressive freezing out of the salt as
the water congeals. To this dryness of climate, which is attested also
by the small quantity of annual snowfall, is added the action of the
wind, which does not content itself with the slow work of polishing,
drilling, and chiseling the rocks, as in ordinary desert phenomena ;
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 339
it does with the snow what the desert wind does with the sand and the
loess ; it reduces it to an impalpable powder which it drives about un-
ceasingly, darkening the atmosphere and forming dunes of it, which it
then destroys and drives bodily into the sea. Thus it happened that
a sledge party was held up six days and a half on the edge of the
inland ice by a tempest howling at the rate of 80 kilometers an hour
and so charged with snow dust that objects 10 meters away could not
be distinguished. One will appreciate much better the extent to
which such a storm can retard the rate of growth of the Victorian
glaciers when it is known that a day without a driving snow is an
exception.
Mr. Ferrar, as well as Mr. J. Gunnar Andersson of the Norden-
skj6ld expedition, attributes to the wind a good share in the diminu-
tion of the antarctic glaciation. We believe, nevertheless, that there
must be a much more general cause. Nothing indicates, indeed, that
this action of violent winds carrying to the sea a notable part of the
fallen snow is not a very ancient and fundamental phenomenon of the
antarctic climate. It has by no means prevented glacial phenomena
from attaining proportions which have elsewhere no counterpart.
This local peculiarity would also not account for the singular con-
cordance of the retreat of the antarctic glaciers with the diminution
of glaciers all over the earth.
The observations that we have just summed up are applicable on
the whole to the only group of glaciers which have been thoroughly
studied on the antarctic continent—that of the great Glacier Ferrar
and its satellite or its analogous Koettlitz, Snow Valley, and Blue
Glacier. It is the principal merit of Mr. Ferrar to have studied
carefully, from the glacialist’s point of view, a portion of the long
range of coast which is presented by Victoria Land for a distance
of 1,300 kilometers.
It seems that the Ferrar glacier is a type frequently reproduced.
The abrupt wall of Victoria Land is dissected by a large number of
inlets, of valleys both broad and deep, into which run at a singularly
low level glaciers uniformly emissaries of the inland ice. According
to Mr. Scott very few of these emissaries could possibly be active. He
divides them into two classes, living emissaries and dead glaciers.
For a distance of 11 degrees of latitude from Cape Adare to Mount
Longstaff, Mr. Scott recognizes only four active glaciers serving
as a channel of discharge for the inland ice. The first probably
empties into Lady Newnes Bay; the second issues at about 75° lati-
tude south; finally, the last two observed during the trip toward
the south probably filled the two large valleys of the Barne and
Shackelton inlets. The Ferrar glacier, on the other hand, seemed
to him a type, gigantic, of the dying glaciers. Its ancient limits
have been recognized up to a height of 900 to 1,200 meters. It is
340 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
notable in this connection that Mr. Scott declares the inland ice
which is maintained over vast reaches at an altitude of 2,300 meters,
has likewise diminished from 120 to 150 meters. It is, then, per-
missible to make the following hypothesis: The inland ice of Vic-
toria Land, which still offers to-day such grandiose proportions,
can not escape on the side of the chain of mountains which raises
its formidable wall up on its eastern coast. This acts as a dam
which it has been able to override easily only at a period of very
intense glaciation, when the fields of snow attained a much higher
level. Its natural flow probably follows another direction, and it
is doubtless on the side of Wilkes Land on the Clarie and Adelia
coast that one must seek for the principal discharge of the inland
ice of Victoria Land.
As has elsewhere been mentioned, the Clarie coast, that barrier of
continuous ice over a distance of 20 leagues with a height of from
38 to 42 meters, as depicted by Dumont d’Urville, seems the exact
equivalent of Ross’s great barrier. Everything leads to the belief
that between this Clarie coast and Cape North, which is at present the
recognized terminal of the Admiralty (?) Range to the northwest,
other barriers of the same kind, the probable end of the Victorian
inland ice, will some day be revealed.
These ideas have been suggested by the following observation: The
counter proof of the great glacial activity in the antarctic regions as
in Greenland, is the icebergs. Now, Mr. Ferrar expressly states that
very few of these come from the ruptures in the cliffs of Victoria
Land so far yet known. In the space of sixteen months the Blue
glacier has not furnished a single one, and the contributions of the
Ferrar glaciers is without doubt negligible. Feeble also is the sup-
ply of the local glaciers which fringe the banks or encircle the islands,
and to which Mr. Ferrar, using a term invented by Mr. I. C. Russell,
apples the name ** Piedmont Glaciers of the Continent,” or “ stranded
glaciers.” There scarcely can result from them anything except
secondary or irregular icebergs. In fact, the great majority of the
antarctic icebergs come from what Mr. Ferrar calls the “ piedmonts
afloat ” (floating glaciers), and which we shall call by their old name
of “ glacier barriers.” We can not, indeed, subscribe to the designa-
tion proposed and employed by the English geologist for the forma-
tion of the extraordinary glaciers. It seems to us that it is out of a
pure desire for symmetry and classification that he feels himself
obliged to class the Ross Barrier among the Piedmont glaciers.
Moreover, we still know very little of the famous barrier, though
the explorers of the Discovery have trod its fields of snow, and
Captain Scott recognized it toward the south for more than 4
degrees of latitude. We are entirely ignorant of its origin, and
we do not even know whether it constitutes a true piedmont, that
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 841
is, whether it comes down from a back country of mountains.
The difference is too great between these immense sheets of ice,
prolonged for hundreds of kilometers and the thin fringes of ice
at the most from 2 to 3 kilometers broad which constitute ordi-
nary piedmont glaciers. This difference lies not only in the dimen-
sions, but in the mode of conduct. The rapid movement of glacial
masses, which we have vainly looked for in the continental glaciers,
is indeed realized in the Ross Barrier, the measurements of Lieu-
tenant Barne, taken at the approach of Minna Bluff, having furnished
a figure of advancement amounting to 608 yards (555 meters) in thir-
teen and one-half months, or about 1.35 meters as a mean per day.
This is, however, a very slow rate compared with that of the great
glaciers of Greenland, the Karajak and the Jakobshavn, the maximum
progress of which is not less than 18 to 20 meters per day. But one
could hardly expect a movement of such rapidity from a sheet of ice
which presents to the sea a front of more than 800 kilometers, and
which appears due to the confluence and the union of several large
glaciers in a wide and shallow bay. Supposing the movement of
the original glaciers to be very rapid, it must be continued at a
notably slower rate in this enormous outspread sheet which is pushed
outward after the manner of a delta. Admitting, with Mr. Ferrar,
that the Ross Barrier does originate through the union of several
fjords of ice, one will at once see the entire difference between a
glacier of this type and the ordinary “ piedmont.”
Ross Barrier has been studied with care by the Discovery. <A rig-
orous following out of its edge was undertaken, a matter made easy
by steam navigation, and which Ross found impossible of accomplish-
ment, the imperfection of navigation by sail alone compelling him to
estimate many of the heights from a distance. The Barrier is, in
fact, neither as high nor as regular in outline as described by Ross.
Captain Scott describes it as 21 meters in height at the beginning and
for some distance. On January 23, 1902, a height of 62 meters was
registered, successive measurements giving on the 24th, 72, 24, and
finally 15 meters; one on the 25th, 9 meters, and later 24 meters, when
it fell abruptly to 4.50 meters. On January 28 measurements of 17
to 45 meters were recorded, and on the 29th as low as 1.20 to 1.50
meters. It is, therefore, not a uniform wall of ice, and the height of
45 meters attributed to it is simply a mean. The great differences in
altitude are productive of equally striking difference in appearance.
At times this change indicated that one portion has been longer ex-
posed to atmospheric agencies than another. Much of the time, how-
ever, the changes are so gradual as to escape notice when viewed from
a distance, the higher portion seeming simply nearer. In Balloon
Bay the height was but 3 meters, but on the other hand where it
342 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
abuts against the northeast flank of Edward VII Land the higher
parts reach the extraordinary altitude of 84 meters.
The most surprising feature in the reports brought by the Dzs-
covery concerning Ross Barrier relate to its floating character. Sir
John Murray has confessed that while difficult to believe, and while
he could not make up his mind that all was floating, he could but
admit that the border over an extent of 30 to 40 miles was actually
in this condition. The facts brought out by Captain Scott seem
nevertheless conclusive. At first sight, there can scarcely be a doubt
that its terminal edge from Mount Terror to Balloon Bay (longi-
tude 163° west from Greenwich), where the Discovery penetrated it,
and which seems to mark the lower limits of Edward VII Land,
mean depths of 360 to 550 meters were reached by soundings at
the foot of the Barrier. The ice cliff has a height of scarcely 45
meters above the surface of the water. It is composed of porous ice
which can scarcely be submerged for more than six-sevenths of its
_ mass, probably 250 meters or more. It follows, therefore, that it is
separated from the sea bottom by 100 to 300 meters of water. An-
other decisive argument is that the ice cliff partakes gently of the
movements of the sea. During their stay in the eastern channel,
to which reference has been made, it was ascertained that the ice
rose and fell with the vessel. At the east of Mount Terror and
White Island there is developed a formidable zone of crevasses,
which attains its maximum at Cape Crozier, where the Barrier is
crushed against Ross Island and forms five gigantic pressure ridges
oriented north and south and continuing for a distance of over 50
kilometers at the least. One recognizes in this chaos a line of frac-
ture of the Barrier in connection with the tides (tide cracks), and
resulting from a differential movement of the glacial walls. Along
Victoria Land to the extreme south the immense glaciers of Shackle-
ton and Barne inlets tend by their movement to push the barriers
away from the land. There results from this a region of chaos;
the surface of the sheet undulates in long ridges, is rifted with
crevasses and with veritable chasms encumbered with a confusion
of glacial débris and of new material fallen from the littoral heights
which extend between the barriers and the land. But at 10 miles
from the coast all of the inequalities disappear and the monotonous
surface of the great snow plain without ridge or crevasse extends
until lost to view. Captain Scott thinks that no mass of ice repos-
ing on the firm land could be deprived of irregularities to this
extent.?
@This last argument, nevertheless, seems to us not irrefutable. The Malas-
pina Glacier (St. Elias chain) extends to the foot of the mountains upon a low
alluvial beach. This, too, constitutes a monotonous plain of snow of consider-
able size (35 to 40 kilometers) without crevasses, of which the line of the
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 343
In the same way great networks of crevasses are developed over
15 to 30 kilometers in the offing of Minna Bluff and White Island.
There, regularity and parallelism are so striking that one can not
believe in the existence of a terrestrial base, which would certainly
bring about irregularities of tension in the mass. Finally, and this
is more important, the long voyage of Captain Scott was effected
on a horizontal plane; the corrected reading of the aneroids leaves
no doubt on this subject. The only indication of a rise in level ap-
peared at the end of the journey; but they were then quite near land,
at the entrance of the Shackleton Inlet, and this rise might be fore-
seen. It is remarkable that no trace of foreign matter could be
seen inclosed in the ice along the front of the barrier and no rock
débris on the surface except in very close proximity with the land;
yet this débris may be rare because of the chasms or gulfs referred
to, which prevent the blocks from remaining on the surface of the
sheet. Only where the ice rests directly on the shore, as at Minna
Bluff or toward the Black Island, are there developed enormous
moraines attaining a height of 15 meters, and the elongated faisceau
of which ends in the bottom of the McMurdo Sound. These
moraines, covering a surface of floating ice, have one singular fea-
ture; they are composed of a series of cones of débris which are con-
nected with one another, following the direction of the glaciary
movement. In these moraines are found blocks of more than a
meter in diameter, but erosion reduces these quickly into masses of
coarse sand which the wind seatters and which, because of their
dark color favoring the fusion of the ice, gives rise to little streams
which are indirectly the cause of the cutting up of the glacial front of
MacMurdo Sound into an intricate notched zone, difficult for the
sledges to traverse.
The great tabular antarctic icebergs can only come, Mr. Ferrar
expressly states, from formations analogous to Ross Barrier—that is,
from floating barriers. That is to say, that this class of glaciers is
universally distributed throughout the Antarctic Zone, since the
tabular icebergs are met with in great numbers in all oceanic regions
around the southern ice cap. And, in fact, one can compare with it
the west ice, that tongue of floating ice observed by thescientists of the
Gauss to the west of their winter quarters, and also the terrace of
partly submerged ice pointed out by Otto Nordenskjéld as belonging
to King Oscar Land and prolonging the continent toward the east. It
is probable that similar glacial formations, submerged in relatively
shallow seas and of smal) extent, have accompanied the glacial
epochs in Europe—the Irish Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic; perhaps
horizon is rigorously horizontal. One can refer in this connection to the great
panoramic view of Victoria Sella, published in F. de Fillippi, ‘“* La Spedizione
di il Principe,” Luigi Amedeo di Savoia al Monte Sant’Elia, 1897, Milano,
Hoepli, 1900.
45745°—sm 190923
344 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
a great part of the Norwegian continental plateau. Certainly the
whole of Barents Sea must have been covered with glacial sheets of
this type. Although these are hypotheses, the observations of the
Discovery authorize the conclusions; it is this which assures them a
high general bearing.
Like the other glaciers of this part of the antarctic world, the
Ross barrier is in a retrograde condition. It has receded an average
of 24 kilometers from the positions which were fixed by James Ross,
but the retreat is in places equal to 35 and even to 50 kilometers.
If one sums up the annual advances of the glacial masses during
sixty years, an estimate is reached of the enormous surface of. ice-
bergs which must have been detached from the barrier during this
lapse of time. Captain Scott thinks that the barrier must have oc-
cupied positions much mote northerly, that the retreat has been very
rapid, and it is by this ancient extension that can be explained the
many remnants of glacial sheets still adhering to certain points of
“Victoria Land. Thus Lady Newnes Bay is filled with one of these
remnants which the existing conditions of glaciation do not explain.
The surface of it forms long undulations and its mass is probably
floating. Of the same class are perhaps the barriers Drygalski
(75° 30’ south latitude) and Nordenskj6ld (76° 30’ south latitude),
of which it is not known whether they are glacial lobes or the frag-
ments of ancient barriers.
The ancient barrier then probably advanced to the height of Cape
Adare. Captain Scott thinks that at first it rested on the bottom
of Ross Sea and aided in leveling it. Then, the quantity of ice
diminishing, it probably became floating and commenced to break
up and retreat rapidly. It is not, then, beyond cur concern to know
the composition of the bottoms of the Ross Sea. It has been de-
termined that on the site of the former front observed by Ross the
bottom is formed of a yellow, tenacious, and consistent clay contain-
ing tests of foraminifera, frustules of diatoms, and spicules of
sponges. There is likewise clay 10 degrees farther north near the
Balleny Isles. The bottom of the Ross Sea is composed of mud re-
sulting from the pulverization of rocks by the great glaciers of the
south Victoria Land.
Face to face with the grand development, in the main, of the gla-
cial phenomena of terrestrial origin one is surprised at the slight®
power and duration of the marine ice. This trait fixes the physi-
ognomy of Victoria Land. The fields of ice may reach great hori-
zontal dimensions, but their thickness in Ross Sea never exceeds
6 English feet (1.80 meters). The hummocks never exceed 3 feet in
MacMurdo Sound, and Mr. Ferrar asserts that the direct increase of
the ice can scarcely exceed 8 feet, since it breaks up, he thinks, each
summer. The cause of this mediocrity of the sea ice is thought
to have been doubtless the temperature of the water of Ross Sea,
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—-ZIMMERMANN. 345
high enough to melt the ice fields from the under surface; finally the
pressure which the fringing glaciers of the coast never ceased to
exert upon the ice fields. The sea ice is thus broken by a slow, al-
most imperceptible movement which tends to push it out to sea and
which Mr. Ferrar calls “creep.” It thus finds itself in proper condi-
tion to undergo destruction by the swell of the sea during the summer
months.
In general, the fringe of ice which encircles the coast is of land
origin and comes from the accumulation of snow. There are, never-
theless, examples of ice bunches of purely marine origin, veritable
“ice feet,” in the class of the great arctic “ice feet,” but much
more restricted in size, rarely attaining a thickness of more than 6
feet. Mr. Ferrar cites an example of this in Granite Harbor.
This kind of a fringe acts toward the land in a conservative role,
retarding erosion by impeding the direct action of heavy surf and in
cementing the loose débris and transforming it into a talus protecting
the cliffs.
Ill. METHOROLOGY.
The data brought back by the Discovery relative to the climate of
Victoria Land are of equal interest with the geological or glacial ob-
servations. The winter station, so favorable to long excursions, com-
mended itself first by its advanced polar situation (77° 50’ 50”
south latitude and 166° 44’ 45’’ longitude east from Greenwich).
The selection was, moreover, very fortunate because in the midst of
the large MacMurdo Sound, surrounded by a circle of low hills,
largely bare, the observations would convey a better idea of the true
climate of the region and would not be vitiated by foehn phenomena
or by the excessive protection of the high hills. Moreover, it was pos-
sible to observe with great precision the direction of the currents of
the upper air by the behavior of the column of smoke from Mount
Erebus.
Below are given some of the mean monthly temperatures, deducted
from the bihoral observations covering a period of two years (Feb-
ruary, 1902-February, 1904) :
Degrees
centigrade.
AIG TDG hii e5 ann ed NE) Ree ee ee 3 ke) Oe ee eae See nya eer — 4.4
ENE) ODI 1S ncn oO eee ey OE ur oa) POE EOP Ta ee a ag eee = BL
TNs SVT) ee ne YS nS eee ee a225 1105'S
Ny Chg VES ee Pe ee a eee PS
TA ny Ee SS el a ee ee aE Pe Pale Les 2009
AD AURT Ce pee oN IgA ag Bn ne pA eR SR i iP he 8 et SOs all
UU yer ta as ech nn | ot aah oot eof aah epee NG ee alk ns 8 Eee PAY)
SNGDEEAD ES eee ean ee ened tS og Be ee ee ee ee Po)
SSIS) OURS) ddl] OER even ee eae eee pee Pee ee Se ee eee Eee Onted
OCOD CI a aan ee Ses er = NP Foe Reaping’ wall) IE = 2B
INO MED Creer eae, So enone de atee ea eee te © Latte WK Lg 8 2s See =I)
ATS) €2@ Gr fy eget a a id he NE St ee lg 8 = al
N
PACTUTD VT SU aes ek eee ee oe en Be Salen
346 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
All the minimum extremes occurred during the winter of 1903,
ranging between —47° and —50°. The lowest figure was observed
September 20, 1903, at 2 a. m., —50.2° C. On the other hand, the
greatest extreme of summer never exceeded +3.8° to 5.5° C. (in De-
cember) ; but this transitory maximum would give a false impression
of the temperature of this “beautiful” season. In reality during
the two years of winter quarters there were noted only five days of
a mean higher than 0° C. and this did not exceed 1.5° C. The highest
monthly mean eftectively observed was that of December, 1902, and
this did not rise higher than —3.2°. Finally, if one sums up the
summer months of 1902-3 and 1903-4 there is reached for the six
months the incredible figure of —6.3°.
On account of this low temperature there is no precipitation in
the form of rain, but always of snow. This fact strongly impressed
Mr. W. H. Dines as one difficult of explanation, unless it is due to
the fact of the extraordinary dryness of the air and the intensity—
unexpected in a region completely covered by ice—of the rate of
evaporation. Otherwise the temperature during the summer would
rise at least as far as the freezing point of water, as it does in the
arctic regions, where the sunshine is, however, less brilhant. But
ithe hygrometric observations show a relative humidity along the
coast of Victoria Land comparable with the more arid regions of the
globe. This aridity is accompanied during December with a very
intense sunshine; it is, in fact, almost as strong as at Madras in June,
and the extremes of temperature between sunset and sunrise are
from 47° to 66° C. It is not rare, especially in December, to see the
sun shine in a clear sky for several days. For a period of twelve
consecutive days the sun has been known to shine with but a totality
of five hours of cloudiness. Consecutively, all glacial surfaces soiled
by dirt or near dark-colored rocks melt rapidly in the sun. In the
southern part of Victoria Land there are frequently found beds
of sand and gravel, the result of years of concentration, embedded
in the cliffs, remnants of ancient glaciers. These beds of old ice, the
last witnesses of a much greater glacial sheet, are in summer subject
to very intense ablation, both by evaporation and by melting. Thus
an immense solar radiation accompanies the very low temperatures
of summer, a significant fact which throws some light upon the prob-
lem of glacial epochs in this boreal hemisphere.
One is struck, on the other hand, by this uniformity of the winter
mean, which for a period of eight months was between —22° C. and
—27°C. These low temperatures—and they are not extremely low—
are maintained constantly at approximately the same figure. One
would have expected effectively colder temperatures between July
and September. The winter in the Arctic is, from this point of
view, the most severe. The “ram noted uniformily, during a period
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 347
of three years, temperatures in the neighborhood of —35° C. between
December and April. One can, perhaps, discover in this less severe
antarctic winter the effect of a more intense atmospheric circulation.
In reality these temperatures are extremely variable in detail. All
changes in the condition of the atmosphere, changes of pressure or
of wind, the transition from wind to calm, or vice versa, are in
Victoria Land reflected by the temperature.
The periods of great cold always occur during periods of calm.
The south wind, for some inexplicable reason, is relatively warm. In
the midst of this intense cold of midwinter “one would see always
appear as an oasis of heat.” From another standpoint the station
of the Discovery was, for little known reason, much less cold than the
region round about, notably Cape Armitage, or Ross Island and
Cape Crozier.
The amount of precipitation was from necessity measured by
means of stakes, since all fell as snow; but in case of a storm it was
not possible to say whether the snow actually fell from the clouds
or was merely drifted by the winds. All exact >.bservation was
therefore impossible. There is nevertheless reason for thinking,
judging from the constant height of the snow about the measuring
stakes, that the actual amount of fall was slight.
On the other hand, the observations made on the rate of evapora-
tion show surprising results. During the five winter months the rate
of evaporation in MacMurdo Sound was, notwithstanding the low
temperature, almost double the mean values observed at Cambridge
Square (London) in a temperature 30° higher.
One asks how, in the presence of immense surfaces of ice and snow
undergoing evaporation, so dry an atmosphere can exist. Mr. Dines
thinks that Ross Barrier forms an anticyclonal zone, in which the
beds of air are submitted to a continual descending current. From
this point of view the atmospheric pressure observed, without clearly
proving an anticyclonal zone, does not disprove the hypothesis. The
barometric pressure was in fact much higher than at Cape Adare
(71° south latitude) and at the station of the Gauss (66° south
latitude) .2
The decrease in pressure noted in going south, in the austral regions,
does not persist indefinitely. The values calculated by Mr. Hann
“Here are the figures, reduced to metric measurements :
Winter. | Spring. |Summer.) Autumn.) Annual.
Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.
IDE COMMCIAY Sao SmonedSoucbCaaDOneeRAnAgUCooDogee datas 743.3 739.9 744.9 747.5 743.9
CAMO PAC ANG ea eestor ctaparetese, 5) opaiepepcloiaieraeirne ain ceieeie 738.4 730.4 742.8 740. 6 738.0
MGAUISS 5 rete mreis cfapnicayare Steele sis oe o'dlnn sci Howdandsoosusedus 739.1 734. 0 742, 2 741.3 739.1
348 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
for 70° south are too low, much more so for 78° south; and Mr. R. H.
Curtis, who discusses the observations, agrees with Mr. Shaw in
thinking that at the South Pole or in its vicinity there exists without
doubt an anticyclonal area in accordance with a pole of cold, com-
parable to that of Siberia, and on the circumference of which is
developed a regular circulation of east winds.
It is indeed principally from the East that the wind blows into
MacMurdo Sound, then from east-northeast and from the northeast.
In correlation with this dominant direction of the wind the ocean
currents in front of the Barrier are also directed from east to west.
The winds from the north and southeast are less frequent; those from
the south are rare, but the notable fact is the complete absence of
west winds. The layer of air submitted to this régime is thin and
scarcely exceeds 2,000 meters in thickness; the higher clouds and the
smoke of Erebus showed in the higher atmospheric layers (about
4,000 meters) a direction of the wind diametrically opposite, that is,
‘from west and southwest. On his excursion into the inland ice of
Victoria Land, Captain Scott observed also that the east winds are at
those heights replaced by west and southwest winds. It is a question
what becomes of the masses of air rapidly brought in by the east wind,
which scarcely goes beyond the mountainous edge of Victoria Land,
and to what is due the absolute lack of the usual West winds on the
inland-ice. Scott does not attempt to explain the ever-warm charac-
ter of the south winds. We should be inclined to see in it the effect of
a phenomenon of foehn sprung from winds which take their origin
on the plateaus of the inland ice and the direction of which was
probably originally southwest, but which underwent in consequence
of their whirling movement a deviation of such nature as to trans-
form them into south-north wind.
The wind has an extraordinary tendency to blow in squalls and
on the other hand quickly dies down toa calm. In spite of the dra-
matic descriptions of the storms which exposed the expedition to
such danger and ills, and which so obscured the atmosphere that two
officers were lost within 30 meters of the ship, Mr. Curtis is not im-
pressed by the extreme swiftness of the wind, which amounts to only
16 to 17 kilometers an hour. It is much less than at Valencia (Ire-
land) or on the Scilly Isles, where it reaches 25 kilometers. In spite
of the long duration of certain storms the greater part of them are
short. (There were 23 in 1902, and 33 in 1903.) They are especially
frequent in winter and autumn, and have a tendency to dislocate the
pack ice of MacMurdo Sound very early. To conclude, they are less
frequent and less terrible than on the west coast of Great Britain.
But the squalls are so furious and the driving snow which accom-
panies them so painful, that one is naturally tempted, according to
Mr. Curtis, to exaggerate their force. In the course of these storms
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 349
it is often impossible to stand up in order to reach the near-by ob-
servatories.
The violence and duration of the east winds result in clearing the
snow and ice from the slopes which are constantly exposed to it. The
contrast is striking, as shown by the photographs in the Album, be-
tween the south and west slopes of Mount Terror, ordinarily shel-
tered and consequently entirely covered with snow, and the east and
northeast face of Ross Island toward Cape Crozier, where the east
wind, whirling tempestuously and tirelessly, lays bare the rock. The
‘same contrasts appear in the Royal Society Range and on the various
slopes of the Ferrar Glacier. Thus at certain points the wind, as
Messrs. J. G. Andersson and O. Nordenskj6ld have maintained, is vio-
lent enough to check glaciation. But we think that the retreat of
Ross Barrier and of glaciation in general is much more attributable
to the increasing dryness of the air, the intensity of evaporation, and
the smallness as well as the uncontrolled nature of the snowfall.
IV. FLORA AND FAUNA.
In such climatic conditions terrestrial vegetation is almost en-
tirely banished. A few mosses and lichens form the sum total.
The Discovery brought back several specimens of mosses gleaned
in Granite Harbor and on the lower slopes of Mounts Erebus and
Terror. They are the most southern species known, having been
gathered near 78° south latitude. Five of the seven gathered were
already known from the Graham Archipelago from the Strait of
Gerlach and bear witness to the uniformity of the antarctic polar
flora. Mr. J. Cardet adds further “the greater part bears traces
of the bitter struggle for existence to which they are subjected.
All form extremely compact tufts, in order to be able to resist the
pressure of beds of snow. The Bryum argenteum, a cosmopolitan
species, presents itself here in so stunted a form that the longest stems
measured did not exceed a length of 3 millimeters and the largest
leaves reached only a length of 0.35 millimeters.” The other species
also show signs of degeneracy: deformed leaves, sick-looking stems,
almost complete impossibility of ripening or even of developing a
sporogone except in extraordinary circumstances.
As representative of terrestrial fauna, one can as yet cite only a
single insect gathered in a tuft of moss from Granite Harbor. It
is a blue Poduride of the group collemboles, of which representa-
tives had already been found, belonging to a different family, in
Robertson Bay, near Cape Adare. This minute jumping’ insect,
the form of which reminds us of our Courtilieres, is, up to this
time, the only terrestrial animal known on the continent of Victoria
Land.
850 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
A sensation was one day created by the discovery of great im-
prints in the snow which at first suggested some large terrestrial
animal; but they were soon recognized as traces of the webbed fect
of the giant petrel (Ossifraga gigantia).
In reality, all the truly antarctic fauna are dependent on the sea
and are limited to the floating pack-ice or to the coast glaciers.
The marine feeding grounds of Ross Bay seem to superabound
in diatoms. This at least is what we are led to believe by the ex-
treme richness of the fauna which the more or less ephemeral pack
covering conceals. Of their richness the naturalists of the és-
covery had direct proofs through the fishery which was carried or.
constantly in spite of the covering of pack-ice, and also indirect
proofs in the continual presence of seals and in the contents of their
stomachs. A world of animal lfe thrives under the pack-ice; there
are first, on the sea bottom, innumerable hordes of voracious amphi-
pods belonging to the species Orchomenopsis Rossi of which a single
dip of the net brought up from 10,000 to 30,000; the living fish used
as bait were often devoured by them, leaving but the skeleton behind.
Mr. Walker thinks that numbers of seals which perish by as-
phyxiation undef the pack-ice are devoured by these amphipods.
An abundant fauna of Crustacea, Schizopeds of the family of the
Huphausia, move about with the fish and the cephalopods in the in-
termediary waters. ‘The Huphausia cristallorophias, of which the
expedition brought back 10,000 specimens, is the most common spe-
cies under the ice; it 1s upon this species that the Manchots feed.
It was not easy to procure fish owing to the seals, which move about
constantly under the ice, having adopted the custom of robbing the
nets. Nevertheless, the expedition brought back a certain number
of specimens, mostly very small, belonging to the genera Notothenia,
already studied at length by the Belgica, 7rematomus, and Bathy-
draco. It is interesting to note that the seals procured for the ex-
pedition two very large fish, one of which was more than a meter
long and 18 kilograms in weight. The fish of the cold seas being
ordinarily very small, this detail attests the zoological richness of
these waters. It should be noted that the waters of MacMurdo
Sound are constantly renewed by currents and that their tempera-
ture scarcely varies more than 1° C. in the course of the year, oscil-
lating between —2° C. and —1.1°. We do not dwell on the numerous
animal species that swarm in these waters of relatively medium tem-
perature—Hydroides, Pyenogonides, and various sponges. They
are the subjects of detailed description in the collection of the
Discovery, but of interest to naturalists more than to geographers.
There is reason for dwelling longer on the higher fauna which
flourishes in this sea, cold but swarming with life, and which adds
its characteristic tone to the marine or littoral pastures of Victoria
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 851
Land or of Ross Barrier. This fauna is distributed in a fairly
uniform fashion over the whole circumference of Antarctide. One
shght difference separates the population of birds or of seals which
animate the American antarctic lands explored by De Gerlache,
Nordenskjéld, Charcot, and Bruce from the dominant species of
Victoria Land. Thus, Charcot and Racovitza point out the Manchot
papou as very abundant in the north of Graham Land, while they
have not seen, or very rarely observed, the Imperial Manchot
(A ptenodytes Forstert). The Manchot d’Adele (Pygoscelis Ade-
_lUie), on the other hand, appears in great number over all the ex-
plored region of Antarctide, in spite of the immense area of disper-
sion which this fact implies. This is a condition which is not new
in polar geography; the number of species is small, but the area of
distribution vast, and the number of individuals considerable.
The particular work of the Discovery, thanks to the talents of ob-
servation of Dr. E. A. Wilson and to the aid which Messrs. Royds
and Skelton, among others, lent him, seems to us to have been above
all to determine the zones of habitat, the habits and the manner of
feeding of the principal antarctic mammiferes and birds. One can
henceforth, it seems, distinguish three successive zones.
First, the free zone of the South Ocean, to the north of the pack
ice; there reign sea birds with tireless wings, and unterrified by the
tempest, belonging to the petrel or albatross family, from the great
albatross and the black albatross to the cape pigeon and the gray
“ Fulmar ” of the south. In the Magellan Isles or in the archipelago
of the South Ocean (Macquarie Islands visited by the Discovery,
Auckland, Campbell, etc.), flourish the king penguin (A ptenodytes
patagonica), the “royal penguin” (Catarrhactes Schlegeli), and
divers seals of the genus Otarie, Hooker’s sea hon (Arctocephalus
Hookeri), and the sea elephant (J/acrorhinus leoninus), a gigantic
species which attains a length of 6 to 9 meters but which the whalers
have almost exterminated. A sea elephant, apparently a stray, was
taken by the expedition in Ross Sea.
The -pack ice, 300 kilometers wide, which separates the South
Ocean from Ross Sea, marks the entrance upon the scene of new
animal associations. The pack is never deserted. On the contrary,
it is the place of assembly of species, attracted by the rich fauna of
fish, of cephalopods, of Crustacea, which swarm in its openings, while
great voracious whales live at the expense of the hunters themselves.
It is the zone, says Doctor Wilson, where the naturalist must ever be
on his guard, day and night; if he lose an occasion, many species will
never again present themselves to his notice in the south. The ice
pack is, moreover, a place where they may in security frolic and bask
in the sunshine. There appear the snow petrel (Pagodroma nivea)
in molting plumage, the great petrel (Ossifraga gigantea), the
O02 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
antarctic petrel (Thalasswca antarctica), and the first skua gulls
(Megalestris antarctica) ; two species of penguins (Adelia and Impe-
rial) not yet fully developed, and living on the abundant banks of
Kuphausia superba, to which also refer for his nutrition the white
seal or crab-eater (Lobodon carcinophaqgus), of which the dentition is
disposed after the manner of a seine. The Ross seal (Ommatophoca
rossi), with molars atrophid for want of use, lives at the expense of
the cephalopods. Besides roam all round a horde of carnivorous
animals carrying terror among the lowly fishermen, the sea leopard
(Stenorhincus) with redoubtable dentition, in the stomach of which
Ross found 28 pounds of fish, and the naturalists of the Discovery
found an imperial penguin, entire. Finally, at the end of this car-
nivorous series, the troops, swift and numerous, of orcas or epaulards
(Orca gladiator) swallowing indiscriminately penguins and seals in
which it inspires terror. The crab-eating seal, the most abundant on
the ice pack, shows frequent scars, indicative of fights with the orca.
- Upon the ice pack which fringes the shore of Victoria Land, the
fauna is less varied, but this struggle for existence is also less severe.
Toward the border, nearest the open water, the herd of manchots in
October install their strange dwellings, of which Mr. Wilson, after
the explorers of Cape Adare, gives a picturesque description. It is
there that they breed, commonly in low places, sometimes upon rather
high hills but within easy reach of permanent or periodic openings
in the ice pack, feeding zealously their young, in spite of the ravages
which the sea gulls make in their ranks. In these rookeries thou-
sands and thousands of penguins frisk and strive among themselves
with great noise and amidst an insupportable odor.
Messrs. Wilson and Royds have determined as a result of heroic
visits pursued under trying atmospheric conditions toward the colony
of Cape Crozier, 50 miles from the ship, that two animals in par-
ticular are in habitat and custom symbolic of the peculiarly severe
climate of Victoria Land; these are the Weddell seal (Leptonychotes
weddelli) and the imperial manchot or penguin. The Weddell seal,
credulous and trustful, for it knows no enemies in the compact ice
where it ordinarily stays, lives upon the fish that swarm beneath the
ice. It remains even in winter digging itself holes in the sea ice, and
spending the coldest seasons in the water. During the polar night its
grunt was heard as it swam beneath the ship. Its body is almost
never scarred like that of the crab-eater, for the orca can with diffi-
culty reach it. The Weddell seal is little disturbed by the presence of
men; thus it furnished an easy and abundant prey to help out the
menus of the expedition.
On the other hand, the naturalists of the Discovery recognized and
studied on Cape Crozier the first colony of the imperial manchot
(penguins) that has been described. They collected eggs and a few
ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN, one
of the young of this magnificient bird, which measures from 1 to 1.2
meters, and weighs from 30 to 40 kilograms. This bird it appears
breeds on the ice, at the foot of Ross Barrier, in the heart of winter,
and as early as the month of July. It builds no nests but places its
eggs on the dorsal surface of its feet and covers them with a fold of
the skin of its abdomen. The different members of the colony while
fighting over the eggs and the young bring about among them an
enormous mortality, equal to 77 per cent. A few weeks after the
hatching the manchot trusts itself to the drift ice and is borne away
to the north with its young. The description of this singular animal,
so well adapted to the strange antarctic life, is entirely new.
In brief, the expedition of the Discovery has, thanks to the par-
ticularly happy choice of winter quarters, made a substantial addi-
tion to our knowledge of Victoria Land.
Indeed, it would seem that there was left to future expeditions
only the task of gleaning, except so far as concerns the making of
collections of marine animals, where the field of discovery is yet
enormous.
Author's additional note, May 31, 1910.—The extraordinary re-
sults obtained since the publication of this article, by the expedition
of Sir E. H. Shackleton, the determination of the south magnetic
pole, the ascent of Mount Erebus, and, above all, the discovery of a
high frozen plateau, 3,000 to 8,500 meters in altitude, around the
Antarctic Pole, have shown that we have been too modest in our
prophecies. We can say without reserve that the most extensive
remaining field for discovery lies in the mysterious southern world.
It is perhaps the last terrestrial region where we can now expect
sensational discoveries in pure geography.
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SOME RESULTS OF THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC
EXPEDITION, 1907-9.¢
[With 6 plates and 38 maps. ]
By E. H. SHACKLETON, C. V. O.
The British Antarctic expedition, 1907-9, left Port Lyttelion, New
Zealand, on January 1, 1908, for the south. In this article I will not
attempt to deal in detail with the preliminary arrangements and with
the equipment. The amount of money at my disposal had been lim-
ited, and economies had been necessary in various directions; but I
had been able to get together a small body of well-qualified men, and
we were fully equipped as far as food, clothing, sledges, etc., were
concerned. We had a motor car, ponies, and dogs for haulage pur-
poses. The generosity of the admiralty in lending the expedition a
number of instruments enabled me to make the scientific equipment
fairly complete. The Nimrod, in which the journey to the winter
quarters on the Antarctic Continent had to be undertaken, was cer-
tainly small for the work, and left Lyttelton with scarcely 3 feet of
freeboard, a somewhat serious matter in view of the fact that very
heavy weather had to be faced. On the other hand, the ship was
very sturdy, well suited to endure rough treatment in the ice.
The shore party consisted of fifteen men, my companions being as
follows:
Lieut. J. B. Adams, R. N. R., meteorologist.
Bertram Armytage, in charge of ponies.
Sir Philip Brocklehurst, assistant geologist.
Prof. T. W. Edgeworth David, F. R. S., geologist.
Bernard Day, electrician and motor expert.
Ernest Joyce, in charge of general stores, dogs, sledges, and zoolog-
ical collections. |
Dr. A. F. Mackay, surgeon.
Dr. Eric Marshall, surgeon, cartographer.
G. E. Marston, artist.
“Reprinted by permission from The Geographical Journal, London, vol. 34,
No. 5, November, 1909.
356 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Douglas Mawson, mineralogist and petrologist.
James Murray, biologist.
Raymond Priestley, geologist.
William Roberts, cook.
Frank Wild, in charge of provisions.
Professor David, of Sydney University, joined the expedition at
the last moment, and the services of such an experienced scientific
man. were invaluable. Douglas Mawson was lecturer in mineralogy
and petrology at the Adelaide University. James Murray had been
biologist on the Scottish Lake survey, and had made a special study
of microscopic zoology, a circumstance that led to most important
discoveries in the frozen lakes of Ross Island. Joyce and Wild,
like myself, had served on the National Antarctic Expedition.
My original intention was to winter on King Edward VII Land,
a part of the Antarctic Continent at present quite unknown. The
Nimrod was towed to the Antarctic circle, a distance of 1,500 miles,
in order that her small supply of coal might be conserved, and we
were soon in the belt of ice that guards the approach to the Ross
Sea. The navigation of the ice was not more than usually difficult,
and on January 16 we entered the Ross Sea in 178° 58’ E. long.
(approximate). Keeping a southwesterly course, we sighted the
Great Ice Barrier on January 23, and proceeded to skirt the ice edge
in an easterly direction toward Barrier Inlet (Balloon Bight), the
spot selected by me as the site for the winter quarters. I knew that
the inlet was practically the beginning of King Edward VII Land,
and that it would be an easy matter for the ship, in the following
summer, to reach us there, whereas the land sighted by the Discovery
expedition might be unattainable if the season were adverse. In
165° KE. long., near the point where Borchgrevink landed in 1900,
we sighted beyond 6 or 7 miles of flat ice, steep-rounded cliffs, hav-
ing the appearance of ice-covered land. We could not stop to in-
vestigate.
The plan proved impracticable, for we found that Barrier Inlet
had disappeared. Many miles of the Barrier edge had calved away,
and instead of the narrow bight there was a wide bay joining up
with Borchgrevink’s Inlet, and forming a depression that we called
the Bay of Whales. We accordingly made an attempt to reach King
Edward VII Land, but here again we were unsuccessful. The way
was barred by heavy consolidated pack, into which bergs were frozen,
and this ice stretched for to the north. The season was advancing,
the Nimrod was leaking, as a result of severe gales on the journey
south, and I decided that we had better proceed direct to McMurdo
Sound and establish the winter quarters there. The Nimrod en-
tered the sound on January 29, and was brought up by fast ice 20
miles from Hut Point, the spot at which the Discovery expedition
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Shackleton. PLATE 1.
KOONYA TOWING NIMROD.
NimrRoD OFF CAPE ROyYDS.
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BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION—SHACKLETON. Saf
wintered in 1902 and 1903. The ice showed no signs of breaking
out, and on February 3 we proceeded to land stores and erect a hut
on Cape Royds, the spot selected under pressure of circumstances,
for the winter quarters of the expedition. On February 22 the
Nimrod went north again, leaving the shore party at Cape Royds.
The ship was to return the following summer.
The first work of importance undertaken after the winter quarters
had been established was the ascent of Mount Erebus. This active
voleano, which has an altitude of over 13,000 feet, was of particular
interest from the geological and meteorological standpoint, and
though the ascent was likely to prove difficult, it seemed that the
attempt should be made. A party of six set out from the winter
quarters on March 5, and on the morning of March 10 five of the
men stood on the edge of the active crater, the sixth having been left
at the last camp with frost-bitten feet. The scientific results of the
journey were both interesting and important. The party found that
the height of the active crater is 13,350 feet above sea level, the figures
being calculated from aneroid levels and hypsometer readings, in
conjunction with simultaneous readings of the barometer at the
wint+r quarters. It was noted that the moraines left at the period
of greater glaciation ascend the western slopes of Mount Erebus to
a height of fully 1,000 feet above sea level. As the adjacent portion
of McMurdo Sound is at least 1,800 feet deep, the ice sheet at its
maximum development must have had a thickness of not less than
2,800 feet. Two distinctive features of the geological structure of
Mount Erebus were the ice fumaroles, and the vast quantities of large
and perfect felspar crystals. Unique ice mounds have been formed
in the cup of the second crater, from which rises the present active
cone, by the condensation of vapor round the orifices of fumaroles.
Only under conditions of extremely low temperature could such
structures come into existence. The felspar crystals, found in enor-
mous quantities mixed with snow and fragments of pumice in the
second crater, were from 2 to 3 inches in length, and very many were
perfect in form. The fluid lava which had surrounded them had
been blown away by the force of the explosions which had ejected
them from the crater. The valuable meteorological observations
made can not be stated within the scope of this article.
The most important event of the winter months was the discovery
by the biologist of microscopical life in the frozen lakes of the Cape
toyds district. Investigations showed that alge grew at the bottom
of the lakes, which are frozen during the greater part of the year, and
in some cases thaw completely only in exceptionally warm seasons.
The microscope showed that rotifers, water bears, and other forms of
minute animal life existed on the weed. A shaft was sunk through
15 feet of ice to the bottom of a lake which did not thaw during the
358 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
two summers that we spent at Cape Royds, and on weed found under
the ice there were living rotifers of several kinds. Other rotifers
were found on weed melted out of solid ice. It seemed obvious that
the microscopic animals were able to live at a temperature at least as
low as 40° below zero Fahrenheit, and experiments verified this con-
clusion. The animals were not killed by that temperature, though
all the natural functions were suspended, including the bearing of
young among the viviparous species. They were alternately frozen
and thawed weekly for a long period, and took no harm. They were
dried and frozen, thawed and moistened, and still they lived. They
lived in brine so salt that it froze only at a temperature of about zero
Fahrenheit, and many of them survived the test of being dried and
placed in a bottle, which was then immersed in boiling water. Some
of the weed carrying the animals was dried and conveyed to London,
being subjected to tropical temperatures on the way. It was moist-
ened in London, and the animals were found to be still living. They
survived a final test of immersion in frozen gas at a temperature of
—81° C. The whole subject is one of extraordinary interest to
biologists, and the scientific memoirs of the expedition will embody
the results of all Murray’s observations and experiments.
Karly in the spring of 1908 we began to make arrangements for the
sledging journeys. One party, led by myself, was to go south toward
the geographical pole; Professor David was to take a second party
north, and attempt to attain the south magnetic pole; and a third
party was to undertake geological work in the mountains west of
McMurdo Sound, with the special object of discovering fossils. The
motor car had not proved a success. The petrol engine ran well,
even at low minus temperatures, and on the sea ice the car could
travel fast and far, but soft snow, such as was encountered on the
Barrier surface, formed an effective bar to its progress. We had left
New Zealand with ten ponies, imported from the sub-Arctic regions
of northern Manchuria, and landed eight of the animals at Cape
Royds in fairly good condition.
Unfortunately, four were lost early in the winter, so that only four
were left available for the sledging work. We had dogs, bred from
the Eskimo dogs used by the Newnes-Borchgrevink Expedition, but
after the experience of the Discovery Expedition I had little confi-
dence in these animals. I pinned my faith on the ponies for the
southern journey. Experiments showed that they could haul easily
650 pounds each, this including the weight of the sledge (60 pounds),
and that they traveled well on bad surfaces, thus realizing the hopes
I had based on reports of their performances in their native country.
I made a preliminary journey on to the Barrier before the return
of the sun, taking with me Professor David and Armytage, in order
to get an idea of the surface to be encountered. We experienced
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Shackleton. PLATE 3.
HEAvyY PACK ICE.
THE TOP OF EREBUS.
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Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Shackleton. PLATE 4.
Curious ICE FORMATION.
ViEW OF LAND WHERE COAL WAS FOUND.
BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION—-SHACKLETON. 359
very low temperature, below —57° F., and we only stayed out for a
few days. By means of a series of sledging journeys from Cape
Royds, we established a depot of stores at Hut Point, and on Sep-
tember 22 a party started out to lay a depot on the Barrier beyond
Minna Bluff in readiness for the southern journey. The tempera-
ture got down to —59° F., with blizzard winds, and the petroleum
for the cookers was practically frozen at times, while off Minna
Bluff we got among crevasses.
On October 6 we laid the depot in latitude 79° 36’ S., longitude
168° E., a distance of 120 miles from the winter quarters. We
reached the hut again on October 13. In the meantime, Professor
David, Douglas Mawson, and Dector Mackay had started on their
journey to the south magnetic pole. I did not see them again until
March 1, 1909.
The southern party was to consist of Adams, Marshall, Wild, and
myself. I decided to take provisions and oil for ninety-one days,
the daily allowance of food, as long as full rations were given, to be
34 ounces. The allowance was made up as follows:
Ounces
Pemmi canbe. S35 ss ese Seep ete Me eA TS RE Ae A Uns
HMmMercencyseratiOMW!= ==... 52 2 = a oe 2 es eal
1S CU eee ee ae ee ee ee ee eee Coen eS ee Be 16. 0:
Cheeseronmchocolatesss = = 4s AL CY Se ook ee ee 2.0
COCO Aten Eee eaters as ta ee et Paps ey eee 0.7
TFT aS Ya © Tn eee en et ee Be 2 A ee ee es Se 1.0
MONO Get ED pea S y O bee e ee ee eee ee 4.3
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34. 0
Tea, salt, and pepper were used in addition. The total weight of
the provisions taken was 773 pounds 8 ounces. Each pony was to
draw an 11-foot sledge. In regard to our own clothing, we made a
radical reduction in weight as compared with previous expeditions.
We wore Burberry windproof gaberdine over Jaeger woolen under-
garments, and used furs only for the hands and feet and for the
sleeping bags. I am satisfied that we could not have traveled as far
as we did in the time at our disposal had we worn the usual heavy
garments. The other articles of our equipment were along the lines
laid down by other polar explorers, weight having been reduced to
the minimum in each case. The scientific equipment included a
3-inch theodolite with stand, three chronometer watches, three
pocket compasses, one hypsometer, eight thermometers, one case sur-
veying instruments, two prismatic compasses, one sextant with arti-
ficial horizon, and camera with plates. The food for the ponies
consisted of maize and Maujee ration, with a little Australian
45745°—sm 1909——24
360 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
compressed fodder, 900 pounds in all, the allowance for each pony
being 10 pounds per day.
The southern party left the winter quarters on October 29 accom-
panied by a supporting party of six men. Progress at first was slow,
heavy weather and crevassed ice being encountered; and it was not
until November 15 that we reached the depot laid out on the spring
journey, the supporting party having left us some days previously.
The ponies were pulling well, and I was feeling very satisfied with
the change from the dogs used when I accompanied Captain Scott on
his southern journey in 1902. The surface was soft, but we were
able to move south at the rate of about 15 miles each day. Our
course lay farther from the land than the course followed by the
previous expedition, as is shown on the accompanying chart. Good
marches were made in the days that followed, and on November 26
we camped in latitude 82° 181’ S., longitude 168° E., having passed
the “ farthest south” record. New land had come within our range
~ of vision by this time, owing to the fact that we were far out from the
base of the mountains, and I had noted with some anxiety that the
coast trended south-southeast, thus threatening to cross our path
and obstruct the way to the pole. We could see great snowclad
mountains rising beyond Mount Longstaff, and also far inland to the
north of Mount Markham. On November 26 we opened out Shackle-
ton Inlet, and looking up it sighted a great chain of mountains, while
to the west of Cape Wilson appeared another chain of sharp peaks,
about 10,000 feet high, stretching away to the north beyond Snow
Cape, and continuing the land on which Mount A. Markham lies.
The first pony had been killed on November 21, when we were south
of the eighty-first parallel, and we had left a depot of pony meat
and ordinary stores to provide for the return march. We started at
once to use pony meat as part of the daily ration, and soon found that
scraps of raw, frozen meat were of assistance on the march in main-
taining our strength and cooling our parched throats. A second
pony was shot on November 28, and a third on December 1, by which
time we were closing in on the land, and it had become apparent that
we would have to find a way over the mountains if we were to con-
tinue the southern march. We were still sighting new land ahead,
and the coast line had a more distinct easterly trend. We camped on
December 2 in latitude 83° 28’ S., longitude 171° 30’ E., opposite a
red granite mountain about 3,000 feet in height. On the following
day we climbed this mountain, and from its summit saw an enormous
glacier, stretching almost due south, flanked by huge mountains, and
issuing on to the Barrier south of our camp. We decided at once
that we had better ascend the glacier, and on the following day made
our way, with two sledges and the last pony, on to its surface.
BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION—SHACKLETON, 361
We encountered difficulties at once, for the snow slopes, by means
of which we gained the glacier surface, gave way to blue ice, with
numberless cracks and crevasses, many of them razor-edged. Travel-
ing on this surface in finesko was slow and painful work. On De-
cember 5 Marshall and Adams, who were ahead looking for a route,
reported that at a point close to the granite cliffs, a bird, brown in
color, with a white line under each wing, had flown over their heads.
They were sure it was not a skua gull, the only bird likely to have
been attracted by the last dead pony. It was a curious incident to
occur in latitude 83° 40’ S. We left the fourth depot close to the
foot of the glacier, at the foot of a wonderful granite cliff, polished
by the winds and snows of ages. On December 6 we took six hours
to pass about 600 yards of severely crevassed ice, over which all our
gear had to be relayed, and on the following day we lost the last
pony, which fell into a crevasse disguised, like so many others, by a
treacherous snow lid. Wild was leading the pony with one sledge,
while Adams, Marshall, and myself went on ahead with the other
sledge and pioneered a practical path. We had passed over a snow-
covered crevasse without. noticing it, but the greater weight of the
pony broke through the ld, and the animal dropped through, prob-
ably to a depth of several hundred feet. Happily, the swingle-
tree snapped with a sudden strain, and Wild and the sledge were
saved. This accident left us with two sledges and a weight of about
250 pounds per man to haul. Our altitude at this time was about
1,700 feet above sea level.
During the days that followed we made steady progress up the
glacier, experiencing constant difficulty with the crevasses. We hauled
well ahead of the sledges, so that when one of us dropped through a
snow lid the harness would support him until he could be hauled up
again. We had many painful falls as a result of having no footgear
suitable for the ice climbing, and any future travelers would do well
to take boots with spikes. A special form would have to be devised,
on account of the low temperature rendering impracticable the use of
ordinary mountaineering boots. New land appeared day after day,
and we were able to make small geological collections and to take
some photographs. The rocks were sedimentary, the lines of stratifi-
cation often showing clearly on the mountain sides, and we made two
geological discoveries of the first importance. In latitude 85° S.,
Wild, who had climbed the slope of a mountain in order to look
rhapel found coal, six seams ranging from 4 inches to 7 or 8 feet in
thickness, with sandstone intervening. Close to this point I found a
piece of sandstone showing an impression, and microscopic investiga-
tion has shown that this was fossil coniferous wood.
The glacier proved to be about 130 miles in length, rising to an alti-
tude of over 9,000 feet. Christmas Day, 1908, found us in latitude
362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
85° 55’ §., a plateau with icefalls appearing to the south. Much
claciated land trended to the southeast, apparently ending in a high
mountain shaped lke a keep. The land to the west had been left
behind. It was evident that we were still below the plateau level,
and though we were getting free of the crevasses, we were hindered
by much soft snow. ‘The level was rising in a series of steep ridges
about 7 miles apart. We had started to reduce rations before leaving
the Barrier surface, and by Christmas Day were marching on very
short commons. Our temperature was 2° subnormal, but otherwise
we were well and fit.
On December 31 we camped in latitude 86° 54’ 8. We had not yet
reached the plateau level, for slopes still lay ahead, and our altitude
was about 10,000 feet. We had three weeks’ food on a reduced ration,
and were 186 geographical miles from the pole. The land had been
left behind, and we were traveling over a white expanse of snow, still
with rising slopes ahead. We were weakening from the combined
effects of short food, low temperature, high altitude, and heavy work.
We were able to march on the first six days of January, and on the
night of January 6 camped in latitude 88° 7’ S. We had increased
the daily ration, for it had become evident that vitality could not be
maintained on the amount of food we had been taking. I had been
forced to abandon the hope of reaching the pole, and we were concen-
trating our efforts on getting within 100 miles of the goal.
A fierce blizzard blew on January 7 and 8, and made any march
impossible. We lay in our sleeping bags, frequently attacked by
frostbite. The wind ceased at 1 a. m. on January 9, and at 4 a. m.
we started south, leaving the camp standing, and taking only instru-
ments, food, and the flag. At9a.m., after five hours’ marching over
a fairly hard surface, we calculated we were in latitude 88° 23’ S.,
and we hoisted the flag. The snow plain stretched southward to the
horizon without a break.
The homeward march was rendered difficult by shortage of food
and attacks-of dysentery, due to the meat from one of the ponies.
We picked up a depot left on the plateau on January 4, and made
rapid progress to the north. The blizzard winds from the south,
which had hampered us on the outward journey, now proved of assist-
ance, for we made a sail from the floor cloth of a tent and traveled
fast with our one remaining sledge. On January 19 we covered a
distance of 29 miles down the glacier. On January 16 we ran out of
food when 16 miles from the glacier depot, and we marched for
thirty-one hours with only a little tea and chocolate. We were able
to reach the depot in an exhausted condition. We left the glacier
and reached the Barrier surface on January 28, but Wild was
attacked by dysentery, and a little later we all suffered. The trouble
vas evidently due to the meat from one pony, and as the frozen flesh
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Shackieton. PLATE 5.
CAMP ON SOUTHERN JOURNEY.
CAMP ON SOUTHERN JOURNEY.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Shackleton. PLATE 6.
PROFESSOR DAVID, DOUGLAS MAYSON, AND DocTOR MACKAY AT THE SOUTH
MAGNETIC POLE.
SOUTHERN PARTY AFTER THEIR RETURN.
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# BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION—SHACKLETON, 363
could not have become tainted in the usual way, we assumed that it
was due to the toxin of exhaustion, the animal having been killed
when very weary.
We were assisted on the southward march over the Barrier by
snow mounds erected on the outward journey, and we picked up the
depots without any difficulty, reaching each with our food bags empty.
We could not march at all on February 4, owing to acute dysentery,
‘but we were able to continue on the following days, and on February
23 we reached a depot, laid out off Minna Bluff in readiness for our
return, by a party from the winter quarters. We were all safe on
board the Nimrod on March 4.
The latitude observations made on the southern journey were
taken with the theodolite, as were all the bearings, angles, and azi-
muths. Variation was ascertained by means of a compass attached
to the theodolite, and the steering compasses were checked accord-
ingly. At noon each day the prismatic compasses were placed in
the true meridian and checked against the theodolite compass and
the steering compasses. The last latitude observation on the outward
journey was taken in 87° 22’ §., and the remainder of the distance
toward the south was calculated by sledge meter and dead reckoning.
The accuracy of the sledge meter had been proved by the fact that
the daily record of distance traveled agreed roughly with the ob-
servations for position. We took only one observation on the return
journey, on January 31, and then found that our position had been
accurately recorded by the sledge meter.
The results of the southern journey may be summarized briefly.
We found that a chain of great mountains stretched north by east
from Mount Markham as far as the eighty-sixth parallel, and that
other ranges ran toward the southwest, south, and southeast between
the eighty-fourth and the eighty-sixth parallels. We ascended one
of the largest glaciers in the world on to a high plateau, which in
all probability is a continuation of the Victoria Land plateau. The
geographical pole almost certainly lies on this plateau, at an altitude
of between 10,000 and 11,000 feet above sea level. The discovery of
coal and fossil wood has a very important bearing on the question of
the past geological history of the Antarctic Continent.
The northern party consisted of Professor David, Doctor Mackay,
and Douglas Mawson. The three men left Cape Royds on October 5,
and traveled on the sea ice along the coast as far as the Drygalski
Barrier tongue. They had neither dogs nor ponies, and as they
could not haul the whole of their load at one time they had to relay
their two sledges, thus covering the ground three times. They
reached the Drygalski tongue on November 30, and from that point
struck inland in a northwest direction, with a lightened load, toward
the south magnetic pole. They crossed the Drygalski Glacier with
364 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
very great difficulty, a fortnight being occupied in gaining 20 miles
over steep ice ridges and crevasses, and twice failed in attempts to
climb on to the inland plateau, first by means of the Mount Nansen
Glacier, and then up the Bellingshausen Glacier. Finally, they suc-
ceeded in finding a path up a small tributary glacier to the south of
Mount Larsen and gained the plateau. Then came a painful march
over the plateau, which gradually rose to an altitude of over 7,000
feet, in the face of blizzards, broad undulations, and high sastrugi.
On January 16, 1909, the party reached latitude 72° 25’ S., longi-
tude 155° 16’ E., the approximate position of the magnetic pole as
calculated from the observations taken by Mawson with the Lloyd-
Creak dip circle. The journey back to the coast had to be made by
forced marches, for the party knew that the sea ice would have
broken out and that their hope of safety depended largely on the
Nimrod, which was to cruise along the coast as far as Cape Wash-
ington early in January. They reached the Drygalski Barrier
‘ tongue on January 3, and on the following morning, by a happy
combination of circumstances, were picked up by the ship, which was
on its way back to the winter quarters after a fruitless search along
the coast. The party did very useful geographical work in the
course of its journey, for Mawson triangulated the coast of Victoria
Land from McMurdo Sound to the Drygalski Barrier, and many new
peaks, glaciers, and tongues were discovered, as well as two small
islands. Professor David studied the geological conditions with
good results.
The western party consisted of Armytage, Priestley, and Brockle-
hurst, and it first proceeded by the Ferrar Glacier as far as the Soli-
tary Rocks, with the special object of searching for fossils in the
Beacon sandstone formations. Priestly made'a thorough geological
search of the neighborhood, but without success so far as fossils
were concerned. The party descended the glacier with the object
of joining the northern party, according to my instructions, but the
junction was not effected owing to the delays that had overtaken
Professor David and his companions. Priestley was able to work
at the Stranded Moraines and in Dry Valley. The party was picked
up by the Vimrod on January 25, after narrowly escaping disaster
on a drifting ice floe.
All the members of the expedition were aboard the Nimrod on
March 4, 1909, and we proceeded north under steam at once, for the
season was advancing and the sea ice had commenced to form. We
were off Cape Adare on March 6, and I made an attempt to push
on west of Cape North, with the object of securing knowledge of
the coast line. The pack ice, which was thickening rapidly and
threatened to imprison the ship, prevented the Vimrod going as far as
I had hoped, but we got to longitude 166° 14’ E., latitude 69° 47’ S.,
BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION—SHACKLETON, 365
and on the morning of March 8, from that position, we saw a new
coast line stretching first to the southward, and then to the west for
a distance of over 45 miles. We took angles and bearings and
sketched the outline. Then we went north, and on March 22 reached
New Zealand.
The geological work of the expedition was carried on by Prof.
T. W. Edgeworth David and Raymond Priestley. I have already
mentioned matters connected with the Great Ice Barrier. Their
conclusions in regard to other points are summarized as follows:
(1) Throughout the whole of the region of Antarctica, examined
by us for 16 degrees of latitude, there is evidence of a recent great
diminution in the glaciation. In McMurdo Sound this arm of the
sea, now free from land ice, was formerly filled by a branch of the
Great Ice Barrier, whose surface rose fully 1,000 feet above sea
level, and the Barrier ice in this sound, in areas from which the
ice has retreated, was formerly about 3,000 feet in thickness.
(2) The snowfall at Cape Royds from February, 1908, to Feb-
ruary, 1909, was equal to about 94 inches of rain.
(3) The névé-fields of Antarctica are probably of no great
thickness.
(4) The southern and western sides of the sector of Antarctica
south of Australia is a plateau from 7,000 to 10,000 feet high, which
may possibly extend across the south pole to Coats’s Land and
Graham’s Land.
(5) Ross Sea is probably a great subsidence area.
(6) The Beacon sandstone formation, which extends for at least
1,100 miles from north to south in Antarctica, contains coniferous
wood associated with coal seams. It is probably of Paleozoic age.
(7) Limestones, pisolitic in places, in 85° 25’ §., and 7,000 feet
above sea level, contain obscure casts of radiolaria.
Radiolaria, in a fair state of preservation, occur in black cherts
amongst the erratics at Cape Royds. They appear to belong to the
same formation as the limestone. These radiolaria appear to be of
older Paleozoic age.
(8) The succession of lavas at Erebus appears to have been first
trachytes, then kenytes, then olivine basalts. Erebus is, however,
still erupting kenyte.
(9) Peat deposits, formed of fungus, are now forming on the
bottoms of some of the Antarctic glacial lakes near 77° and 78° 8.
(10) Raised benches of recent origin extend at Ross Island to a
height of at least 160 feet above sea level.
The fossil in Beacon sandstone found by the southern party in
latitude 85° S. is described as follows by Mr. E. J. Goddard, B. Sc.,
Macleay Research Fellow of the Linnean Society, New South Wales:
Longitudinal sections of the included dark masses give a homogeneous banded
appearance of a distinctly organic nature. The banded appearance is due to the
366 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
vascular nature of the organic elements composing the mass. The whole struc-
ture recalls to one’s mind the appearance given by longitudinal sections of the
xylem portion of the vascular area of a gymnosperm, such as Pinws. Only the
xylem area is represented in the specimen, no traces of medullary, cortical, or
phloem tissue being visible. Medullary rays are present, as shown in the
microphotograph.
The xylem itself is composed of a homogeneous mass of vessels, tracheidal in
nature, no differentiation as regards the vascular elements being present. In
places one may readily make out in longitudinal sections dark opaque bands of
much greater size individually than the tracheides. These, in all probability,
represent resin passages belonging to the xylem. It would seem, further, that
these masses might be considered as being nothing more than an aggregation of
material similar in nature to that of the walls, and due to changes under the
process of petrifaction. This, however, is opposed by the fact that they occur
even in these small sections fairly commonly and at the same time are all of
exactly the same size as regards width. At all events, they represent some
definite structure, and in all probability resin passages.
The walls of the tracheides themselves, seen under the high power of the
microscope, appear to be pitted; but the preservation is by no means good
- enough to warrant any remarks on this, beyond that in the common wall of
adjacent tracheides occur clear spaces of the same relative importance as the
bordered pits of such a gymnosperm as Pinus. These clear spaces occur regularly
along the length of the tracheides, and stand out strongly against the dark
color of the walls in their preserved condition.
The nature of the xylem itself leads to the conclusion that it is a portion of
a gymnospermous plant, resembling stronglv in nature the same portion of a
coniferous plant.
The meteorological observations taken during our stay in the
Antarctic have yet to be studied, and only tentative conclusions have,
so far, been reached. Systematic observations were taken during the
voyages of the Vimrod between New Zealand and MacMurdo Sound,
and at Cape Royds observations were recorded at intervals of two
hours from March, 1908, to February, 1909. During this period no
rain fell. The lowest. temperature definitely recorded was —57° F.
near White Island on the Great Ice Barrier on August 14, 1908. We
were able to secure interesting observations of the upper currents of
the air at Ross Island. Reporting on this subject, Professor David
and Lieutenant Adams state: ;
At Mount Erebus our winter quarters were situated in an exceptionally
favored position for observing the upper currents of the atmosphere. Not only
had we the great cone of Erebus to serve as a graduated scale against which
we could read off the heights of the various air currents as portrayed by the
movements of the clouds belonging to them, but we also had the magnificent
steam column in the mountain itself, which, by its swaying from side to side,
indicated exactly the direction of movement of the higher atmosphere. More-
over, during violent eruptions like that of January 14, 1908, the steam column
rose to an altitude of over 20,000 feet above sea level. Under these circum-
stances it penetrated far above the level of a current of air from the pole
northward, so that its summit came well within the sweep of the higher wind
blowing in a southerly direction, the result being that the steam cloud in this
BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION—SHACKLETON. 367
region was dragged over powerfully toward the southeast. On such occasions
one usually saw evidence of two high-level currents, the one coming from a
northerly direction, its under limit being about 15,000 feet above sea level, and
the other, or middle current, from a southerly quarter, usually blowing toward
the east-northeast, having its upper limit at 15,000 feet normally, while its lower
limit was between 6,000 and 7,000 feet above sea level. While these two ecur-
rents were blowing strongly, there would frequently be a surface current blow-
ing gently from the north. This would bring up very dense masses of cumulus
cloud from off Ross Sea. The cumulus would drift up to the 6,000 or 7,000 feet
level on the northwest slopes of Erebus, and then the tops of the cumulus would
be cut off by the lower edge of the northward-flowing middle current. Wisps
of fleecy cloud would be swept along to the east-northeast, torn from the tops of
these cumulus clouds by the middle current. Our observations showed that
during blizzards the whole atmosphere from sea level up to at least 11,000 feet
moves near Cape Royds from southeast to northwest, and the speed of movement
is from 40 up to over 60 miles an hour. After and during the blizzard the
middle air current, normally blowing from the west-southwest, is temporarily
abolished, being absorbed by the immense outrushing air stream of the south-
east blizzard. During a blizzard the air was generally so thick with snow that
we were unable to see the top of Hrebus. At the end of a blizzard the air
current over Erebus became suddenly reversed, the steam cloud swinging round
from the south to the north. After a time, following on the conclusion of a
blizzard, a high-level current was seen to be floating the cirrus clouds from the :
southeast toward the northwest, and the steam of Erebus would stream out
toward the northwest. We could not account for this high-level southeasterly
current. It looked like a reversal of the usual upper wind, and it appears to be
a fact new to meteorological science.
In this article I can only indicate the scientific results of the ex-
pedition, as apart from the new geographical knowledge secured.
We were able to throw some additional light on the problem presented
by the Great Ice Barrier. The disappearance of Balloon Bight shows
clearly that the recession noted since the days of Sir James Ross con-
tinues, and suggests that very large portions of the Barrier edge may
oceasionally “calve off.” The trend of the mountains discovered
on the southern journey indicates that the Barrier is bounded by
mountains which run eastward along the eighty-sixth parallel, about
300 miles from the sea edge. The great glacier up which we marched
to the polar plateau shows that the Barrier is fed to some extent
from the highlands of the interior. It would seem, however, that in
the main the Barrier is formed of superimposed layers of snow, and
some interesting observations were secured in this connection. We
formed the opinion that at Cape Royds the annual snowfall is equal
to about 9.5 inches of rain. The southern depot party, in January,
1909, found depot A, left by Captain Scott in 1902 on the Barrier
off Minna Bluff. A careful examination showed that the depot had
been moving bodily to the east-northeast at the rate of a little over
500 yards a year, while there had been an accumulation of about 138
inches of hard snow above the depot during each year. A deter-
mination of the density of the snow showed that the snowfall on
868 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
that part of the Barrier had been equal to about 7.5 inches of rain
per year. If it is assumed that the rate of accumulation of solid
snow over the Barrier is 12 inches of consolidated snow per year,
then it follows, since the Barrier extends south for about 300 miles,
and is moving northward at the rate of about one-third of a mile
per year, that a layer of snow deposited 300 miles inland will be cov-
ered by a depth of 900 feet of snow when it reaches the Barrier edge
nine hundred years later. This theory suggests that the Barrier is
an accumulation of snow rather than of glacier ice, and was sup-
ported by the evidence of bergs which were examined by the expedi-
tion. ‘The typical antarctic berg is formed of consolidated snow.
The question of what becomes of the ice from the inland glaciers
remains unanswered. The Barrier is certainly afloat at its northern
edge, and perhaps the ice, weighed down by superimposed snow, is
thawed away by the sea water. Some true icebergs are found in the
Antarctic.
The expedition made a special study of meteorological optics, and
some very interesting observations were made, and will be dealt with
by the scientific members in the memoirs. The curious “ earth
shadows ” were observed in a variety of forms. Some of them seemed
clearly to have a relation to the relative positions of Mount Erebus
and the sun. Other forms were not so easily explained. In the
spring, when the sun was low in the northern sky, we saw above us
six parallel earth-shadow beams, directed from the sun.
The scientific memoirs of the expedition will deal in detail with
geology, biology, meteorology, magnetism, physics, chemistry, and
mineralogy, tides and currents, optics, and other scientific subjects.
We were a small party, and of necessity a considerable part of our
time was occupied in the necessary routine duties incidental to daily
life in the Antarctic, but we tried to cover all the ground possible in
the various branches of scientific knowledge. It is probable that
most of the volumes containing our scientific records and conclusions
will be published within the next twelve or eighteen months.
The last stage of the expedition was a search by the WVimrod for
some of the charted southern islands the existence of which is doubt-
ful. The ship sailed over the positions assigned to the Royal Com-
pany Island, Emerald Island, the Nimrod Islands, and Dougherty
Islands, without having sighted land.
BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION
1907
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BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION
1907
Route and Surveys
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THE OCEANOGRAPHY OF THE SEA OF GREENLAND.«
[With 2 plates.]
(A résumé of the observations made during the expedition of the Belgica,
in 1905.)
By D. DAMaAs.
a
In 1905 the Due d’Orleans undertook what has proved to be a
fortunate cruise to Spitzbergen and northeast Greenland upon the
Belgica, commanded by M. A. de Gerlache. The oceanographic
observations made during the cruise by the commandant and M. Koe-
foed, working in connection with the Norwegian Bureau of Fish-
eries, form a valuable contribution to our still very imperfect knowl-
edge of the ocean comprised between these two great polar lands.
The region explored by the Belgica in 1905 constitutes a special
basin and merits the name Sea of Greenland, which has recently
been given to it. It is situated between Spitzbergen and Bear
Island on the east and Greenland on the west. To the south it
opens out into the Sea of Norway a little below 70° north latitude;
its meridional limit is therefore the least well defined. The ancient
voleano Jan-Mayen, which raises itself between Greenland and Nor-
way, alone indicates the conventional limit of the basin. The gen-
eral form of the Sea of Greenland is plainly triangular. Measured
along the seventy-first parallel of north latitude its assumed base is
more than 780 marine miles in length. Its borders on the east and
west converge toward the north.
This form is revealed better if one considers the relief of the
oceanic basin (fig. 1). Opposite Spitzbergen, and particularly op-
posite Greenland, there extends a large continental platform. If we
set the isobar of 1,500 meters as the limit of the base of this coastal
platform it will be seen that the central basin has a maximum depth,
so far as known, of 3,630 meters, and constitutes a special depres-
sion separated from the analogous basin of the Sea of Norway by
the low divide which carries the island of Jan-Mayen and which
unites eastern Greenland with Bear Island.
“Translated by permission from La Géographie, Paris, vol. 19, No. 6, June
15, 1909.
369
370 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The apex of the triangle unites the Sea of Greenland with the polar
basin.
This region comprised between Greenland and Spitzbergen consti-
tutes the outlet of the ice from the polar basin, and at the same
time affords a passage toward the north of the farthermost branch
of the Gulf Stream. This Atlantic current, which warms the western
coast of Spitzbergen, passes around the northwest angle of this
archipelago and loses itself in the Arctic basin, as Nansen has demon-
strated. The oceanographic régime of the basin depends then, first
of all, on the topographic conditions existing in the northern part
of the Sea of Greenland. This region is in general blocked by ice,
Fic. 1.—Bathymetric chart of Greenland Sea.
and its depth is unknown to us except in the immediate vicinity of
Spitzbergen.
Nansen believes that this gate of communication is constricted by
a submerged ridge extending between Greenland and Spitzbergen,
and rising to within 800 meters of the surface.
The origin of this hypothesis is curious; first of all, it has a hydro-
graphic foundation. Nansen has shown that in the polar basin
proper, the deeper lying water has a density of 1.02825, while the
samples collected by Amundsen in the Sea of Greenland yielded, for
the water from the depths of the basin, values a little less (about
1.02811). Nansen concludes from this that if the waters have not the
e
OCEANOGRAPHY OF SEA OF GREENLAND—DAMAS. Sil
same density it is because they can not admix freely. It follows, then,
that there exists a barrier preventing the free circulation between the
profound depths of the two oceanic basins.
The possibility of establishing a similar hypothesis rests upon the
extreme exactitude of modern oceanographic research. Thanks to an
exceptionally perfect outfit, to which Nansen himself greatly con-
tributed, it is possible to determine the temperature and the density
of waters at all depths with a precision impossible ten years ago. On
board the Belgica the temperatures were measured with the aid of
Richter’s thermometers to within an approximation of 0.02 of a de-
gree. In numerous instances two thermometers were employed
simultaneously, and in more than 75 per cent of the cases the differ-
ence between the two readings, after a correction varying for each in-
strument, was less than 0.01 of a degree. The salinity has been de-
termined by titration of the chlorine down to nearly 0.02 per cent.¢
For waters from the profound depths the method has been controlled
by hydrostatic pressure. After this manner the density could be
calculated for all the depths as far as the fifth decimal place. A
difference apparently so shght as that admitted by Nansen, 1.02825
against 1.02811, is then an accurate indication of the composition and
origin of the bodies of water.
Accepting the fact that the southeast part of the Greenland Sea is
well explored, the problems which presented themselves to the ex-
pedition were these:
First. To begin at the northeast angle of Spitzbergen and course
toward the northwest in order to cut across the hypothetical barrier of
Nansen by a line of soundings.
Second. To come back as far as possible into the midst of the ice of
the polar current.
Third. To reach the coast of Greenland in order to make, as nearly
as possible, a cross section of the body of water which covers the
continental platform.
The labors relative to the expedition are now finished and will ap-
pear shortly. They constitute an important volume of more than
500 pages, accompanied by 80 plates, maps, and diagrams, compris-
ing the following memoirs:
Succinet account of the voyage and extracts of the itinerary by A. de Gerlache.
Meteorology: Synoptic maps of the weather for July and August, 1905, by
M. Dan La Cour.
Geology: Submarine sediments collected in the Greenland Sea by M O. B.
Boggild.
Botany: Plants collected on the northeast coast of Greenland, by C. H.
Ostenfeld.
“This method has been the object of adverse criticism in France. Helland-
Hansen and Koefoed question if this method will permit a sufficiently precise
determination.
372 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Oceanography and biology: Journal of stations, by MM. H. Broch, A. de
Gerlache, B. Helland-Hansen, and EH. Koefoed.
Hydrography, by B. Helland-Hansen and BH. Koefoed.
Plankton of the Sea of Greenland, by MM. D. Damas and EH. Koefoed, with
notes upon Radiolaria, by M. E. Jérgensen.
Meduse, by M. C. Hartlaub.
Fishes, by M. E. Koefoed.
Deep-water invertebrates, by J. Grieg.
It will doubtless be of interest to review briefly the results obtained.
We shall attempt this while limiting ourselves to the important
geographical problems that the expedition had proposed to solve.
We omit, then, reference to a great part of the zoological material
collected, notably that obtained in the course of the dredging carried
on near Spitzbergen and in the offing of the east coast of Greenland ;
also the botanical and meteorological results of the expedition.
Let us review briefly the route of the expedition. This is shown in
figure 1; the route of the Belgica is indicated by the principal obser-
‘vation stations, omitting the “ diverse routes ” inevitable in a voyage
traversing the ice fields. After some preliminary stations near Spitz-
bergen, the Belgica sailed on July 7, 1905, from the Isle of Amster-
dam, and bore first toward the northwest. The route being obstructed
by pack ice, the course was soon turned back toward the south. In
so doing one of the principal purposes of the expedition was lost.
It remained then to push as far as possible toward Greenland. One
can see by the course on the chart that at different times the Belgica
pushed toward the west, but each time the polar ice, thick and com-
pact, barred the way. The navigation was relatively easy in the
deeper waters, but when the Belgica arrived near the edge of the
continental platform of Greenland the ice presented an impenetrable
barrier. This route, which was accomplished almost entirely to the
west of 0° Greenwich, is nevertheless of great interest. It was made
appreciably farther to the north and to the west than all previous
itineraries, and the soundings have particular value in that in one
point they reached the foot of the continental talus (soundings 1,425
meters). Nevertheless, under latitude about 76° north, the Belgica
succeeded in making her way through the ice, thick and confused,
which descends from the North Pole in immense and dangerous fields.
The crossing of the polar current made in the course of this cruise was
more than 2° north of all those that had preceded it. In proportion
and measure as the depth diminished toward the coast the ice became
more tractable and soon the polar ice gave way to the ice formed in
the neighborhood of the land, which is much easier to navigate.
Along the coast of Greenland the Belgica was able again to turn
toward the north, and gaining the latitude of Terre de France,’
“The name which the Dépét des Cartes et Plans of the Danish Marine has
substituted for that of ‘“ Land of Due d’Orleans.”
OCEANOGRAPHY OF SEA OF GREENLAND—DAMAS. BTS!
attempted again to cross the polar current. The expedition was then
at the latitude where the sounding of 1,425 meters mentioned above
was accomplished.
This new effort seemed destined to succeed. It brought an in-
teresting first result; the discovery of a bank situated off Greenland
(at a depth of 58 to 100 meters) which was later designated as the
Bank of the Belgica, and in the center of which, according to Com-
mander de Gerlache, there perhaps rises an island. By this it was
established that here the Greenland continental platform is enor-
mously extended, and if one follows upon our chart the line of the
1,500-meter contour which marks the base of this platform, he sees
that it extends in a much more northeasterly direction—that is, in
the direction of Spitzbergen—than does the coast of Greenland. It
is very probable that this is the first appearance of the relief which
Nansen supposed to exist.
The crossing of the polar currents having been again rendered im-
possible by the abundance of ice, and the season being advanced,
Commander de Gerlache resolved to turn southward. Laying his
course between the land ice and the polar currents, the Belgica
worked out of the ice and traversed again, and not without difficulty,
the polar current at the meridional limit of the Greenland Sea.
As is seen, this voyage of the Belgica lay wholly to the northwest of
all previous expeditions. There may thus be formed a more com-
plete idea of the depths and the hydrographic régime of the Sea of
Greenland. This problem had already been touched upon, and par-
ticularly by Nansen. In his memoir entitled “Northern Waters”
he had shown the results of the studies of all the material collected
up to 1905 concerning the Greenland Sea, and particularly the re-
sults of the examination of the material that Amundsen had brought
together during the trial voyage of the Gjéa. It was especially
from a study of these materials that Nansen has been brought to
admit the existence of the Spitzbergen-Greenland relief.
It is therefore of great interest to consider the observations of the
Belgica as a check, confirmatory or otherwise, of the theories and
conclusions of Nansen. It is the best proof of their correctness.
What, before alf* else, characterizes the Sea of Greenland is the
presence of a sheet of surface ice in its western part. In winter this
sheet is extended toward the east and covers the larger part of the
oceanographic region. This extension is due to the freezing of the
water in situ; the ice thus formed is composed of horizontal layers
and never attains a great thickness. It remains where formed; that
is to say, in the midst of the Greenland Ocean, until the beginning of
summer, when it begins to melt. Its eastern margin progressively
and irregularly retreats toward the west. This ice, born as it were
in the Sea of Greenland, is designated under the name of bay ice.
374 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
It is of an entirely different nature from the polar ice which is met
with in the offing of east Greenland. This is formed of lamin
much thicker, more compressed, and contorted, and originates near
the Pole. While the bay ice, relatively stagnant, forms and disap-
pears in the Greenlandic Ocean, the polar ice is carried along by a
constant current. It results that the region of the bay ice is rela-
tively navigable, while that of the polar ice constitutes a dangerous
barrier. During the greater part of the voyage the Belgica pene-
trated as far as
possible into the
pack ice (ban-
quise) so that it
had polar ice on
the starboard and
bay ice on the lar-
board side. The
Belgica twice
crossed the polar
ice, and each time
with the greatest
difficulty. Thanks
to a combination
of happy circum-
Giron land
@JAN MAYEN
71\0
N oRWAY
> stances, 1t was en-
fe of [ez . ’
es oe abled to reach the
coast of Green-
land.
On the other side
| Bo of the zone of
ees ee, polar ice the Bel-
- ates gica found the
we Continuous Pack - fez. land ice formed in
wm larrd- Ice winter in the fiords
was large ice fields :
& Solid Ppack-1Ee ‘and the neighbor-
: ies er As aes 1 Mots ; hood of the Green-
Fic. 2.—Map Sa ata Seco of ice in Greenland @iand coast. Even
in July this ice
only partially disappears. It remains in the neighborhood of the
locality where it is formed, and the only movements manifested are
due, according to the observations of Commander de Gerlache, to
the action of the tides. Between the land ice and the polar ice there
exists a zone less encumbered, through the favor of which the expedi-
tion was able to ascend as far as the Belgica bank.
These three kinds of ice are very different in origin, distribution,
and movement. Thanks to the numerous observations of the Belgica
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Damas. PLATE 1.
RRR
eee
et
se ee
LAR A me age
Bay ICE IN GREENLAND SEA.
(From photographs by Doctor Récamier. )
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Damas. PLATE 2.
THE BELGICA IN A FIELD OF POLAR ICE.
EDGE OF LAND IcE, WEST OF GREENLAND.
OCEANOGRAPHY OF SEA OF GREENLAND—DAMAS. 375
and those of Norwegian sealers, it has become possible to construct
for the summer of 1905 very complete maps showing the condition
of the ice in the Greenland Sea. As an illustration we give here
the maps for the months of July and August (figs. 2 and 3). They
enable us to determine some of the chief laws of ice distribution.
The land ice is attached on the west to the Greenland coast. Its
exterior limits exceed but little the shallow depths of the conti-
nental plateau.
The eastern limit
of the polar ice cor-
responds rather
closely with the
isobar of 1,500 me-
ters which marks
the base of the con-
tinental talus slope;
that is to say, the
field which it
covers iS enor-
mously expanded
toward the north
and gradually nar-
rows to the south
until, at the height
of the second cross-
ing of the Belgica,
the zone has
scarcely, according
to observations of
Commander de we Continuous pack-(ce
Gerlache, an extent wm fand- fee”,
wes farge (ce fields
of more than 2 or oe Solid pack -(ce
3 kilometers. The 6% oper pachice
distribution of the ‘1! 3.—Map showing the distribution of ice in Greenland
‘ Sea in August, 1905.
polar ice on the
surface is, then, closely related to the topography of the ocean bottom.
The bay ice covers a surface varying with the season. It occupies
in general the central or region of most profound depth of the Green-
land Sea. Its progressive retreat in summer is irregular. In gen-
eral it is less rapid immediately to the south of Jan Mayen than
farther to the north. There results from this the formation of a
gulf sufficiently constant to merit the name of Gulf of Bay Ice,
which the Norwegian hunters have given it. It is through pene-
45745°—sm 1909——25
376 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909
trating into this gulf that the Belgica was able to reach the Green-
land coast.
Thus, as Nansen has described, and as also shown in the extracts
of the journals of the Norwegian sealers published by Wollebaeck
in a memoir by Hjort and Knipowitch, the regions of the bay ice—
that is, the central region of the Greenland Sea—is the region sought
out in the spring by the seals (Phoca greenlandica) as a breeding
place, that find there an ice of slight thickness, always quiet, and
; DP ==
ree
=e ii
600
oF}
700 ; i
300 " /
wit se ‘
ae ;
1000 i 2
\ f
1100 : }
1200 : -
Sal alinity Salinity
below
on ER ee
Fic. 4.—Temperature and salinity of polar current off west coast of Greenland
little frequented by the white bears, all conditions such as can not
be found either on the polar ice or near the coast
cern themselves in their hunts mainly in the Gulf of Bay Ice, which
they have learned to know very well.
As has been seen, the ice of the central part of the Sea of Greenland
é seen,
is very characteristic and quite different from that of the polar cur-
The sealers con-
This curious distribution of the various kinds of ice is ex-
rent. §
plained completely by the study of the oceanographic materials
brought back by the expedition of the Duc d’Orleans.
OCEANOGRAPHY OF SEA OF GREENLAND—DAMAS. Bat
To the east is found a region always free of ice. It is kept open
by the Atlantic current. This, in flowing between the Shetland and
Faroe islands, carries water of a salinity in the neighborhood of 35.2
parts in 1,000 or more, and of a temperature of about 7°. At the
latitude of Spitzbergen its temperature has fallen to 5° and even to
2°, and its salinity is lowered as a result of its commingling with the
continental waters. In the cut (fig. 5), which extends from the cen-
ter of the Sea of Greenland to the south of Bear Island, we see the
waters of a salinity upward of 35 parts in 1,000 thrown against the
—— between Salinity above
35 - 35,10%0 35,100
Fic. 5.—Temperature and salinity of center of Greenland Sea and south of Bear Island.
continental talus by the earth’s rotation. Their depth in the figure
is about 400 meters. The Atlantic current runs along the west coast
of Spitzbergen, and in figure 6 we see the same waters at the moment
of losing themselves in the polar current. They have then a tempera-
ture of about 3.5°. Opposite Spitzbergen the current divides, one
portion going toward the west. This is shown in figure 6 under the
form of a tongue of water of a positive temperature, which is inter-
calated between the surface water and that of the depths, the last
having a negative temperature.
378 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Along the coast of Greenland the current moves, carrying with it
the old polar ice noted above, but the masses of water which come
from the north toward the southwest are not limited to the surface.
They have a considerable depth and a great complexity, which we will
now consider (fig. 4). The vertical distribution of the temperatures
is especially characteristic. In summer the ice floats in a water of
variable temperature, mostly below 0°, but never going lower than
—1°. From the surface as far as the depth of about 100 meters the
temperature decreases progressively. At this depth is found a
nucleus of very low temperature (as low as —1.8°) which represents
the center of the polar current. Beyond this the temperature rises
progressively, and between 200 and 400 meters is found a maximum
of about +1.2°. It is only below 800 meters that they have observed
again a negative temperature which is characteristic of the deep
water. This remarkable distribution of temperature is explained
very clearly by Helland-Hansen, who agrees in all points with
‘Nansen. The ice carried by the polar current forms in the polar
basin, mainly during winter, when the water has a minimum tem-
perature of —1°. In summer the ice melts and the water warms up
slowly. This warming makes itself felt only at the surface. The
cold temperature of winter is maintained in the great depths; it is
this remnant of the polar winter that is found between 20 and 150
meters under the ice.
The region of the maximum intermediate temperature is more
remarkable. The waters where it occurs have a relatively high
salinity (84.90 parts to 1,000). By this they show an evident rela-
tionship with those of the Atlantic current. In fact, these are the
last traces of the Gulf Stream, which, when it encounters the polar
current, becomes by reason of the density of its waters, intercalated
between these and the waters of the great depths. We find then
here the waters of the returning Gulf Stream. Whether or not they
have made a complete or a partial tour of the polar basin, they were
turned aside toward the west at the latitude of Spitzbergen, as shown
in figure 6.
We have stated that the Gulf Stream is held against the conti-
nental platform of Spitzbergen by the rotation of the earth. The
polar current, some 800 meters in depth, is likewise held against that
of Greenland; according to the observations of the Belgica its outer
limit corresponds to the isobar of 1,500 meters, that is to say, it is
very broad and quiet in the north, while it contracts and gets much
swifter at the south.
These Atlantic and polar waters overlie the waters of the great
depths, the mass of which fills all the basins and by far surpasses in
volume the superficial waters. The deep-seated waters have a tem-
perature of —1° to —1.4°, and a salinity between 34 and 35 parts per
OCEANOGRAPHY OF SEA OF GREENLAND—DAMAS, 879
1,000. ‘They are then at the same time very cold and relatively salt.
It should be noted also that their density is 1.02811. These waters
can not then be polar waters, properly called.
According to Nansen and Helland-Hansen, they owe their origin
to the progressive cooling of the intermediary bed (of Atlantic
origin, therefore salt). In winter, in the central part of the Green-
land Sea and during the formation of the bay ice, the water becomes
cooled at the surface to the freezing point (—1° to —1.8°). At this
point it becomes more and more dense, sinks into the depths and
becomes the bottom water (“Veau de fond”). At the time of the
melting of the ice in summer the surface waters are slowly warmed
up and there is formed at
the same time a superficial
layer of water only slightly
salt, which impedes the
penetration of heat into the
depths. In the center of
the Sea of Greenland there
is found, even in summer, a
great uniformity in the dis-
tribution of temperatures.
This is made very clear in
figures 4 and 5. The for-
mation of the bottom water
in the central region of the
Greenland Sea is then in
close relation with that of
the bay ice. This could not
freeze in situ unless the
total body of the sea water cfg See Salinity
had a low temperature. elow aoa D es === above
The extension of the polar ere 34 ~ 35% 35%o
ice is likewise in relation Fic. 6.—Temperature and salinity of the Atlan-
with that of the polar cur- tie current off Spitzbergen.
rent, and it is evident that the topography of the depths exercises a
preponderating influence as much upon the ice as upon the body of
water which carries it.
The polar current which turns toward the south along the western
border of the Sea of Greenland, and the Gulf Stream, which flows
toward the north along its eastern margin, cause the formation of
a cyclonic system peculiar to this basin, the center of which lies in
the region of the bay ice above the great depths. This movement.
cyclonic in the periphery, brings about an ascension of the water of
the depths in the central regions, and the formation of the bay
380
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ice in winter is thus accounted for. It is on this account that the
Sea of Greenland appears to us as a special oceanographic basin.
The Sea of Greenland communicates freely with that of Norway
on the south. Their hydrographic régime is also identical. Com-
parison of the results of the Belgica with those supplied by the
expedition of the /vam bring out, on the other hand, some valuable
suggestions as to the relations existing between this sea and the
polar basin. These are illustrated by the following table, where are
summed up briefly the hydrographic conditions in three different
localities: (1) In the polar sea, according to Nansen; (2) in the
polar current to the east of Greenland, according to the Belgica;
(3) in the center of the Greenland Sea, according to the observations
of Amundsen, as published by Nansen,
Temperature. ..
Salinity... .5---
Temperature...
Temperature...
Salinity........
Temperature...
Temperature...
Salinity. ..--
Densitive -eecas:
SEA OF GREENLAND.
Polar sea, according to
Nansen: Fram.
Polar current, according to
Helland-Hansen and Koe-
foed: Belgica.
Central region, according
to Nansen from observa-
tions of Amundsen: Gjoa.
1. Superficial polar beds (0
to 20 or 30 meters).
Compact; hummocks......-
BelowsOresssie eee heres aes
21 to 32 parts in 1,000........
2. Cold polar beds (from 20
to 100 meters).
.| Minimum, down to —1.9°...
Less than 34 parts in 1,000...
3. Chilled Atlantic beds...-.
a. Central nucleus down to
400 meters.
In the neighborhood of 35
parts in 1,000.
b. Transitional beds (down
to 800 meters).
IDOE Ore see ceases cee eee
4. Bottom water (from 800
meters to bottom).
From —0.8° to —0.9°........
About 35.1 parts in 1,000... -
102825 een see ca scenes eee
5. Water of depths warmed
by contact with bottom.
As may be seen, there is an
1. Superficial polar beds (0
to 20 or 30 meters).
Compact; hummocks.......
Belowi0ess. = semana aect tee
21 to 32 parts in 1,000......-.
2. Cold polar beds (from 20
to 150 meters).
Minimum, down to —1.8°...
Less than 34 parts in 1,000...
3. Chilled Atlantic beds.....
a. Central nucleus down to
400 meters.
Maximum, up to +1.2°.....
In the neighborhood of 35
parts in 1,000.
b. Transitional beds (down |
to 800 meters).
IAD OVEIO enn ec epneeccrere
4. Bottom water (from 800
meters to bottom).
romi0 eto. — lose eee nee
Less than 35 parts in 1,000...
UOZ8i eyes ee erste eee
5. Water of depths re-
warmed by contact with
bottom.
1. Superficial beds (0 to 20
or 30 meters).
Thin (bay ice).
Variable in summer.
34.90 parts in 1,000, about.
2, Water of profound
depths. From the depths
to the surface in winter,
attaining a variable level
in summer.
—1° to —1.4°.
In the neighborhood of 34.9
parts in 1,000. Density
1.02811.
5. Water of depths re-
warmed by contact with
bottom.
absolute identity between the oceano-
graphic régime in the two principal regions down to a depth of 800
OCEANOGRAPHY OF SEA OF GREENLAND—DAMAS. 381
meters. On the other hand, there is an absolute difference between
the central waters and those of the polar current in the Greenland
Sea. This fact is evidently explained by the circumstance that
down to 800 meters the superficial waters of the polar basin can flow
out freely. The deep-lying waters, as has been previously stated
by Nansen and as confirmed by the Belgica, are different. a fact
which can be explained only by the existence of a submarine relief
uniting Spitzbergen and Greenland. To the explanation invoked
by Nansen in favor of this hypothesis is added then the fact ascer-
tained by the Belgica of the identity of the superficial waters, and
one must suppose that this relief rises to within nearly 800 meters
of the surface.
It is to be noted that this conclusion rests upon the extreme ex-
actitude to which the hydrographic observations of the expedition
were carried. Modern oceanography has a second method for de-
termining the zones of influence of marine occurrence. It consists
of a study of the distribution of organisms which appear passively
under their influence. The knowledge of the plankton has become
in the last years the necessary complement of all oceanographic re-
search. This point of view was not neglected during the campaign
of 1905 of the Belgica. The naturalist of the party, M. E. Koefoed,
had employed the best instruments for pelagic fishing, and obtained
the first truly representative collection of the floating fauna of
the polar current. It had the more value since it comprised not
only the catches made horizontally by the aid of instruments of
large size dragged at various levels, but also an important number
of catches made by the aid of an excellent closing net invented by
Nansen. It tells us as a result very exactly the composition of
plankton in the Sea of Greenland and concerning the horizontal and
vertical range of the principal pelagic organisms.
But before utilizing the zoological facts thus obtained, for geo-
graphic study, it is important.to determine in what proportion
the divers species are influenced by marine currents. In this short
résumé we will limit ourselves to describing some of the conclusions
of general interest to which the study of the materials collected by
the Belgica has conducted us. It will appear with a sufficient
amount of evidence that the use of the plankton as an indication of
the marine currents should be made with extreme care. It is known
that various species of animals, belonging to very diverse groups
(crustaceans, worms, ctenophores, coelenterates), have been con-
sidered as characteristic of polar waters, and the conclusion is
reached that their appearance in the lower latitude is indicative of
the existence of waters coming from arctic regions. We are, never-
theless, able to state, thanks to the pelagic catches of the Belgica,
that the composition of the plankton in the Sea of Greenland was
382 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
extremely uniform, and that it presented the greatest analogies with
that of the Sea of Norway. A great number of species considered as
characteristic of arctic waters are found equally in the waters of
Atlantic origin which flow toward Spitzbergen. It is understood,
moreover, that the slight variations in the salinity and temperatures
which are observed in this latitude are not sufficient to produce any
essential modification in the composition of the floating fauna.
Now, if we compare the pelagic fauna of the polar basin, as far
as it is now known to us, with that of the Sea of Greenland, such
as the catches of the Belgica show us, and that of the Norwegian Sea
explored actively during these last years by the Norwegian steamer
Michael Sars, and finally with that of the Atlantic, there would
appear conspicuously a general law of the distribution of the pelagic
organisms. The superficial and intermediate fauna of the Sea of
Greenland offers the greatest resemblance to that of the average
depths of the Sea of Norway. A considerable number of species
of the ice regions are found in the Atlantic, but only at considerable
depth. Some are found even in the Tropics, showing thus the cos-
mopolitan character of the plankton, but here they exist only at
great depth. In other words, many of the organisms of the Sea
of Greenland are abundant beyond the arctic waters properly called.
Some are even universally distributed, but the level which they seek
is proportionally as much more remote from the surface as the lati-
tude is lower. Some forms are even known in the vicinity of both
poles and frequent the neighborhood of the surface, in the midst of
the ice of the Antarctic, as well as in the latitude of Greenland and
Spitzbergen. They can be traced for a greater or less distance in
the Temperate Zone to depths more or less profound, while they lose
themselves in the abysses of the Tropics.
At the same time that the organisms retreat progressively into
the basins of the ocean they leave the shores. It results that the
same form can frequent the littoral portions in the north and can,
as a consequence, serve to characterize the coast water, while it ex-
ists in the south only broader and becomes thus an excellent ind1-
cator of oceanic waters.
One sees, then, that the distribution of these pelagic organisms
can teach us nothing on the subject of the action of marine currents.
The existence in the depths of the basin of Skagerak of organisms
which are habitually known in arctic latitudes is not due, as some
(Cleve and Aurivillius) have stated, to the direct effect of transport
by polar currents. It is explained by an entirely different law. The
progressive retreat from the surface is occasioned by the more in-
tense action of solar rays.
This example suffices to show that profound biologic study of
species ought necessarily to precede its geographic utilization, a
OCEANOGRAPHY OF SEA OF GREENLAND—DAMAS, 383
conclusion to which all those have been led who have studied the
terrestrial zoological geography. The action of the currents of the
Sea of Greenland reveals itself only in the distribution of the three
following groups of pelagic organisms.
First. The species which do not breed in the Sea of Greenland, but
which are introduced by exotic currents. The most typical are the
Atlantic forms transported by the Gulf Stream, of which the influ-
ence can be well recognized in this way as far as the latitude of
Spitzbergen.
Second. The species which breed only upon the continental plat-
form, but which are transported far and wide and dispersed by the
currents. They indicate, consequently, the influence of waters which
have been at some time in contact with the coast. These forms
appear periodically, and the season of their swarming is often very
short. Therefore, one can, by their progressive extension, form an
exact idea of the rapidity of the movement of the waters. These
coast species (still called néritiques) are different in four parts of
the continental platform bordering the Sea of Greenland. There
results from it that these may serve as indicators to determine the
zone of influence of the coast waters which have touched Norway,
Spitzbergen, east coast of Greenland, or the island of Jan Mayen.
Third. Finally, however feeble may be the variations of tem-
perature and salinity of this sea, they do not fail to favor or retard
the development of diverse organisms. The waters of different
nature which we have recognized above, especially in the upper
beds, are then characterized by a special facies of the fauna and
floating flora. Thus the polar current carries water of a brown
color due to the active development of vegetable plankton, which
utilizes the vegetable substances coming from the streams of Siberia
and brought by the current which comes from the pole. In the
waters of positive temperature the copepods multiply actively and
impart to the fauna of the final branches of the Gulf Stream a
special character.
In a general way, then, the several currents are recognizable by
the life they carry, as well as by the chemical or physical character
of their waters.
a
tee
gh
FROM THE NIGER, BY LAKE CHAD, TO THE NILE.’
[With 3 plates. ]
By Boyp ALEXANDER,” Lieutenant, Rifle Brigade, F.R.G.S.
Before commencing the narrative of my expedition across Africa
T should like to make a few remarks on the object and composition
of the expedition.
The first work we wished to carry out was a systematic survey of
a portion of northern Nigeria. Secondly, to explore Lake Chad and
the rivers between the Niger and the Nile, with the idea of demon-
strating the wonderful system of waterways that connects the west
with the east, and I think this is fairly well shown when I tell you
that in the three years which the journey took to complete, the boats
were carried for only fourteen days. Together with these primary
objects, special attention was to be given to tribal distribution and
orthography of native names, and a careful study made of the distri-
bution of the fauna to prove its affinity between the West Coast and
the Nile.
The party consisted of my brother officer, Capt. G. B. Gosling,
Mr. P. A. Talbot, my brother Capt. Claud Alexander, and myself.
With me I took my Portuguese collector, José Lopes. We were fully
equipped with survey instruments.
Captain Gosling was active in obtaining zoological collections, Mr.
Talbot and my brother were responsible for the Nigerian survey, for
which they had special qualifications, while I acted as leader. For
the river work we took with us two steel boats, double keeled, 26 feet
long and 6 feet wide, drawing 14 feet for 24 tons, and made on the
Hodgett principle by Forrest Brothers, of Wyvenhoe. It took
24 men to carry each boat, which was in six sections. It would be
@ Addressed to the Society in the Chemical Lecture Theater, Victoria Uni-
versity of Manchester, on Tuesday, November 3, 1908. Reprinted by permission
from The Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, Manchester, Eng-
land. Vol. 24, part 4, 1908. <A large colored map, not here reproduced, accom-
panies the original paper, showing the route of the expedition.
> Lieutenant Alexander was killed April 2, 1910, by natives near Abeshr, in
Wahdi, French Kongo.
885
386 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
hard to exaggerate their importance. In many places they did the
work of bullock transport and carriers, which were impossible to
obtain; and it must be remembered that it was necessary at times to
support a large number of followers, sometimes 200 in number, who
had to be paid and fed. For this purpose a great amount of trade
goods were carried, besides provisions, survey instruments, and photo-
graphic apparatus. ;
The expedition left England on February 27, 1904, and arrived
at Lokoja on March 24. There it organized and went to Ibi, our
first base for the survey work which was to triangulate through the
country north to Bauchi and connect that place with our subsequent
work in Bornu. The survey party traveled by way of the Murchison
Range and passed through the country of the Montoils and Yergums,
pagan cannibals who inhabit the hills. The early state of their civil-
ization is shown by the fact that they have not yet evolved as far
as the village stage; each hamlet is against each other, each village
-against the next, and each tribe against its neighbor; the stronger
prey upon the weaker, with the result that the former inhabitants
have been driven right up to the peaks of the range, where they now
lead a precarious existence. They are very hostile to one another,
and are continually raiding their supplanters below to get captives.
Tt was astonishing to see how these pagans had irrigated and culti-
vated their fields, and taken advantage of every available patch of
soil on the hillsides. At this point progress was checked by both
members of the survey falling ill, which necessitated their traveling
to Wase, where there is a post. Here I might mention the Wase
rock, an immense mass of igneous rock rising sheer out of the plain.
Tt is about 600 feet high, and was probably the tube of a volcano, of
which all the rest have been denuded away.
Having recovered their health, the party proceeded into the Angoss
country past Mount Madong. The country was hilly, with numbers
of isolated rocks like that of Wase. In these parts they came across
an extraordinary amount of mica; the path followed shown with it
like silver, and on either hand there were great sheets of it. Beyond
the Madong Mountains to the northwest lay a magnificent range with
peaks 5,000 feet high. This has been named the Claud Mountains
in memory of my brother.
From Bauchi the work of triangulation was carried into the
unexplored and interesting country of the Kerri-Kerris. It is only
necessary to describe the towns of Gamari and Lewe, as they will
be found typical of all the rest. Amid an alluvial plain rises a huge
circular mass of chalk with precipitous cliffs stretching sheer up on
every side. At the top, 300 to 500 feet above the plain, the mass forms
an absolutely level plateau, crowded with villages. In the midst of
the plateau again rises a very steep peak of ironstone or laterite,
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Alexander. PLATE 1.
BOAT ON RIVER BENUE.
KERRI KERRI COUNTRY.
THE NIGER TO THE NILE—ALEXANDER. 387
which for about 50 feet mounts by huge steps or terraces straight as
the walls of a house. In the first terrace a series of deep narrow
wells have been dug; these completely encircle the peaks at a distance
of 10 yards or so from one another. From the top of the peak a most
wonderful sight presents itself. One looks down on to the plateau
and sees clusters of hamlets, each surrounded by a little wall of mat-
ting. Among them, and particularly along the edge of the cliff, are
curious mud granaries. They are raised above the ground like hay-
ricks or cornstacks in England, and their height varies from 20 to
30 feet.
The Kerri-Kerri are a tall, slim race, and have little negro strain
in them. They wear fine clothes made from native cloth, are very
good metal workers, and their sword blades, of peculiar shapes, are
finely engraved. From their own account they have lived on these
strange strongholds from time immemorial, and no tradition of an
older race, dispossessed by them, has been handed down. Their crops
are cultivated on the plains below, but a six months’ supply of food
is always kept in the granaries already described.
From the Kerri-Kerri country the survey party eventually reached
Ashaka, the new base, where the boats and supplies had been brought
by way of the Gongola River with considerable difficulties owing to
famine and the strong currents of the river.
From Ashaka the survey party entered the Barburr country, and
the work there was particularly arduous. At Dallwa it necessitated
standing at times waist deep in swamp, and my brother, only recently
recovered from fever, collapsed, and in the grip of the illness for the
last time he was carried into Maifoni, where, in spite of the untiring
efforts of Doctor Parsons and Talbot, who, as physician and nurse,
showed a splendid devotion, he died on November 13, after a fight of
six weeks, conscious and cheerful to the end.
The result of the survey, which we afterwards carried up to
Kukawa, has been embodied in the map already published, and this
work was not accomplished without much hardship, for there was
illness to be overcome, and the hostility of natives met, and large num-
bers of carriers led and fed through famine-stricken countries.
By Christmas the expedition concentrated at Kaddai, on Lake
Chad, whither, in the meantime, Gosling had brought the boats and
stores by way of the Yo River.
From here Talbot and I carried out our first survey of the lake.
With the exception of a few island stretches of reed with no firm
ground, there is good open water between the Yo mouth and Kaddai.
The shore is quite open, with rough grass frequented by kob, gazelle,
and large herds of hartebeest. It has an average width of 14 miles,
and beyond that there are thick woods of mimosa. There are gentle
bay formations all along the shore, and the slope of the land to the
888 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
water is so gradual that there are no banks, and except in one or two
places the lake can be reached without difficulty, for there is scarcely
any marsh, and the land is firm with a sandy soil. We made our first
voyage with the object of gaining the Shari mouth, but we found it
was impossible to go south; a great barrier of dense marsh lay to
our right. Hoping to find an outlet, we followed this belt as close as
possible, but were eventually compelled to take a northeasterly course,
the marsh giving way to continual low-lying land in the form of bays,
in many places unapproachable owing to thick mud. Our prospects
the first day were anything but bright, and the impossibility of get-
ting into touch with the Buduma did not improve matters. Toward
sundown we sighted a large fleet of canoes engaged in fishing opera-
tions. They had not observed us, and under cover of the growing
darkness we stole silently along under the lee of a promontory, and
came within 500 yards of them. Then a great commotion followed.
The canoes were drawn up out of the water, and boats and men dis-
- appeared into the reeds. The next day the water to our left became
studded with innumerable small sandy islands, overgrown with tall
grass, and many strewn with shells. On account of mosquitoes star
work was impossible, and consequently latitudes had to be taken dur-
ing the day.
For several days we toiled along with hardly any progress, the
boat often scraping along the thick mud. Our hopes were more than
once raised by the sight of what we took to be Buduma settlements on
the land to our right, but on approaching these they turned out to be
deserted cattle stations, which consisted of reed-built huts very small
in circumference, not more than 4 feet high, and the sides toward the
prevailing wind always plastered with mud.
By now we found that our provisions had run out, and we were
obliged to shoot gulls for food. By the following evening, however,
our cartridges were almost finished, and we were forced to make
for rats, which abound on the islands, digging them out of their
holes and making humble pie of them, and this is how we lived for
another six days, ever hoping to find a passage to the east; but,
realizing at last the necessity of bringing our trip to a close, we
changed our course to west, and after a tedious winding through a
network of islands we emerged into open water. This continued
for a distance of 15 miles till the Yo mouth was reached, where we
encamped on a small island, the site of a Buduma fishing station,
which presented a picturesque sight. There was a fleet of some
twenty canoes, many full of dried fish, while hanging from frame-
works of poles was fish in the process of drying. Their canoes,
made of thick bundles of dry reeds tied together and turned up at
the prow, are most picturesque. They are generally 18 feet long
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Alexander. PLATE 2.
KERRI KERRI GRANARIES.
BUDUMA CANOE.
THE NIGER TO THE NILE—ALEXANDER. 389
and about 3 feet wide. Lighter canoes are also made, for traveling
over shallow water and for escapes from sudden attack.
On December 23 we arrived back at Kaddai and Talbot left for
England.
By the middle of February, 1905, Gosling, after elephant hunting
near the shore of the lake, left for Kusseri, our next objective, and
a week later we started with the two boats once more to try and find
a way across the lake to the Shari. We took the direction of the Yo
mouth, with the idea of following the influence of its water. We
passed an island on the way, where I counted a herd of sixty hippo-
potami that had been driven to the lake by the falling of the river.
Five miles beyond the Yo mouth we struck a northeasterly direction.
At a Buduma fishing island I induced two boys to come with me as
guides. For 16 miles we found good open water, and then our course
lay through a mass of small islands, through which we struggled on
for 10 miles, the men often wading and pushing up to their chests in
mud. The next morning I found that we were near the east shore of
the lake, for there were horsemen to be seen on the land about a
mile beyond the island.
My difficulties were increased by the Harmattan wind. It would
rise daily at 9 a. m., and by 12 o’clock the sun would be blotted out
by a dense, damp mist, through which we had to grope our way,
miserably cold. To show how strangely the water shifts with the
wind, one morning, in retracing our course of the evening before, we
found the water had gone, leaving numbers of fish of enormous size,
some 4 feet long, stranded. As I could find no passage southward,
and my men were worked out, I decided to retrace my way to Kaddai
and refit for another attempt.
On March 2 I took the same course as our first, again determining
to find a southwest passage, but the reeds still proved impassable.
On the outward journey we came upon a large Buduma fishing fleet.
At first they mistook us for other Budumas, whom they considered
an easy prey, for it is their habit to plunder one another when they
get the chance. Accordingly they closed up ready for attack. But
soon they realized their mistake, and the tables were turned. Before
we could get up to them, many of the boats burst into flames, and
the Budumas, swimming like otters, underneath the water, disap-
peared into the reeds. Hidden in the boats we found four slave boys,
who were the victims of a traffic carried on between the Budumas and
Tubus. They were in a shocking condition, and we took them back
and released them at Kaddai.
We then determined to try and cut through the reeds. We worked
steadily for two days, cutting a distance of about 800 yards, and
beyond that I waded a mile, but there was no end to the reeds and
“ maria ” bush,
390 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
I then relinquished this, my third attempt, and once more returned
to Kaddai. When within half a mile of the shore we found the
water had disappeared, and as it was late the men slept in the boats
and my bed was put up in 6 inches of water, and that night I slept
on the floor of the lake. In the morning the water rose earlier than
I did, and I had just time to get out of bed as the lake was getting in.
IT then abandoned Kaddai as a starting point and trekked with
the boats’ sections to Seyurum, a distance of 25 miles, which was the
next point to the south where there was open water. This took me
a month and a half owing to desertion and sickness.
From Seyurum I made my fourth and last attempt, which necessi-
tated three days’ cutting through great belts of reeds, papyrus, and
maria bush which extended as far as eye could reach. We were
obliged to spend the nights huddled up in the boats. Sleep was out
of the question owing to the hordes of mosquitoes. Many of the
men preferred to sit up to their necks in water all night.
In the course of the work we discovered a gigantic turtle, nearly
100 pounds in weight, with a shell of a pale lemon color. On getting
through the reeds, we found 5 feet of water. The aspect of the lake
was now quite different from that of the Yo basin. Instead of low
islands, there were big island stretches, which formed continual prom-
ontories ahead, overlapping one another on either side of our
course, with channels sometimes not more than 100 yards wide; at
other times forming deep bays as much as 2 miles in width, lined
with belts of dark-green maria 10 to 30 feet in height.
Up to this time the Budumas had held severely aloof, but now a:
Kachella, or chief, of a large fishing fleet we met saluted us, and
offered to show us the way to the other side. On the way he took
us to his island, Karraragga, where we rested for two days. This
island presented a very fertile appearance; the delicate green of young
mimosa leaf was a pleasant sight after the sand-swept stretches of
Bornu, and large herds of cattle roamed about at will. The Ka-
chella’s town consisted of reed huts, conical in shape. Each dwelling
had its low round mosquito-proof house covered with close-woven
matting.
The Buduma men are tall, with well-developed heads. Living as
they do on fish, their skins are very sleek and oily. The women are
small, and resemble the Kanembus.
On leaving the island I went to Wunnda on the east side of the
lake, thence followed the shore to the mouth of the Shari. About 12
miles before reaching the Shari mouth one leaves the great somber
maria belts behind and comes out into magnificent open water, and
Chad for the first time assumes the grandeur of a lake.
Before leaving Lake Chad I will attempt to give a general idea,
based upon the observations I was able to make. As regards the size,
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Alexander. PLATE 3.
BUDUMA, LAKE CHAD.
CUTTING THROUGH THE REEDS, LAKE CHAD.
THE NIGER TO THE NILE—ALEXANDER. 391
IT made it considerably less than it was formerly supposed to be.
There is an idea that the lake is drying up, but my opinion is that
it does not alter very much, and I believe that the supposed greater
original area is simply due to inaccurate survey and partly to the
fact that the villages on the Bornu side are several miles distant from
the lake, which has given the impression that these determined a
former shore line. But I think that the sole reason for their position
is one of security, for, as there are no containing banks, and the land
and water being almost level, the Harmattan, which causes the water
to flow 600 yards over the land with an ordinary wind, drives it as
far as 2 miles when the wind is strong. Besides, I was told by the
King of Kowa, a town situate 11 miles from the lake, that in a great
flood twenty years ago the water had reached as far as the town,
and in another seven years ago it had risen past it and covered the
plain as far as a place called Mongonu. While the floods lasted the
Budumas went up in their boats and established a fish market just
outside Kowa. Now, on the eastern shore, where there are good
banks, and the water is not influenced by the prevailing wind, there
are many villages close to the lake.
Another fact that has perhaps created the impression that the lake
is decreasing is that chains of islands that once were separate are now
more or less joined together by marsh. But I think that this may
very likely be due to the silting up of mud and sand against the
obstruction of the islands by the opposing influences of the Yo and
Shari, the two rivers that feed the lake. In fact, my observations go
to show that the lake is practically two lakes, divided by the 15 miles
or so of marsh and maria bush that I attempted to cut through, and
these form the separate basins of the two rivers. Moreover, a Bu-
duma chief told me that there was no communication between the
two parts, and I found that the people on the different sides knew
little of each other. This impression is further borne out by the
very marked difference in the character of the scenery and the people.
On the north the shores are flat and bare, and the surface of the
water, which is nowhere more than 4 feet deep, is broken up by small
uninhabited islands that are little more than sand flats. The people
are neither numerous nor flourishing, and lead a lawless existence.
But in the south or Shari basin everything has a more flourishing
appearance. The depth of the water is from 5 to 9 feet, and the
islands, which form prominent features, are fertile and thickly in-
habited. Everywhere the maria tree grows luxuriantly, and its close
dark foliage gives a somber character to the scenery. This is the real
home of the Buduma, who are a prosperous, enlightened people, gain-
ing their wealth by fish and potash, and counting it in numbers of
wives, slaves, and herds of cattle.
45745°—sm 1909——26
392 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Previous to my work on Lake Chad I had the fortune to witness
a Tubu raid upon the Mecca caravan. At that time the Yo districts
were in a most unsettled state; natives went about fully armed, and
only traveled by night, for fear of the Tubus, who were on the war-
path. These people are the nomad robbers of the Sahara. Armed
with long spears, and mounted on small ponies and camels, they cover |
long distances, concentrating suddenly when a raid is contemplated,
afterwards to scatter and as quickly disappear. Many of the lawless
Mobbur are their worthy allies, acting as spies, and sharing a portion
of the spoils. While the last great Mecca caravan was traveling
through this country, escorted by the Kachella of Yo, it was heavily
ambushed near Bulturi. The Mobburs opened the attack by flights
of poisoned arrows, while the Tubu horsemen charged on the flanks,
cutting off numbers of the flocks of the caravan, which spread over
2 miles of road, and numbered seven hundred people and nearly a
thousand cattle. With the lossof twelve men and thirty horses killed,
the Kachella, who had eight spear wounds, with his hundred horse-
men kept the enemy at bay, and, under the protection of darkness,
brought the harassed caravan into Bulturi, where for five days the
Tubus hemmed it in. On the fourth day the Kachella managed to
get a runner through to me. Accordingly, with all the arrowmen
and horsemen I could muster at Yo, I reached Bulturi in time to
relieve him. At daybreak we moved out of the town. It was a
picturesque sight. Whole families were there, driving their flocks
and carrying with them all their worldly belongings, and their chil-
dren, perched on the backs of bullocks and camels. Among this pil-
erimage there traveled pale-faced Fulanis, Hausas from Sokoto,
handsome dark-skinned people from Melle and Timbuktu, and many
Mallams or priests, turbaned and clothed in white, walked calm and
heedless of the danger, incessantly telling their beads. When close
to Yo the Tubus were dispersed, for their leader had been killed, and
the Kachella’s warriors concentrated and advanced past me in a long
line toward the town, and then the women and children crowded
round the king, asking for news. All night long the hours were
broken by the wail of women calling upon their dead men to return.
To go back to the expedition. Ascending the Shari, with fine
steep banks and an average width of 500 yards, we traveled through
the land of the Kotokos, the giants of the Sudan; and at Gulfei, the
big Kotoko chief, some 6 feet 3 inches in height, received us with all
his infantry and horsemen.
After leaving Fort Lamy the river has a winding course, eh an
average width of 800 yards, now and again widening out to a mile.
In places the scenery reminds one forcibly of our English woodlands.
Throughout its entire course the river flows through a very flat coun-
try, much of which is under water during the heavy rains.
THE NIGER TO THE NILE—ALEXANDER. 393
Beyond Miltu the flat expanse is for the first time broken by an
isolated group of wooded ironstone hills, known as the Togbau, about
300 feet in height, abutting on the left bank of the river. From the
top, a vast view of a barren country presents itself, and my mind was
at once carried back to a similar occasion, when I viewed the land-
scape from the top of the Keffi hills in Nigeria, and I could not help
being forcibly struck by the contrast of the two scenes. There, as
far as the eye could reach, stretched wide fields of yellowing corn,
whose surface was often broken by clusters of hamlets where dwelt
the happy harvesters, while here on all sides to the distance lay a
barren stretch of bush and sand.
From Fort Lamy onward the Shari region is thinly populated.
Between Busso and Fort Archambault there are no villages, and the
magnificent river flows through a silent land untouched by traffic of
any kind, and one can travel for days without meeting a single native
canoe. Regarding the natives, those on the right bank belong to the
kingdom of the Bagirmi people, who have carried on for years a sys-
tematic slave raiding against the Sara tribes, or Kurdi, as they are
known to the Bagirm:; inhabiting chiefly the country away on the
left bank, where they live in small communities, scattering their huts
among their crops as a protection against surprise. They are timid
people, but good and industrious farmers, growing chiefly millet and
ground nuts; and, what is rare, both men and women work. ‘They
may be observed in the fields together, sowing their crops. After the
ground has been cleared the man walks along making a dab in the
soil at intervals with his native hoe, and the woman follows with the
seed, which she places in the hole and covers up with her foot.
Closely allied to these people, both in appearance and customs, are
the Kabba-sara, who inhabit the vicinity of the river above Fort
Archambault. Beyond the right bank to the east the women of the
Kabba-sara insert enormous wooden disks 4 inches in diameter in
holes bored in the upper and lower lips, and the face is disfigured to
such an extent that it no longer looks human, and the power of
speech is reduced to a mumbling. This hideous custom is said to
have originated in the mutilations which the women inflicted on
themselves to prevent being seized by the sultans of Bagirmi for their
harems in the days of slavery. The raids of these Bagirmi sultans,
followed by the devastations of Rabeh, have crippled and depopu-
lated to a disastrous extent the whole of the Shari region. This great
leader had no less than 60,000 men in the field, who devastated and
fed on the land like locusts. Each division of this large army had
its foraging ground apportioned to it each day by the leader.
During our journey up the Shari the amount of game we met with
was truly wonderful. On different occasions Gosling obtained ele-
phant, giraffe, buffalo, rhino, hartebeest, bushbuck, duiker, water
394 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
buck, roan antelope, kob, ostrich, pig, and wild dog. This was ac-
counted for by the fact that the dry season causes all this game to
concentrate near the banks of the river.
At Archambault we found it necessary to collect a large supply of
grain, for hardly a village lay in front of us, and our next object
was the exploration of the Bamingi River, which flows through a
deserted country. On August 6 we camped on a sand bank at the
junction of the Bamingi and Gribingi rivers. The former is the
larger, having a width of some 50 yards at its mouth. This river
was still unknown to the explorer, unless we consider the record of a
French trader, named Behagle, who attempted to ascend it, but at
the rapids, about 4 miles from the mouth, had his boat badly smashed
and was compelled to return. He was afterwards hanged by Rabeh
at Dikoa. With the exception of these rapids, caused by a reef of
rocks across the river, we found the Mamingi excellent for naviga-
tion. In August it was at its full, with a depth of 6 to 9 feet and a
strong current which made our progress slow.
The river Bamingi has pretty scenery; sometimes the banks rise
to a height of 60 feet formed by rocky knolls, and at these points the
growth becomes tropical. For 130 miles, ie distance we traveled
up this river, we found the country uninhabited, and the impressive
solitude was only disturbed by the herds of elephant, which at times
frequented the gravelly sand banks, and troops of baboons that fol-
lowed us along the banks, gazing in excited wonder at our boats.
We next ascended the small rivers Gribingi and Nunna, and crossed
the Shari-Ubanghi watershed, carrying the boats for four days.
Then we descended the Tomi River through a well-watered and
undulating region. Here the character of the vegetation changes.
Thick belts of forest full of rubber vine hide the streams, and the
fauna for the first time belongs to the forest region.
In this part of the country the natives have a barbarously cruel
method of hunting elephants. When a herd is located in the dry
grass, all the villages turn out with guns and spears and fire the
grass all round the herd. The poor beasts make frantic attempts to
break through the ring of fire, and are to be seen rushing madly to
and fro in their agony, rooting up trees and throwing grass and
earth over their scorched backs.
A journey of four days down the Tomi River brought us into the
Ubanghi, or “ drinker up of little rivers,” a great stream some 1,200
yards in width, swelling to a mile at the bends. Its banks are fringed
with trees, with undulating grass beyond. On either side chains of
gentle rounded hills, about 150 feet in height, and devoid of trees,
save in the hollows and ravines, loop sometimes close to the river line
and sometimes wind away to a distance of a day’s journey. Above
the junction of the river Kwango, there are large wooded islands,
THE NIGER TO THE NILE—ALEXANDER. 395
some 3 miles long, inhabited by elephant, pig, and the small Congo
buffalo. As one journeys on the aspect of the river changes and its
course winds past wooded headlands that form a succession of bays.
At Mobbai the river appears to be a dividing line between a sterile
and fertHde land. On the right bank treeless hills, on the left
extensive tropical forests, wind along the valleys. From the Tomi
to Yakoma there are only two serious rapids, those at Mobbai, and
the more formidable Setema rapids.
As regards the inhabitants, space does not permit me to mention
more than the Banziris and the Yakomas. They are fine races,
especially the Yakomas, whose men are veritable giants, and the
finest specimens I have seen anywhere in Africa. All along the
river there are thickly populated villages, some over a mile in length,
and the appearance of the people strikes one as being extremely
healthy and prosperous. The young girls of the Yakoma race deftly
weave long plaited cords of black twine into their hair, which, fall-
ing over their shoulders to the ground, give the appearance of their
possessing luxuriant tresses. The ends are wound on a stick like
a big ball of twine that weighs 10 pounds, and is carried under the
arm and on the head when at work.
On January 1 we arrived at Yakoma, a large Belgian post at the
mouth of the Welle, and the next day we left to ascend the river,
whose course has a width of from 800 to 1,000 yards, studded with
rocks, and flowing through an ironstone country, where the natives
work mines to a depth of 90 feet. A few days later, in a thick mist,
we set out to pass the Voro rapids, about three days below Djabbir,
the strongest and most dangerous on the Welle, stretching a distance
of 3 miles and sometimes a mile wide, cut up by a maze of small
rocky islands covered with palm trees and tropical growth, between
which the water rushes and tumbles headlong, the foam flying many
feet into the air. With great efforts the boats mounted and were
driven beyond the rapids.
The violent uses the boats had now been put to had caused splits
to appear, and I was at a loss to find a wherewithal to mend them,
till I luckily remembered having seen a native woman mending her
pots with the wax of wild honey, and it struck me at the time as so
interesting that I made a note of it. And now I tried it with un-
expected success. Wooden wedges were driven into the cracks and
then sealed over with the melted wax. The restoration was com-
plete, and Samson’s proverb reversed, for out of sweetness came forth
strength.
Except for good water between the Angba hill and Niangara, the
entire course of the Welle is cut up by rapids and hidden rocks.
The river folk are the Bakango, a numerous people, whose conditions
396 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
have greatly improved since the Belgian occupation, for its protec-
tion shields them from the raids of the fiercer forest tribes.
It was at Angu that we first heard rumors of the existence of the
okapi in the neighborhood, and in the forest, some three days to the
southeast of that place, we spent three weeks endeavoring to obtain
one. The okapi, or n’dumba as it is very widely known by the
natives, is very locally found, and Angu is the only part near the
Welle where it is met with. We found its haunts were small streams
running through swampy ground, thickly overgrown with a clean-
stemmed plant some 6 to 8 feet in height, with large oval shiny
leaves bunching at the top, the young shoots of which are an essen-
tial food of the okapi. In these localities it roams about singly or in
pairs, and, according to the Mobatti hunters, three may occasionally
be found together. Gosling, although he got to close quarters with
it on three occasions, never saw it, so perfectly concealed was it
among these leaves. He says: “ During the night the okapi will
~wander along in the mud and water in search of the young shoots of
this plant. Here he may be found feeding as late as 8 a. m., after
which he retires to the seclusion of the forest, where he remains until
dusk. In the glades and clearings I found his spoor on ground
frequented by buffalo and water buck, but this is unusual, for his
companions in the forest are more often the elephant, the greater
bush buck, and the yellow-backed duiker.” At this time José had
been following a solitary animal for three successive mornings in
the vicinity of a stream. He observed that, on leaving the water,
the okapi always took the same course, between two large trees about
a hundred yards from the stream. So, with the help of natives, he
dug a pit 44 feet deep between the trees, and then carefully eon-
cealed it with branches and leaves. Very early next morning José
again approached the stream and heard the noise of the okapi rush-
ing away. Soon there followed a loud thud, for the animal, taking
its usual course, had fallen into the pit, and was secured. Owing
to the thick leaf and forest, its restless nature, and keen hearing, even
the natives find it difficult to track, and are obliged to resort to the
method of trapping it in pits. They regard the animal as a mys-
terious creature, and say that it is always moving and never lies
down to sleep. José’s observations bear this out, for on several occa-
sions when he heard it feeding it simply paused to take a leaf here
and there and then passed on again.
This portion of the journey was the most trying to the health of
the party, the long stays in the hot, steaming forest hunting the
okapi, and the work on the Welle, which has an evil reputation for
being the breeding ground of bilious and blackwater fever, told
severely upon our already weakened constitutions, and we were all
THE NIGER TO THE NILE—ALEXANDER. 397
attacked by fever. It was at Niangara that the expedition received
its last great blow. Gosling was struck down with blackwater, whose
deadly attack he laid himself at the mercy of by his refusal, almost
to the last, to abandon his labors.
Leaving Niangara with a heavy heart I next ascended the Kibali,
which has never before been navigated. On the south bank there
is a semicircle of igneous hills, about 500 feet high. In this range
there are seams of magnetic ore, and I observed there were many trees
on the watershed that had been struck by hghtning. The Momvu,
who inhabit the hills, told me that when there were blacksmith’s
villages on their tops many people every year were killed by lght-
ning. At the foot of this range a hut, during a terrific storm, was
set on fire, and two of my men were knocked down and stunned; and
a few days later a heavy thunderstorm broke from the southeast,
with hailstones ds big as beans.
Along this river there are many formidable rapids. Among these
the Andimanza, which stretch for a distance of 2 miles, present a scene
of wild grandeur. The river here swells out to a width of 400 yards,
and is broken up by small rock-bound islands which cause tremendous
chutes.
The banks of the Kibali are sparsely populated. In the hills south
of the river are the Momvu and Mombuttu tribes, still unconquered.
They build their frail huts of mud on the great slabs of rock, fre-
quently using the caverns themselves as dwelling places and shelters
in time of war, and wherever there is enough earth they grow their
maize among the rocks. In these hills I was fortunate enough to
obtain from the natives two ancient stone implements. The tribes
are ignorant of their origin and believe they are bolts of lightning
which strike trees and kill men. The Azandi call them “ mangu
n’gamba,” or “ axes of the lightning.” They say that these axes may
often be discovered by turning up the soil immediately a tree has
been struck by lightning; a little later it would be no good, because
the stone would have gone back to the clouds in order to strike again.
Many natives attribute a mysterious power to them, believing their
discovery announces a friend’s approaching death.
We next ascended the Ira or Bakwa, which up to now has been
considered the main stream of the Kibali, but this is not correct.
The N’soro is the true main stream. The Ira is navigable for 12
miles, after which there are many bad rapids.
The whole way we came upon numbers of elephants, which, so
unaccustomed to man, allowed us to approach quite close, and it was
a pretty sight to see them playing on the banks and bathing in the
water.
From here I penetrated by road into the country of the hostile
Mombuttu south of the Ira. Here the scenery is grand. A mass of
398 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
mountainous hills rolls away, range on range in glorious confusion,
their steep sides darkened with trees, save where they are ‘scarred by
clefts and sharp angles of bare rock. And below in the deep valleys
the courses of innumerable streams are revealed by their coiling cov-
erings of tropical green. From here, where I climbed to a height of
4,000 feet, far away to the eastward on the horizon, I saw for the
first time the gray blue of the hills of the Nile.
Finding it impossible to reach the Nile by the river system to the
east, owing to impassable rapids and hostile natives, I trekked with
the boat te Yei, eight days distant. The rise along this road was so
gradual that we were greatly surprised when near Aba suddenly to
behold the huge panorama of the Kongo-Nile watershed. Behind
us to the south lay the dark green vastness of the Kongo forests, whose
monotony was here and there relieved by winding partings in its
surface that told the courses of the rivers. On either side and to the
north stretched endless plain, with an occasional lonely hill, and far
‘away to the east the sharp peaks of a sierra chain.
On October 13 I arrived at Yei and started to descend the river.
At this point it is little more than a rocky mountain stream, 25 yards
wide, and some 50 miles from its source in Mount Watti. For the
first 20 miles we passed a succession of rapids in terrace formation,
rendered more difficult by the obstruction of small green islands. It
was laborious progress, sometimes only a mile a day was made, and
the boat had to be got past the rapids by the men hanging onto the
chain in the water from the stern. Sometimes trees, fallen right
across the stream, had to be cut through. At other times, where a
passage allowed, we took the risk and shot the rapids. The boat was
now in such a battered condition that frequently after the passing
of a rapid it had to be drawn out of the water, a fire lit, and the
wax melted, and the wedges renewed. After this difficult 20 miles,
the river decidedly improved, and a navigable reach of 15 miles
brought us to the Azandi village of Kapi. It was at this place I saw
the interesting ceremony of the signing of a treaty between the chief
and an ancient foe. They met, each surrounded by his followers,
and their headman made incisions in the chiefs’ arms, and with a
feather mingled the blood of one with the other.
From Kapi for 23 miles the river is good, with the exception of
two rapids, the second of which was one of the worst, and certainly
the most disastrous, we had to encounter. Owing to the tremendous
current the men on the chain behind for a moment relaxed, and the
boat was driven with terrific force against an overhanging tree.
The shock swept off two of the polers, who disappeared into the
torrent never to be seen again.
In the open reaches we came across numbers of hippos, and their
closely cropped feeding grounds by the riverside afforded us excellent
THE NIGER TO THE NILE—ALEXANDER. 399
sites for our camps. They were not always successful in getting out
of our way in time. On one occasion, as the boat was coming down
at a rapid pace into a pool, we were all thrown together by a tre-
mendous bump, and for a moment all thought we had struck upon a
rock. But the rock snorted and plunged out of our way.
For the next 6 miles, up to the station of Wandi, the river is quite
unnavigable. In places the boat had to be unloaded and dragged over
the rocks, so as to avoid the chutes, which were gigantic. The river
in appearance ceases to exist, and the water pours itself as best it
may over the slabs of rock with which the whole length and breadth
are strewn. In this distance there are at least six big rapids. At
one we had a very narrow escape of being smashed up. We had been
going in smooth water for a time and the men were all in the boat
poling when suddenly the current became strong and the boat was
carried helplessly along, each second nearing the steep. The poles
were quite useless to check the increasing impetus of the boat. In
spite of the heroic efforts of the men the boat swung round, and the
next instant crashed heavily against a large dead limb of a tree, where
it stuck. But for this there would have been nothing to hope for.
The tsetse fly, the species that carries the germ of sleeping sickness,
was very much in evidence about Wandi, and I saw two cases of the
disease. Further on it became still worse, and close to Amadi I
came across two villages that were wiped out by it and the chief of
another was brought to me in a dying condition. The same scourge
carried off one of my boys, who died just before we reached the Nile.
For 100 miles after leaving Wandi there are nothing but rapids the
whole way, and the one 6 miles from that place is the biggest we had
yet seen and presented a splendid spectacle. Here the river is 300
yards across, and a great volume of water sweeps foaming over steep
rocks, past islands covered with beautiful palm trees, which are the
resort of dog-faced baboons. In the neighborhood of Raffai appear
small hills of not more than 400 feet. These are inhabited by the
Miza people, a tribe that struck me as rather original. The men,
who are smooth-skinned and gentle, adorn themselves with bead orna-
ments and girdles of beautiful design, while the women affect a mascu-
line severity of costume, fruit stones taking the place of beads. At
Avurra the Yei becomes a splendid river, with an average width of
60 yards, and the country throughout is well populated.
It was now December, and the river was rapidly emptying itself;
in places there was hardly enough depth to clear the keel of the boat,
and it became a race between us and the water. To hasten our
pace we threw away all our belongings with a light heart, for our
spirits were high, as we had said good-bye to the rocks. For about 90
miles, to near its mouth, the Yei flows through a flat fertile country,
where large herds of cattle and sheep roam at will. Often along the
400 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
sloping banks one sees the brilliant green of young tobacco planta-
tions. This is the land of the Dinkas, who, on our first appearance,
ran away, but later, gaining confidence, flocked down to the river and
lined the banks in hundreds. All naked and with their bodies
painted a ghastly white, they shouted and danced and threw their long
spears into the air. So we made 60 miles, then trees, flocks, and
men gradually disappeared, and the river wound alone through a
vast empty plain. It widened and slackened, and the impression
came over me that it was nearing its journey’s end. Eagerly we
craned our necks for a sight of the Nile, but this reward was still
withheld; nothing but marshland as far as the horizon met our gaze.
We followed the river till it lost itself in a lake surrounded by dense
reed and sudd. We crossed the lake with irresistible recollections of
Chad, and then found ourselves stopped by the barrier of marsh and
sudd which choked our passage to the Nile. I then trekked 38 miles
with the boat sections to Gaba Shambi, on the Nile. Thus we had
reached the goal that we had set ourselves, and here our journey was
bronght to an end, which, in distance, had extended over some 5,000
miles, and in time occupied just three years.
MESOPOTAMIA: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.*
[With 4 plates and 1 map.]
3y Sir WILLIAM WILLcocKs, K. C. M. G.
“ Out of Eden camea river which watered a garden, and from thence
it was parted and became four heads.” Plans and levels in hand,
starting from the spot where Jewish tradition placed “the gates of
Paradise,” I have followed the traces of the four rivers of the early
chapters of Genesis. Appointed by the new Turkish Government to
engage engineers and survey and level the rivers and canals of the
Tigris-Euphrates delta, and devise projects for the rehabilitation
of the country, I first set myself the task of mastering the ancient
systems of irrigation, improving on them when I could, and adopting
them when I could find no better substitute. I started with the
Garden of Eden.
The Euphrates enters its delta a few miles below Hit, at the gates
of Babylonia, where Cyrus the Younger’s army, accompanied by the
ten thousand, left the deserts and entered the alluvial plains which
terminate at the Persian Gulf. What the gates of Babylonia were
to one descending the Euphrates, the gates of Paradise were to the
early livers in the Babylonian plains.
Upstream of Hit, past Anah, the river is to-day a series of very
indifferent cataracts, where the current turns giant water wheels
which lift water and irrigate the narrow valley to the edge of the
desert. Garden succeeds garden, orchards and date groves he be-
tween fields of cotton, and life and prosperity are before us wherever
the water can reach. I do not think it possible to imagine anything
more like a practical paradise than the country near Anah. Every
tree and crop must have been familiar to Adam except the cotton
crop. Though to-day, owing to the degradation of the cataracts,
a degradation whose steady progress was noticed by the writers of
the Augustan age, water wheels are necessary to irrigate the gardens;
it is easy, indeed, to imagine the condition of the river when the
“Read at the Royal Geographical Society, November 15, 1909. Reprinted by
permission from The Geographical Journal, London, vol. 35, No. 1, January,
1910.
401
402 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
cataracts were such as we see on the Nile, and water could be led
off from above a rapid and utilized for irrigating, with free flow,
gardens situated a little downstream and above the reach of the
highest floods. Such was the Garden of Eden, and its site must
have been near an outcrop of hard rock like we see at Anah, where,
in coming down the river, we first meet the date palm, which even
to-day is a tree of life to the whole Arab world.
Below Hit no place can be found for a garden without lifting
apparatus and protective dikes, because otherwise any garden irri-
gated in the time of low supply would be inundated in flood, and if
irrigated in flood would be left high and dry in the time of low
supply.
Downstream of the garden the river was parted and became four
heads. The first was Pison, represented to-day by the many-armed
depressions of Habbania and Abu Dibis between Ramadi and Nejef,
which are not inaptly described, from the point of view of a dweller
in Babylonia, as encompassing the whole land of Havilah which lay
between the frontier of Egypt and Assyria.
The second river was Gihon, the modern Hindia, the Chebar of
Ezekiel, who lies buried on its banks, the Ahava of Ezra, the Palla-
copus of Alexander, and the Nahr Kufa of the early khalifs. It is
represented as encompassing the whole land of Kis or Kutha or Cush,
the father of Nimrod, the beginning of whose kingdom was Erech
and Akkad and Calneh and Babylon. The ancient town of Kutha
lay on the Nahr Kutha, which was in all probability the main stream
of the Euphrates in the earliest times, and on whose banks were
situated Kutha, Nil, Niffur, EKrech, and Tel Senkere, which date
from days long prior to Babylon, the capital of Khammurabi,
founded on the Babylonian branch when the other had silted up.
The third river was Hiddekel, the modern Sakhlawia branch, some
250 feet wide and 25 feet deep to-day, running like a mill race into
the wide Akkar Kuf depression, and flowing out of it into the Tigris
at Bagdad. If let alone, the Sakhlawia would be capable of carry-
ing more than half the waters of the Euphrates, and rendering the
country between the two rivers uncultivable. In ancient times it was
undoubtedly a second head to the Tigris, and from the point of view
of a dweller in Babylonia, it was accurately described as “that it is
that goeth in front of Assyria.”
And the fourth river was Euphrates. No definition was necessary.
It was the river of Babylon itself.
Just as the Babylonian colonists carried the name Tigris with
them to Nineveh, so doubtless, in times after the most ancient, they
gave the name of the river of Babylon to the great stream on whose
banks was situated the cradle of the race. From source to mouth one
river became the Euphrates, and the other the Tigris.
MESOPOTAMIA—WILLCOCKS. 403
The Tigris enters its delta at Beled, south of Samarra, over the
ruins of one of the most interesting works of antiquity. In ancient
days some giant, local tradition says Nimrod, closed the channel of
the Tigris by an earthen dam and turned the river over the hard
conglomerate, forcing it to flow at a high level and irrigaté the whole
country. Coursing down over rapids, the Tigris became navigable at
Opis; and from there past the modern Baghdad and on to Kut it
kept within the channel of to-day. From Kut on to Ur of the
Chaldees, past Tel Lo, the ancient Tigris followed the line of the
modern Hai or Garraf branch. The country past Amara and Gurna
on the modern Tigris was an immense sheet of fresh water known
as the Susiana Lake. The levels of the country prove this beyond
the question of a doubt.
The junction of the Tigris and Euphrates was at Ur of the
Chaldees; and from there the joint waters of the two rivers flowed
past the modern Zobeir and down the Bubian channel of the Khor
Abdalla. The 3-fathom line depicted on the British admiralty charts
clearly shows the ancient mouth of the river north of Koweit. The
Khor Abdalla has two heads, one represents the joint waters of the
ancient Tigris and Euphrates, and the other the mouth of the ancient
Karun.
The Karun River has played no small part in the formation of
the Tigris-EKuphrates delta. While the Tigris and Euphrates have
left all their deposit behind in the Babylonian, Chaldean, and
Susiana marshes, the Karun has always hurried down from the
Persian hills and carried its silt-laden waters into the Persian Gulf
or into the joint stream of the two other rivers. It has been the
sole factor in forming the comparatively high-lying land which
stretches from Basra eastward. This tongue of land protects the
Tigris-Euphrates swamps from the inroads of sea-water, and keeps
them fresh. The Basra bar is formed almost entirely of Karun mud.
The Tigris and Euphrates mud lies far away to the west.
The ruins of all the more ancient cities lie near the junction of the
Euphrates and the ancient Tigris at Ur of the Chaldees. The two
rivers had left their deposits in the extensive marshes higher up their
course, and the earliest settlers had to do with opaque water, rich in
chemical matter, but free of silt, which would have necessitated the
presence of many hands to keep their canals clear. A comparatively
small population could begin and continue the development of the
country, and it was not until the inhabitants became really numerous
that the silt-laden waters higher up the rivers were taken in hand.
The lands in the marshes so reclaimed and cultivated became
extraordinarily productive, as we see to-day. They were valuable
enough to be protected from floods by immense dikes running along
404 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the banks of the rivers, which can be followed to-day for miles upon
miles, with a width never under 100 feet.
The great value of water free of silt for the early development of
the country is the first serious lesson I have learned from an exami-
nation of the ancient systems of irrigation, and you will see later on
how we propose to utilize this knowledge.
The Tigris and Euphrates carry in flood during a few days every
year over four times as much silt as the Nile. Irrigation with such
water will be no easy task even to-day. It was terribly difficult in
the old days when they had no cement, and were ignorant of every
kind of weir or barrage, except an earthen dam completely shutting off
the waters and causing convulsions among the people living lower
down.
While the development of the country was confined to the low-
lying lands blessed with water clear of silt, everything in the delta
went on smoothly enough. Pressure of population made the work of
‘development advance into the parts where there was no clear water,
and then the difficulties began. In the language of Genesis, the
world became full of violence. A strong central government only
could have dealt with the question, and there was no strong govern-
ment. Now the Euphrates and Tigris floods come down with extraor-
dinary force, and both rivers, but especially the Euphrates, overflow
their banks in a way a dweller in the Nile Valley could have no
knowledge of. Joseph’s famine would have been impossible in the
Tigris-Euphrates delta. Noah’s flood would have found no place
in Kgypt.
As men crowded up the two rivers, the necessity of protecting
themselves from the floods and at the same time keeping their canals
free of silt, compelled the early more powerful communities to resort
to the only kind of regulation they knew of, and that was the bold
one of bodily shutting off the waters of certain of the branches by
earthen dams. Judging from the levels, I should say that the first
head to be shut off was that of the Hiddekel, or the modern Sakh-
lawia. Until this was closed nothing could be done with the upper
half of the delta. The struggle between the different communities,
and the terrible consequences which might result, intimidated the
more thoughtful members of the community, of whom Noah was one,
and he prepared for the worst. He built an ark of the poplar wood
so common in the Euphrates Valley, and pitched it inside and out
with bitumen from Hib, just as the boats and corracles on the
Euphrates are pitched to-day. A settler probably in the lower part
of the delta south of Kerbela, where the deserts, moreover, are
strangely degraded and low, he felt the full force of the inundation.
A massive earthen dyke was thrown across the head of the Sakhlawia,
the flood discharge of the Euphrates was doubled, and instead of
MESOPOTAMIA—WILLCOCKS. 405
the waters rising 16 feet, as in an ordinary inundation, they rose 15
cubits, or 24 feet, and not only was the cultivated land under water,
but the deserts themselves were submerged. To men living in the
Kuphrates Valley and in the valley of the Nile, the word “ jebel ”
does not represent a hill, but the desert. In the English translation
the word “ mountain ” represents something those people never saw.
In the Arabic translation it is properly called the “jebel.” <A rise
of water of 15 cubits could put no hill, leave alone a mountain, under
water.
While traveling in Upper Egypt I have often been asked by the
less-informed sheikhs whether England was irrigated by basins or
by water courses. On my replying that England had no irrigation at
all, the remark has invariably been, “Then, how do the people live
in the ‘ jebel? ?”—pronounced “ gebel” in Egypt. As director-gen-
eral of land-tax adjustment in Egypt 1 was once valuing the lands in
a large basin, in the middle of which was a small desert mound some
2 acres in extent and 4 feet high. On my suggesting that we might
ignore so insignificant a patch of land, I was told that you could not
tax the “gebel.” Mentioning these facts to Colonel Ramsay, the
British resident at Baghdad, and to Mr. Van Ess, the Basra mission-
ary, who were traveling with me, and just then on a steamer in the
Nejef marshes, we agreed to test the matter on the Euphrates. Ap-
proaching Shinafia we saw the low degraded desert on the horizon,
and asked our boatmen what that was. They immediately replied,
“the jebel.” It was no more lke a hill than Ludgate Hill is ike a
mountain.
Floating off in all probability from near Kerbela, where one of the
shrines of the patriarch very properly stands to-day, and driven by
the current and the wind, both steady from the north, the ark drifted
southward and wandered long in Chaldean marshes. Finally it
touched land, probably somewhere near Ur of the Chaldees, on the
edge of the desert. I say Ur of the Chaldees, because it is here that
we find Terah, the father of Abraham and the representative of the
patriarch’s family. I think readers of the Bible will agree with
me that the representatives of the patriarchal families were a sta-
tionary kind of people in place and habits. It was the Cains and
Tubaleains who moved about, undertaking new pursuits and making
discoveries. The fact that Abraham, the friend of God, should have
wished to move made him a marked man, and earned him his name
of Hebrew.
Ararat was the name of the desert mound where the ark rested;
and when the families of the younger sons of the patriarch moved off
and made new settlements, they gave the name of Ararat to the
highest mountain they knew in honor of the spot, where the ark
406 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
rested. This Armenian Ararat could no more have been the Ararat
where the ark rested than New York be York.
As I have tried to depict these early events, everything has been
looked at from the point of view of the dweller in the Babylonian or
Chaldean plain. And this in accord with the opinion of the time.
My friend, the Reverend Professor Sayce, has shown me a copy of a
Chaldean map of Abraham’s time, in which the earth lies round
Babylon as a center.
In following the history of the delta the second lesson we have
learned is the necessity of controlling the floods of the Euphrates if
any serious development of the country is to be undertaken.
The dwellers in the Euphrates delta, tired of anarchy and confu-
sion, gladly welcomed any strong man ready to produce order and
method in a country which could not exist without order and method;
and they found their “ mighty one ” in the person of Nimrod, accord-
ing to Genesis, or Khummurabi, according to the tablets. The
~ dwellers in the delta to-day are in the same position. I have seen
eight hundred armed peasants, all Arabs, volunteer to help the gov-
ernment troops to keep order. Every Arab family, like that of Isaac,
has some of its sons after the peaceable Jacob and some after the
Beduin Esau. In Mesopotamia to-day the would-be agriculturists
have little chance, for whenever they desire to settle, down comes a
mighty flood and converts them into wanderers. Let the floods be
controlled and the irrigation works begin operating, and it will be
seen that those on the side of order are more numerous than those
against it, and moreover far more earnest.
This dispute between the agriculturists on the one hand and the
shepherds on. the other is as old as the feud between Cain and Abel.
About May 5 this year, when the flood was at its highest, I was riding
up the left bank of the Euphrates from Ramadi to Hit, and counted
over 50 flocks of sheep of about 200 each, or 10,000 sheep in all,
walking into the valley from the desert. The appearance of the
shepherds made the agriculturists alert, and on my way down the
river in a boat the next day I heard two shots fired quickly, one after
the other, and in an instant the cultivated plain was covered with
men on horseback and on foot rushing to the spot, some with spades
and some with guns. They were prepared to fight the Beduin
shepherds or the flood. Meeting one of the head sheikhs I asked him
why they could not arrange to let some of the land be inundated and
some put under wheat and barley. He said that they could not agree
among themselves, but would be pleased to see some order and method
instead of the eternal feud. He added that if working rules were laid
down, the agriculturists were sufficiently numerous to insist on their
being respected,
MESOPOTAMIA
WILLCOCKS. 407
All the early kings who did anything worth recording have left
memorials of the canals they constructed, to which they gave names
strangely similar to the “ Kanatir il Khairia,” or “ Bridge of Bless-
ings,” which the Egyptians apply to-day to the first barrage con-
structed on the Nile.
As population increased we hear of reservoirs for storing water for
perennial irrigation, especially for the important Arakhtu canal,
which came down from Sippara and irrigated Babylon.
It is recorded of Cyrus the Great that he, too, utilized his army for
digging numerous canals from the Gyndes or Dyala. Many of these
canals are in use to-day.
Herodotus gives a picturesque and glowing description of Baby-
lonia in B. C. 480.
Some fifty years later Xenophon, as becomes a disciple of Socrates,
gives an exact description of the country as he saw it. Book in hand,
I have followed his march in the delta from “ the Gates ” to Opis, and
I here give my impressions. Cyrus the Younger’s army entered the
delta at the Gates already described, and crossed the valley of the
Sakhlawia by the great earthen embankment which from all antiquity
stretched from desert to desert and kept the Euphrates within its own
valley. Cyrus anticipated the reopening of the branch by Artaxer-
xes, who had dug a new canal down the valley of the Sakhlawia,
trusting to the steep slope to soon scour out an impassable barrier to
his brother’s army. Hurrying along the dike, the army of Cyrus
entered the desert plateau of 110 square miles in extent which lies
between Feluja and Bagdad, and over which Artaxerxes’s army ad-
vanced under thick desert dust which looked like a white cloud.
Xenophon saw the first of the four canals, known in the times of the
Khalifs as the Issa, the Sarsar, the Malik, and the Kutha, which
leave the Euphrates south of this desert plateau. The first is in very
deep digging in the desert. He saw no more, and spoke from hear-
say of the rest, for he is wrong in every particular—a circumstance
rare with him. Mind, he does not say that he saw them. The canals
are not the same size, they are by no means the same distance apart,
and they do not run from the Tigris to the Euphrates. In this reach
the Euphrates is 25 feet higher than the Tigris. The battle of Cun-
axa could not have been fought south of the desert plateau, as the
country was intersected by four large canals and countless deep-water
courses, and was, moreover, heavily irrigated. Armies accompanied
by large bodies of cavalry, chariots, and baggage wagons could not
have moved at all, leave alone maneuvered and fought. After the
battle the ten thousand retreated in a northwesterly direction, with
the rising sun on their right hand, and were entangled in the water
courses fed by the new canal just dug by Artaxerxes and now opened.
North of Tel Saféra there are no dikes or trenches going north-
45745°—sm 1909——27
408 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ward. The Median wall, I think, stretched from Tel Saféra to
Akkar Kaif, and from there to Coche, on the Nahr Melcha, opposite
Ctesiphon. It protected Babylonia from the Assyrians first, and
then from the Medes in the pre-Persian days; it took the place of
the Sakhlawia branch, which, as already twice stated, was closed
from the earliest times. Artaxerxes opened his canal in August, dur-
ing the time of low supply, or there would have been a catastrophe.
Keeping south of the Median wall, the ten thousand crossed over
to the north at some point west of Akkar Kuf, and winding their way
round the Akkar Kuaf depression, crossed two canals, both coming
from the Tigris near Nimrod’s dam. The latter was the Izhaki canal,
on whose east bank was Sitaki, not far from the modern Kazimain.
They crossed the Tigris by a bridge of boats with the same number
of boats that the Baghdad bridge had a few years ago, before it was
replaced by the present one of larger boats. From here they had to
leave the river, as the country was heavily irrigated by the numerous
canals, into which Cyrus the Great had led the Dyala. The troops
with the transport wagons had to follow the road, which doubtless
then, as now, went to Bakuba, and so the distance covered was 50 per
cent in excess of the bee line which commentators ordinarily measure
along. At Opis they crossed the Physcus, or Adhaim River by a
bridge 100 feet long, and entered desert country. At Manjur, which
Capt. Felix Jones, of the Indian navy, unerringly stated to be the
site of Opis, the Adhaim River flowed into the ancient Tigris before
the river burst into its present channel. Immediately to the north
of this point we leave the alluvium of the Tigris, and enter t’e
unirrigable marls which Xenophon called deserts.
Alexander’s historians give a vivid description of the irrigatic» of
the country and the difficulty the Babylonians had in closing ‘heir
canals in flood and clearing them in low supply. They described the
closing of the canals in flood as by far the more difficult operation.
Alexander entered into the work with all his energy and genius. and
to-day we can only admire the judgment with which he treated the
Hindia branch or the Pallacopus, and the promptitude with wh ch he
acted. The whole of the waters of the two rivers was used for irriga-
tion in all but the flood season, and Alexander had to remove the
earthen barrages thrown across the Tigris before his fleet could .ail up
the river from the sea.
In the time of the Sassanian kings of Persia, in the early « ituries
of the Christian era, the delta probably saw its greatest prosperity.
The gigantic Nahrwan Canal, 400 feet wide and 15 feet deep, irri-
gated all the country to the east of the Tigris, and the Dijail irrigated
that to the west. The Euphrates gave off the four canals already
mentioned by Xenophon, and canals fed by the Babylonian branch
from near Babylon irrigated the country right up to the ancient
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Willcocks. PLATE 1.
NAUSHERWAN’S PALACE, CTESIPHON.
UNIRRIGATED MESOPOTAMIA.
MESOPOTAMIA—WILLCOCKS. 409
Tigris, or the modern Hai branch. Ammianus Marcellinus, who
traversed the whole length of the delta in the fifth century of our
era, describes the country as a forest of verdure from end to end.
The centers of development varied from period to period. While
during the earliest times Tel Lo, Senkere, and Ur of the Chaldees
were the heart of the country; Sippara and Babylon took their place
in Babylonian times; and Opis and Ctesiphon in that of the Persians.
In the seventh century of our era the Arabs overthrew the Persian
Government, and substituted Kufa, Wasit, and Basra, as capitals in
place of the earlier cities. These soon gave place to Baghdad, which
till to-day has remained the most important town in the delta.
Baghdad saw its greatest days about A. D. 800, in the reign of
Harun-el-Rashid. Under the Arabs the prosperity of the country
steadily declined, but the final blow was given by the Mongols under
Zengis Khan and the Tartars under Timur, in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Previous disasters had drenched the country in
water; it was now drenched in blood. In the anarchy and confusion
which ensued all the great works of antiquity were swept away one
after another, until not a single one remains to-day. Nimrod’s
earthen dam on the Tigris was breached, and the level of the water
in the river fell some 25 feet, leaving the great Nahrwan and Dijail
canals dry and waterless. Both banks of the Tigris in the upper
part of the delta became a desert. The Tigris, lower down its course,
fared no better. Near Kut the river breached its left bank .and
wasted itself in the marshes on the Persian frontier, while the ancient
channel past Wasit and Tel Lo received a limited supply of water
only in flood time. The ancient dike across the Sakhlawia branch
of the Euphrates was breached, and Western Baghdad with its irri-
gation system was wiped out. All the canals taking water from the
Euphrates, which had come down from a remote antiquity, the Issa,
Sarsar, Melcha, Kutha, Araktu, Surat, Nil, and Nars, silted up and
ceased running; and finally, in our day the Euphrates of Babylon
has dwindled into an insignificant stream, and the whole of the
waters of the river are flowing through the Nejef marshes. The
Tigris and Euphrates, left to themselves, have deserted the high-
lands which they irrigated in old days, and are now traversing the
lowlands and marshes along the extreme east and west of the delta.
Things would have been far more desperate than they actually are
had not a new crop been introduced into the country which has per-
mitted of large areas of swamp being turned into valuable fields.
When rice first appeared in the delta no one can tell, but it is the
most valuable crop in the country to-day after the date crop.
The delta of the two rivers has an area of some 12,000,000 acres, of
which about 9,000,000 are desert and 2,500,000 acres fresh-water
swamp. In the upper parts of the delta there are stretches of culti-
410 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
vation along the river banks in places and along a number of small
canals; but in the lower part of the delta there are magnificent
reaches of date groves and gardens interspersed with clover and
cereals, and large areas under rice in flood.
We have seen that the earliest settlers in the delta clustered round
the reaches of the rivers where the water was free of silt. It is the
same to-day. This water, though free of sand, is opaque in color,
and retains the rich chemical ingredients so necessary for agriculture.
It is totally different from the dark-looking, transparent water which
has stagnated in the marshes.
The rainfall is on the average about 8 inches per annum. The
whole of the rain falls in winter, and there have been years in suc-
cession when the total fall has not exceeded 4 inches. Of such tracts
President Roosevelt, in his first message to Congress, has well said,
“ In the arid region it is water, not land, which measures production.”
We therefore turn to the amount of water in the two rivers. The
Euphrates has a high flood of 120,000 cubic feet per second and a
low supply of 10,000 cubic feet. The corresponding figures for the
Tigris are 180,000 and 10,000.
The rivers are in flood in March, April, and May, while August
and September are the months of low supply. We may, without
the aid of reservoirs, count on 6,000,000 acres of winter crops and
3,000,000 acres of summer crops. We shall have wheat, barley, and
beans in winter, and cotton, Indian corn, and rice in summer. To-
day, if the winter rains are above the average, large areas of land
are put under barley, for the deserts of Mesopotamia are not deserts
like those of Egypt, but in great part steppes capable of supporting
millions of sheep. The date palm is at home everywhere in the delta,
while the Basra groves are credited with 10,000,000 trees. Dates and
wheat are considered as growing wild at Anah.
The winter is severe and the summer is very hot and prolonged.
Live stock of every kind is abundant and of superb quality. Old
Mahomed Pasha i1 Daghistani has 200 Arab mares in his studs at
Azazia, on the Tigris. Live stock will always be one of the principal
exports of the country.
The delta is strangely flat. Baghdad, removed some 500 miles
from the sea, is only 115 feet above sea level. Opposite Baghdad the
Kuphrates is 25 feet higher than the Tigris. Between the two rivers
runs a regular valley, across which are carried the giant banks of the
ancient canals ike miniature hills.
The waters of the two rivers and the soil of the country are yellow
in color and very different from the black soil of Egypt. The per-
centage of lime in water and soil is as high as 15, and consequently
the soil is far more friable than the stiff clay of the Nile Valley.
The chemical analysis of soil and water testify to their richness.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Willcocks. PLATE 2.
BASRA CREEK.
(Paotograph by Perey L. Loraine.)
SOUTH ROAD IN BAGHDAD.
MESOPOTAMIA—WILLCOCKS. 411
Beginning at Beled, the delta first consists of bare plains of clay
with the silt banks of countless canals, showing what a desperate
fight the wretched agriculturists made for existence when the dams
were carried away and the level of the water fell. We then have
alternate stretches of level country covered with a thorny leguminous
plant, which dies down in winter, and the same bare plains which
we met in the north. Near the rivers are jungles of licorice plant
and the same leguminous thorn. On the rivers themselves, but espe-
cially on the Euphrates, wherever there is a foreshore, there is a lux-
uriant growth of poplars and sometimes of willows. On the upper
Euphrates, and as one approaches Babylon, we have great stretches
of salted land interposed with bare plains and low sand drifts. All
this land is capable of easy leveling and reclamation. The presence
of 15 per éent lime in the soil renders reclamation very easy compared
with similar work in the dense clays of Egypt. One is never far
away from the giant banks of old canals and ruins of ancient towns.
As one goes south the salted land increases in area, and then the
marshes begin with their stretches of rice. On the lower Euphrates
and on the Basra River are luxuriant date groves and gardens mingled
with wheat and clover. The lower Euphrates, past Nasrie and Suk
es Shaytik, is a veritable garden surrounded with water.
The junction of the Tigris and Euphrates is no longer at Kurna,
where it had been for 500 or 600 years, but at Garmat Ali, near Basra.
Such is Mesopotamia to-day. From what has been already said, it
will not be difficult to gather that the first works before the hydraulic
engineer are the protection of the country from floods, and the pro-
vision of water as free of silt as possible. The levels and surveys of
the twelve engineers who are working for me in Baghdad, with a
devotion worthy of the task they have undertaken, have shown that
we can do both. We have already submitted to the Government a
project for escaping the excess waters of the Euphrates down the
depressions of the ancient Pison, the first of the four rivers of
Genesis. An expenditure of £350,000 should suffice for the work,
and it should take three years to carry out. I am under and not
over the mark when I say that the cultivated area will be doubled
and the yield of wheat trebled along the Euphrates the day this work
is completed. The cultivators to-day are afraid to sow anything like
the crop they could put in; and, moreover, they count on losing every-
thing every third year. If Noah had been an hydraulic engineer, he
would have constructed the Pison River escape instead of an ark, and
saved not only his family but his country as well. ‘This escape has
been approved of by the Turkish Government, and the necessary
funds have been assigned for beginning it immediately. Its effect
will be far-reaching.
412 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The surveys and levels are now in hand for a project for the great
central canal of the delta, which will irrigate 3,000,000 acres of the
best land in Mesopotamia, and carry water free of silt. Northwest
of Baghdad, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, lies a strange
depression known as the Akkar Kuf Lake. It has an area of 40
square miles at extreme low water, and 300 square miles when full.
Its level is 35 feet below that of the Euphrates, and 10 below that
of the Tigris. Into this depression runs the Sakhlawia branch of
the Euphrates, the ancient Hiddekel, or the third of the rivers of
Genesis, with a channel 250 feet wide and 25 feet deep at the head,
which splits up into some twenty small channels as it enters the west-
ern side of the lake. The head of the Sakhlawia branch will be
provided with two powerful regulators to control the supply leaving
the Euphrates. On the Euphrates downstream of the branch will
be a barrage to control the river itself. These works will insure our
supply from the side of the Euphrates.
On the Tigris we propose to construct at Beled, near the site of
Nimrod’s dam, a weir for controlling the river. This work will be
above the Tigris rapids, where the water is 60 feet higher than that
of Lake Akkar Kuf. From the upstream side of this weir we shall
construct a canal to irrigate the rich lands north of Baghdad, with
an escape into the lake. The escape will keep the canal free of silt,
and feed the lake with Tigris water. We shall thus have all the
water we need from both rivers, entering the lake at its western and
northern sides.
From the southeastern end of the lake, near Baghdad, will start a
canal which will run along the right bank of the Tigris and finally
tail into the Hai branch or ancient Tigris near its head. In the days
to come this canal will irrigate 6,000,000 acres, but not now. The
excessive silt of some fifteen days per annum, which does all the mis-
chief, will be decanted in the lake, and so will all the silt we do not
need. At certain stages of the flood, when the river water is not
heavily charged with silt, it will be possible to take in supplies at
different points of the canal. All these details will come later. We
are now concerned with broad issues.
The left bank of this canal, which I shall submit to the authorities
to be called after the name of the first constitutional sovereign of
Turkey, will act as a dike for protecting the country from the Tigris
floods, and will, moreover, carry a railway to transport the abundant
harvests of the country. We shall again see Sippara, Kutha, Nil,
Niffur, Erech, Tel Senkere, and Tel Lo important centers of life and
prosperity.
Dealing with water free of silt, it will not be necessary to complete
the whole length of the canal before we can begin sending down our
supplies, as we should have had to do with muddy water. We shall
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Willcocks. PLATE 3.
THE GATE OF ISTAR AT BABYLON.
RUINS AT BABYLON.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Willcocks. PLATE 4.
BULL ON THE GATE OF ISTAR AT NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S PALACE AT BABYLON.
MESOPOTAMIA—WILLCOCKS. "4138
first complete some 30 miles, and immediately use the water for irri-
gation in this reach while we are digging the second reach of 30 miles.
In this way we shall waste no time.
The works should, I think, be carried out on the following prin-
ciples. The Government should undertake the construction and
maintenance of the barrages on the rivers, the main feeder canals,
the main drains, the navigation works if any, the flood escapes, and
the flood embankments. In this way the control of the rivers and
their supplies would be in the hands of the authorities. All minor
canals, drains, and masonry works of every kind should be left to
the agricultural community and to interested parties. In return for
constructing and maintaining these works they would receive title
deeds for the lands they irrigated. I had at first thought of recom-
mending the Chenab system of irrigation works, but acquaintance
with the people has taught me that all details should be left to the
agriculturists themselves. They have their own ideas, and will be far
happier working on their own lines, many of which have come down
from the remotest antiquity, and are well worthy of preservation.
I have shown how the country can be protected from floods, and
how a beginning can be made with the irrigation of 3,000,000 acres of
land capable of producing annually 1,000,000 tons of wheat, and
2,000,000 hundredweight of cotton. It now remains to consider how
we are going to get this produce to the markets where it will be sold,
and how we are going to dispose of the millions of sheep and hun-
dreds of thousands of cattle which the delta will contain.
Every merchant and man of business I have talked with in Baghdad
is convinced of one thing, and that is that the backward state of the
country is due in great part to the fact that while communication is
open by river with the east, it is to the west that the whole produce
of the country wants to find a way. In this direction there is no out-
let. The principal products of Mesopotamia to-day—sheep, cows,
buffaloes, wool, liquorice, wheat, barley, and rice—have their markets
in the eastern Mediterranean and in Europe, and all the imports the
country stands in need of could come most readily from Europe.
What is wanted, therefore, is a cheap railway connecting Baghdad
with the Mediterranean by the shortest and cheapest line possible.
Such a railway would have its outlet on the Mediterranean coast
near Tyre and Sidon. These centers of commerce did not place them-
selves by accident where we find them to-day. They fulfilled the re-
quirements of the trade of western Asia. Haifa and Beirut, to the
immediate south and north of Tyre and Sidon, are the modern rep-
resentatives of these old Phoenician cities. They are connected by
railway with Damascus. Very shortly Tripoli, to the north of
Beirut, will be connected by railway with Homs, on the Damascus-
Aleppo Railway.
414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Any railway going east from Damascus or Homs must pass through
Palmyra, founded by Solomon in Israel’s great days, and the capital
of Zenobia in later times. From Palmyra will diverge the railways
of the future, which will either go north to Thapsacus on the Eu-
phrates, another creation of King Solomon, or to Der Zor of the
Khalifs, or eastward to Abu Kemal near Salahia, a creation of
Saladin’s. The Damascus-Baghdad Railway will pass through Pal-
myra, Abu-Kimal, Hit, and Baghdad. At Abu Kemal the railway
will tap only part of the upper Euphrates Valley capable of great
development. In the center of this tract is situated the rising town
of Meyadin, on the site of the ancient Rehoboth. At Hit we have
the terminus of free navigation on the Euphrates and the future
port of the river. Rivers whose waters are used up in irrigation
have their ports where they begin to be navigable.
The Euphrates upstream of Hit, up to E] Kaim past Anah, has a
narrow valley, but the current is sufficiently strong to turn large
water wheels, which irrigate the country up to the edge of the desert.
Upstream of Suk-es-Shaytik this is the only tract on either of the
rivers which enjoys perennial irrigation without having to lift the
water by means of oxen or pumps. For the area cultivated the
population is very dense and the crops excellent. We can here form
an idea of what the country will be when perennial irrigation with
free flow is available over extensive areas.
From El Kaim near Abu Kemal right up to Meskene opposite
Aleppo, the current is incapable of turning water wheels, and the
cultivation is confined to the areas flooded by the river or irrigated
by lifting machinery. From Abu Kemal to Der Zor past Meyadin
the valley is very broad, and, judging from the ruins of towns and
villages, must have been at one time well cultivated. To-day the
cultivation is confined to the water’s edge. From above Der Zor to
Meskene past Rakka, the summer residence of Harun-el-Rashid, the
valley contracts and the ground is covered with dense jungle, which
supports very many buffaloes, sheep, and camels. Occasionally one
meets a patch of rich cultivation, as at Meskene, where an English-
man had erected many water wheels and was preparing to put up
a 20-horsepower engine and pump.
The desert at Hit is flat, and only some 50 to 100 feet above the
level of the Euphrates Valley. This height gradually increases until
at Meskene it is from 300 to 400 feet. For some miles on either side
of the valley the desert is broken up into ravines; but as one leaves
the river the desert becomes flat, and was described by Xenophon as
being level like the sea. The farther north one goes the more un-
dulating becomes the desert, but south of Der Zor the undulations
are insignificant. Here and there one meets a wady finding its way
to the Euphrates Valley. Gypsum is the ordinary rock, and there
MESOPOTAMIA—WILLCOCKS. 415
are considerable outcrops of limestone, while immense areas are cov-
ered with pebbles, and are known as haswa to the Arabs.
During the winter months the deserts are covered with grass and
the hoilows are sown with barley. This refers to the country past
Hit. The rainfall increases as one goes northward, and by the
time one reaches Meskene the whole country is capable of producing
barley with the aid of the rainfall.
The total length of the railway from Damascus to Baghdad will
be 550 miles, which could be constructed for £2,200,000. This allows
£4,000 per mile along an easy alignment, while Nigeria is being de-
veloped by railways traversing more difficult country at £3,000 per
mile. According to the Beduins and the Turkish officers who annu-
ally escort the sheep from Abu Kemal to Damascus, water is suff-
ciently evenly distributed to allow of hundreds of thousands of sheep
traveling from the Euphrates delta to Damascus.
In addition to the transport of the exports and imports of the
Tigris-Euphrates delta, the railway from Baghdad to Damascus will
be the highway for the merchandise of Persia and for all the Moslem
pilgrims of central Asia to the holy cities of Islam. It will carry
all the materials and fuel needed for the future irrigation works of
the delta, and when continued along the bank of the great central
canal to Basra, it will be the shortest route possible between east and
west, and will one day be carrying the mails between Europe and
India.
Though zealously advocating the direct railway connecting the
Tigris-Euphrates delta with the Mediterranean, as without it the
development of the country will not be possible, my hopes are centered
in the delta itself, where it is my ambition to see the works carried
out which we are planning to-day. I know that in these western
countries of Europe, where rainfall is timely and abundant, and
where ruin and disaster can not overtake a country in a day, we are
apt to imagine that works of restoration must also take long years
to bear any fruit. But in the arid regions of the earth it is not so.
There the withdrawal of water turns a garden into a desert in a
few weeks; its restoration touches the country as with a magician’s
wand. In her long history of many thousands of years Babylonia
has again and again been submerged, but she has always risen with
an energy and thoroughness rivaling the very completeness and sud-
denness of her fall. She has never failed to respond to those who
have striven to raise her. Again it seems that the time has come
for this land, long wasted with misery, to rise from the very dust
and take her place by the side of her ancient rival, the land of Egypt.
The works we are proposing are drawn on sure and truthful lines,
and the day they are carried out, the two great rivers will hasten to
respond, and Babylonia will yet once again see her waste places be-
coming inhabited and the desert blossoming like the rose.
416 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Postscript, May 28, 1910——Since delivering the lecture in Novem-
ber, 1909, I have spent the winter in Mesopotamia, and should like to
add the following as a postscript:
That the region to the south of Ur of the Chaldees is probably the
spot where the ark rested is further confirmed by these two facts:
(1) A vessel drifting down the Euphrates with the current and
wind from the north and northwest would at Ur of the Chaldees
meet the strong current of the ancient Tigris coursing down from the
north, and would be driven ashore somewhere near the junction of the
two rivers.
(2) When at Ur of the Chaldees the other day we found that the
Arabs called the mounds to the south of Ur “ Niiawés.” Now, “ Nu”
is Arabic for “ Noah.”
That those primitive and early peoples whose records we possess
in Genesis were certainly under the impression that the whole world
was drowned out with the Tigris-Euphrates Delta is proved by the
only explanation they could find for the great influx of people into
the valley from the surrounding countries once order began again to
be established. They could attribute the multiplicity of languages
which began to be spoken “all at once to nothing but divine anger at
their extraordinary high hopes and ambitions.
The tradition of the flaming sword of the Cherubim at the Eastern
gate of Paradise near Hit may have been connected with the bitumen
and naphtha springs which abound in that locality. The region to-
day is called “ El Nafitha” by the Arabs.—W. Winucocks.
ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY THE U.S:GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
————————
6ist Cong., 2d Sess.
House Doc. 112;
n
i
; SMITHSONIAN REPORT. 1909—WILLCOCKS. MA
PIV
'
THE
DELTA
to illustrate a paper by
TIGRIS —- EUPHRATES
Sin Wittiam Wittcocks, K.C.M.G.
Seale 1: 3,000,000 or 1 fnch= 47-34% Stat. Miles |
Lands« capable of
early development
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Seale 1-18.000,000 or LTnch = 284% Stax, Mil
109 59 0 100 400 200
(beet et =—
Anatolia” Baghdad Roilwoy
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Proposed _ eesencsess
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Railway, proposed em me
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Reprinted from the Geographical Journal, Jan
1910, by permission of the Royal Geographical Society,
House Doc. 112;
6ist Cong., 2d Sess.
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ALBERT GAUDRY AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE
ANIMAL KINGDOM.
By PH. GLANGEAUD,
Professor of Geology in the University of Clermont-Ferrand.
(Translated by permission from Revue générale des Sciences pures et appli-
quées, Paris, 20th year, No. 6, March 30, 1909.
French science has recently lost one of its most illustrious repre-
sentatives, Albert Gaudry. My cherished and venerated master, who
has departed at the age of 81 years, leaves behind him universal and
profound regrets, not alone in the learned world, but among all those
who had met him and known him, and even among those (and they
are legion) who have read his works—works inspired by the loftiest
ideals.
The scholar who devoted sixty years of his life to science, in an ex-
clusive manner, leaves behind him a shining track which brightly
illuminates the history of the faunas which have succeeded one an-
other on our planet for about fifty million years.
Gaudry occupied himself during his whole life in seeking the laws
which presided over the destiny of those vanished faunas, and en-
deavored, with success, to unite the various links of this captivating
history. In doing this he became truly the creator of a new science
historical or philosophical paleontology.
I desire to set forth briefly in this place the characteristics of this
fruitful work of Gaudry. But I ask permission to say a few words
regarding the man before I occupy myself with the scholar.
He was the embodiment of kindliness and benevolence. These two
qualities were native to him. All those who approached him, whether
Frenchmen or foreigners, were won by his charming urbanity and
courtesy. A rather thin voice gave a softness to his speech. If one
adds great nobility of sentiment and integrity of character, which
never wavered, one can comprehend the sympathy that his name
everywhere evoked.
In order to comprehend the importance of Gaudry’s work, it is
necessary to go back more than a century, and to recall the different
417
418 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
paths along which have developed the ideas relative to the appari-
tion of the “hes which have inhabited the earth during its various
epochs.
I. CUVIER AND D’ORBIGNY.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the earlier works of
Bernard Palissy, Faujas de St. Fonds, Guettard, Buffon, and espe-
cially Wilham Smith, had made possible a comprehension of the im-
portance of fossils, by means of which the age of the sedimentary
deposits of our globe could be determined.
The researches of Cuvier on fossil faunas led this talented natural-
ist to announce that there existed in the terrestrial strata a series of
superimposed and distinct faunas, which had disappeared successively
and entirely under the influence of violent geological catastrophes,
which he called the “ revolutions of the globe.” New and different
faunas replaced the ancient faunas, not through new creations, as was
commonly said, but by means of faunas derived from regions where
similar revolutions had not taken place.
The revolutions of the globe, in the sense in which Cuvier under-
stood them, were not universal. They resulted from considerable
changes and extensive modifications in the distribution of seas and
continents, brought about by the formation of new marine lands or
the submersion of mountain chains, modifications caused by the cool-
ing of the earth.
The two great treatises which summarize the work of Cuvier, one
the “ Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles,” and the other, “ Dis-
cours sur les Révolutions du Globe,” although more than a century
old, remain as models of clearness of description and of scientific
interpretation.
The first is the indispensable remembrancer of all naturalists who
occupy themselves with the study of living and extinct vertebrate
faunas; the second, of all geologists or geographers, who find in it
at least the germs of the explanation of the causes of the physical
changes wrought in our planet, andeof the laws which govern them.
Cuvier was, therefore, in reality the creator of paleontology. He first
showed, contrary to the opinion of Buffon, that fossil animals are dif-
ferent from living ones, and, prompted by the researches of other
naturalists, such as A. d’Orbigny, Al. Brongniart, von Buch, W.
Smith, Werner, ete., who occupied themselves more especially with
invertebrate animals, asserted that each stage presented peculiar and
distinct fossils.
He thereby not only created paleontology, that is, the study of
the fossils themselves, but also that of the order of ae appearance
on the globe. Thus, he not only enlarged the boundaries of this new
science, which is indispensable to zoology, but he made it serve the
GAUDRY AND EVOLUTION—GLANGEAUD. 419
needs of geology, in the examination of sedimentary deposits. Thus
has taken birth from Cuvier and d’Orbigny stratigraphic paleon-
tology, the sister of zoology and the essential basis of all rational
geology.
We recall in passing that d’Orbigny had divided the earth into
twenty-seven epochs, among which he distributed the 18,000 known
mollusks and echinoderms. The broad lines of the classification of
this naturalist are still followed to-day. Cuvier and d’Orbigny
believed that they had established by their works the fixity of
species, and their sudden appearance and disappearance in time, due
to successive cataclysms and creations.
II. GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE AND LAMARCK.
Two of their contemporaries, Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
arrayed against this “theory of the absolute ” another theory, which
was destined henceforth to agitate the minds of all learned and
thinking men. From this time, and arrayed around these natural-
ists, were waged, under the banner of “ transformism,” innumerable
scientific and philosophical battles. After a century of study and
research the discussion still remains open on many points.
Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, contrary to Cuvier, d’Orbigny,
and Brongniart, planting themselves on the study of living and
fossil forms, claimed that there was no sharp separation between
these different organisms, but that a filiation existed between them.
The first animals which appeared were “ transformed ” successively
under different influences, leading, under the influence of needs or
habits (Lamarck), or under those of the environment (G. St. Hilaire),
to the development or atrophy of certain organs. It was no longer
held that there were successive creations, but rather that nature had
produced at first simple organisms, which little by little, under in-
fluences of which we shall speak presently, were modified, trans-
formed into beings arranged in series more and more complicated,
more and more nearly perfect, from the amorphous, gelatinous, but
living, mass of the protozoan to man.
Lamarck, in his Zoological Philosophy, in which, unfortunately,
paleontological data played but a small part, prepared a genealog-
ical tree of all forms of animals, from the simplest to the highest
mammals (man excepted). This essay in comprehensive synthesis
is interesting only on account of its spirit and the ideas on which
it is based. It is inexact in a very great number of essential points,
but it is the original foundation on which later naturalists have
erected more precise ideas, having for a basis a larger number of
observations. It was, furthermore, difficult for Lamarck to produce
other than a preliminary work. He lacked the knowledge of a large
420 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
number of fossils to support and establish it on a solid basis, and he
should have taken into consideration this important law laid down
by Geoffroy St. Hilaire: “ The embryological development of a liv-
ing being is an abbreviated résumé of the phases through which has
passed the paleontological development with which any given species
is related.”
III, DARWIN.
Forty years later Darwin, taking up the ideas of Lamarck, gave
to the transformation theory such éclat that many scholars hence-
forth called it the theory of Darwinism.
Darwin, who had traveled much, and, in consequence, had seen
much; who had a prodigious gift of observation, and was possessed
of vast erudition, added another important argument to the theory
of transformism—that of vital competition.
According to this great English scholar, there was produced, in
consequence of this competition among living forms, a “natural
selection” analogous to the artificial selection employed by man in
the production of varieties in the vegetal world and in the animal
world. The best endowed species survived, but disappeared, in
turn, before species better organized.
An exposition and discussion of Darwin’s “Origin of Species”
need not be made here. It is known to everyone. But it is necessary
to note and set forth the great feebleness of the paleontological argu-
ments of Darwin, arguments which, however, ought to constitute
the basis of the whole theory of transformation, because there ought
to be an inseparable bond between paleontology and zoology. It is
Albert Gaudry, the rival and contemporary of Darwin, who offered
him this indispensable support.
IV. THE WORK OF ALBERT GAUDRY.
Born in 1827 at St. Germain-en-Laye, Albert Gaudry was the son
of the president of the order of barristers of Paris, an intelligent
amateur of the natural sciences. At the age of 20 the young man,
who, with his father, had traveled about the environs of Paris and
had visited the principal deposits of fossils described by Cuvier,
showed an irresistible liking for geology and paleontology. In 1850
he was attached to the geological laboratory of the Museum of Nat-
ural History, where he labored under the direction of d’Orbigny, his
brother-in-law, and Cordier. In 1852 his first works “On a group
of Echinoderms (Stelleride)” and “On the origin and formation
of flints of the chalk and of the millstones of the Tertiary forma-
tions” gave him the title of doctor.
GAUDRY AND EVOLUTION—GLANGEAUD. 42]
1. Pikermi, the parent of ancient worlds and of the present world.
Commissioned to visit the Orient, he traveled with his friend Da-
mour in Greece, Syria, Cyprus, and Egypt. In passing through
Athens he learned that Duvernoy and A. Wagner had found not far
from that city, at the foot of Mount Pentelicus, in a place called
Pikermi, traces of fossil vertebrate faunas. He made a brief visit
to the deposit, and later obtained a commission from the Academy
of Sciences to exhume the fauna which it contained.
It is in this country, over which hovers the genius of the ancient
Greeks, that Gaudry began to resuscitate an entirely new world which
existed many ages before the appearance of man. “On this classic
ground his researches, his spirit, his thought, have created once more
and in another connection a classic locality, for the name of Albert
Gaudry will be forever united with the fauna of Pikermi.” (Ad-
dress of the president of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin.)
The excavations at Pikermi, pursued for many years and with
some danger (it was in the time of the Crimean war), in a country
infested with brigands, yielded many thousands of specimens, repre-
senting 370 individuals. The skeletons of many fossil animals could
be entirely reconstructed. Gaudry established the fact that this rich
fauna comprised 35 genera, of which 20 were entirely extinct, and 5
species scarcely or not at all known previously.
In no country had ever been found a group of gigantic animals
comparable to those of Pikermi. If the territory which these crea-
tures inhabited had been regarded in olden times as the home of the
gods, and had witnessed the splendor of the greatest geniuses of
antiquity, the assemblage of creatures buried in the soil in a remote
geological epoch also demanded vast areas.
“Tt is necessary to believe that the plains were not alone more ex-
tensive, but also richer than in our day. The marble slopes of Mount
Pentelicus, Hymettus, and Laureium support for the most part only
lowly herbs, which furnish food for bees, and it is probable that in
ancient times there were, beyond these arid mountains, valleys with a
luxurient vegetation, where prairie grasses alternated with magnifi-
cent forests, for the productiveness of the animal kingdom necessarily
presupposes that of the vegetable kingdom.” (Gaudry.) The
abundance of herbivorous animals demonstrates the correctness of
this view in an indisputable manner. The landscape was, indeed,
enlivened by two-horned rhinoceroses and enormous wild boars, by
monkeys (Mesopithecus pentelict), carnivores of the civet family,
martens, cats, and hyenas, which dwelt in the caves of Pentelicus,
while on the plains ranged flocks or herds—the hipparions and
antelopes of slender and graceful form, with straight, spiral, or lyrate
horns.
422 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
“Attica still possessed giraffes and other ruminants related to them,
which Gaudry, haunted by the poetry of ancient Hellas, called
Helidotherium—superb creatures, which were thought to have dis-
appeared forever, but which came to light again, scarcely modified,
some years ago in the pasture lands of the Congo.” (FF. Perrier.)
The large mammals comprise an edentate with hooked fingers
(Ancylotherium), two mastodons, a carnivore with large canine teeth
(Machairodus), and finally the enormous Dinotherium. With these
forms we remark also the Chalicotherium, the wild boar of Eryman-
thus, the Amalthean goat (Z'ragocerus amaltheus), and, among the
birds and reptiles, the cock of Esculapius, the crane of Mount Pen-
telicus, the tortoise of the marbles, ete.
All these animals were terrestrial and the deposit of Pikermi
represents a torrential deposit. In the epoch in which lived the fauna
of which we have spoken, Greece was united to Africa by a broad
area and the climate was similar to that of the latter. It was not
_ until much later that the separation of the two countries took place.
The animals buried in the ravines of Pikermi were swept into this
place by the water-courses of the age, bordered by a vegetation still
African.
The other conclusions drawn by Gaudry from the study of this
fauna were more remarkable, and it is of these especially that we
wish to speak.
Gaudry was not, indeed, content with carefully describing all these
interesting forms, as were his contemporaries. In pointing out the
differences which separated them from known forms, he was led to
consider the resemblances which they showed to other extinct forms
or to living forms.
He sought the bonds, the relationships, which united the ancient
organisms to one another and to living forms. It was these relation-
ships, these bonds, established by his intellect, which determined his
philosophy, which constituted the novelty, the originsi'ty, and the
greatness of his work. These are the ideas which bring valuable sup-
port to the transformist doctrine.
After having demonstrated that the fauna a Pikermi belonged
to the Upper Miocene age, M. Gaudry showed that there is something
more fundamental than the apparent variety of faunas. It is the
unity of plan which binds them together.
Among the examples cited by our author are the following: “ The
monkeys of Pikermi (Semnopithecus pentelict) are intermediate be-
tween the macaques and the Semnopitheci. They resemble the former
in their limbs and the latter in their skull. The carnivore called
Simocyon has the canine teeth of a cat, the premolars and carnassial
teeth of a dog, while the form of its mandible and of its tubercular
molars allies it to the bears. With Amphicyon, Hemicyon, and
GAUDRY AND EVOLUTION—GLANGEAUD. 423
Arctocyon, it binds this family to that of the dogs, which to-day
are quite distinct. Associated with animals half civets and half
hyeenas one finds a true hyzna, intermediate between the common
species now living in Africa, the spotted, and the striped hyenas.”
(Gaudry. )
In comparing the fossils of Pikermi with those which one finds
in more ancient formations, as for example those of Sansan (Gers)
or Auvergne, similar relationships were discerned by Gaudry, and
indicated to him that Pikermi is not the only deposit which presents
intermediate types.
“ He concludes that organic types are not distinct entities, but that
they ally themselves on the one hand to the older types, which can be
considered the ancestors of the former, and, on the other hand, with
more recent types, which may be regarded as their descendants.
The modifications which he discovers, in passing from a given form
to a neighboring form, are so inconsiderable, the transformations are
so closely coordinated with the time, that he is led logically to con-
clude that the species of fossil animals are not immutable beings, but
that they are transformed into others; that modification (changement)
is the supreme law of the animal world as of the physical world.”
(Boule. ) .
Thus Gaudry gave to the theory of evolution a more solid basis,
one which it lacked previously, the paleontological argument. And
would it not be strange and unscientific not to take into account
fossil animals, the species of which are so much more numerous than
the living forms?
The appearance of the great and remarkable work on “ The fossil
animals and geology of Attica,’ in which Gaudry expounded his
ideas on the fauna of this region, marked an important date in the
history of paleontology and of the animal kingdom. The study of
the fauna of Pikermi established the scientific reputation of the
naturalist among scholars.
2. Mount Léberon. Migrations.
Some years later (in 1872) Gaudry undertook researches at Mount
Léberon near Cucuron (Vaucluse) in a formation having very close
analogies in age and faunas with Pikermi. He was led to study this
formation “in order to discover whether not only the genera and
families of mammals, but also the species, have been immutable
entities, or whether they do not show sufficient plasticity to indicate
that they are descended from one another.”
The work on Léberon was done while that on Pikermi was in
progress, and supplemented it in many points,
45745°—sm 1909——28
424 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Gaudry, after having drawn a magnificent picture of Miocene
nature, concluded that it was characterized by the great development
of herbivorous animals, and demonstrated that the mammals, on
account of their complexity, had undergone much greater variations
than the invertebrates.
He developed also another very important idea, which had been
entertained by Cuvier, and which to-day furnishes valuable results.
I refer to migrations.
Notable differences are often found between two successive forms
in superimposed strata, and these differences can only be explained
by the modification in the habitat of the animals. But these modifi-
cations were caused by invasions or recessions of the ocean, by eleva-
tion or depression of certain continental areas. Briefly stated, the
modifications of a biological nature in a region are dependent on
modifications of a physical nature, the faunal changes bearing a close
relation to the geographical changes. ‘“ When I say that the differ-
ence between the two substages of the Upper Miocene results from
modifications in the habitat of the animals, I do not consider that I
am pointing out an isolated fact in the history of the development
of living beings. There is reason to suppose that the whole organic
world has proceeded in a continuous manner, and that if geologists
encounter sudden appearances of fossil species in passing from one
stage to another, it is because they have, in general, placed the bound-
aries of the stages at points where displacements of faunas have taken
place. The paleontologist who does not believe in migrations and
in local extinctions can not admit the relatedness of ancient forms of
hfe. He encounters appearances, disappearances, and revivals which
he is unable to understand.” (Gaudry.)
Thus are explained the close, inseparable bonds between geology
and paleontology. A paleontologist, no matter how eminent he may
be, should be a geologist in order to know the faunas which he studies,
and a geologist who studies sedimentary formations is obliged to be
a paleontologist.
3. Primitive reptiles and the theory of the archetype.
After having considered the evolution of mammals at the close of
Miocene times, and having drawn the important conclusions already
noticed, Gaudry undertook the study of amphibians and reptiles,
specimens of which had been found in the Permian schists of Autun.
Before this epoch primary amphibians and reptiles were almost
unknown in France. In describing the curious forms of Autun—
Protriton, Actinodon, Euchirosaurus, Stereorachis, etc—and pointing
out their affinities, Gaudry filled a gap which existed in the history
of the primitive vertebrates, and was led to discuss the question of
GAUDRY AND EVOLUTION—GLANGEAUD. 495
the manner in which the vertebrate type was formed, and also the
archetype, which has caused so many controversies among zoologists
and embryologists.
According to the learned paleontologist, “ vertebrates are not derived
from animals which conform to the idea of the vertebrate archetype.
The prototypes of the vertebrates seem, on the contrary, to have
been remote from the vertebrate archetype, since the archetype is
supposed to be a compound of vertebrae, placed end to end and little
modified, while the principal character of the most ancient verte-
brates appears to have been that their vertebral column was incom-
pletely formed. The oldest primary fishes were without vertebre.
or at least had vertebre the centrum of which was not ossified.
Equally, the first reptiles possessed remnants of the notochord, the
elements of which were completely ossified. It can not be said that
the head of the vertebrates is merely an expansion of the vertebra.
since the bones of the head and of the limbs were formed before the
vertebree.”
These ideas are contrary to the theory of Oken, and many other
theories, but the important conclusions of Gaudry are firmly based
on facts.
4. Fossil man.
Before the appearance of his great work on Pikermi (1859) the sci-
entific mind of Gaudry was arrested by another subject, which had
equally raised very heated and, at times, violent discussions. It had
to do with the discovery of fossil man, as asserted by Boucher de
Perthes at the beginning of the quaternary epoch, a diseovery denied
or strongly disputed. In order to solve this problem, Gaudry under-
took excavations at St. Acheul (Somme), a locality destined to be-
come as celebrated as Pikermi, and he himself collected in the quater-
nary alluvium flints chipped by man, associated with bones of animals
now extinct—large cattle, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, the mammoth (£7e-
phas primigenius), and the hippopotamus. Thus was irrefutably
demonstrated this contemporaneity which had been denied by some.
This work formed the first rational scientific basis for a classification
of the quaternary formations, which later was the object of an
important treatise (Materials for the history of the Quaternary age),
prepared in association with one of his young pupils, M. Marcellin
Boule, who to-day is his successor.
The series of works of which we have spoken, works so original
that each marks an epoch in paleontology, led to the appointment
of Gaudry as professor of paleontology in the Museum’ of Natural
History, in the place of Lartet (1872). He had there, as a labora-
tory, a small and dark apartment, with brick floors and worm-eaten
windows that looked into the “ Whale court.” Paleontological col-
426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
lections, properly speaking, did not exist as yet. They were divided
among various zoologists. It was not until seven years later (in
1879) that Gaudry was able to gain possession of the fossils of
Pikermi which he had collected and studied. The benevolent admin-
istration of the museum permitted him to erect a little glazed shed.
This, fortunately, was only intended as a means of obtaining a
building more worthy of the paleontological riches which he wished
to display and make known to all. But what a mass of persuasion
was necessary in order to obtain a palace similar to that of zoology!
When the exhibit was assembled and arranged according to his ideas,
it appeared, to quote the eloquent words of M. Liard, “ like a history,
like a philosophy. It is in effect the history of the animal creation,
an interpretative history, rendered visible and tangible.” In this
splendid exhibit of the recovered evidences of past ages, arranged
according to their appearance on the globe, one has in brief the his-
_ tory of the animal kingdom, from the radiolarians of the Cambrian
formations up to the earliest of the human races, already the Homo
sapiens.
Before arriving at this last stage,Gaudry had brought together his
ideas as investigator and professor in the form of treatises which
have had a considerable fame.
5. The links of the animal kingdom. The unity of plan of the animal
kingdom.
After six years of teaching Gaudry brought out his first volume
on “ The links of the animal kingdom—Tertiary fossils” (Les E'n-
chainements du monde animal. Fossiles tertiaires), a work whose
suggestive title caused considerable enthusiasm among naturalists of
all lands.
Some years afterwards appeared the “ Primary fossils” and the
“Secondary fossils.” This scientific trilogy summarized a great part
of the work and ideas of Gaudry. The word links (enchatnements)
reveals sufficiently the spirit which dominates it. .'There existed links,
evident connections between the diverse beings which have appeared
successively on the globe, and those which exist to-day. These last
are merely the resultants, or the remainders, of an evolution of which
the different steps are found in the geological series. The living
world can be explained only through a knowledge of the worlds
which have disappeared. There is not a fossil world and a living
world, but a single world. If the evolution of different beings which
from time to time have inhabited the earth has proceeded under the
action of natural causes (modifications due to the environment, to
wants, to migrations, to mutations, ete.), it appeared to Gaudry that
“the causes themselves must operate for the realization of a plan,
GAUDRY AND EVOLUTION—GLANGEAUD. 427
and it is to discover this plan and to explain it that he wrote these
remarkable works and consecrated his life.” (Liard.)
In 1896 Gaudry published another treatise as a supplement to his
“Enchainements.” This is the “Essay on philosophical paleontol-
ogy,” in which he revealed his thought on the problems raised by
the study of paleontology.
In a series of chapters he showed that animated nature formed a
great unity, the development of which it was possible to trace as one
traces that of the individual. He passed in review the multiplication
of organisms, their differentiation, the growth of their bodies, the
progress of their activities, their sensibilities, and their intelligence.
A practical idea which proceeds from his studies is that which re-
lates to the determination of the age of the terrestrial strata by means
of the stage of evolution of the animals found therein. ‘ No one de-
nies to-day that by the aid of fossils it is possible to determine the
age of formations. It is admitted that each of them contains a cer-
tain number of characteristic fossils. Why are they characteristic
of one epoch rather than another? No one knew formerly, and that
could not fail to be displeasing, because one does not enjoy what one
does not comprehend and has great difficulty in remembering. But
if paleontology gives us the assistance of a regular evolution of ani-
mated nature, it is evident that the stage of development of the fos-
sus corresponds to their geological age.. We then understand why
certain fossils are found at a certain horizon. The stages of evolu-
tion of the fossils which are brought to us for identification mark not
only the modifications of organization, but also of the principal divi-
sions of geological time. Taking two different strata, if I find that in
one the animals indicate a condition of evolution less advanced than
the other, I conclude that the former are of the earler age.”
(Gaudry.)
Thus, according to the state of development of the vertebral column,
the tail, the teeth, or the scales on the body of fishes one can dis-
tinguish the Primary, the middle of the Secondary, and the Tertiary.
Reptiles with the vertebral column imperfectly ossified indicate the
Primary. The apogee of the reign of the reptiles announces the
Secondary. Their resemblance to types now living indicates the
Tertiary.
If one show to a paleontologist feet or teeth of various animals
of different epochs, he will often say, “ this is the foot of an Eocene,
Oligocene, or Miocene animal,” etc. Some modifications apart, the
history of the discoveries of recent years, those relating to the Pro-
boscidians, for example, offers a striking confirmation of these ideas,
which are only a direct corollary of the continuous evolution of
organisms.
428 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
A visit to the hall of paleontology in the Museum of Natural His-
tory will enable one to appreciate, by the aid of visible arguments,
the ideas expounded by Gaudry. It is precisely on these arguments
(as regards fossil species), taken from all lands, that he has estab-
lished his doctrine in sober, pure and harmonious language.
In the last works which we have mentioned Gaudry showed very
clearly, by the aid of numerous sketches, how the transformist doc-
trine was the only one which explained the history of fossil animals.
He succeeded in doing more; he infused into this history a commu-
nicative enthusiasm, a poetic charm which makes the reading of his
books as attractive as it is instructive.
But the scholar was now 75 years old. The official age for retire-
ment had arrived for him, and it was necessary that he should leave
his pupils, with whom he had lived in the closest intimacy, and the
collections which he regarded with a genuine love. The sacrifice was
so painful that his pupil, M. Boule, who had become in his turn an
~ eminent master, when called upon to succeed Gaudry, sought to set it
aside. Gaudry retained his office and all his habits of life, and he
remained in this hospitable establishment, which he had had so great
pains to found, until the last day of his life. Until the end he gave
an astonishing example of continuous labor, lucidity, and productive-
ness.
6. The faunas of Patagonia. A part of the Antarctic world.
From 1904 to 1908 Gaudry directed his researches toward a world
entirely new to him, to which the discoveries of Ameghino had
attracted his attention. This world of strange fossil vertebrates of
Patagonia, so disconcerting to a mind accustomed to European,
Asiatic, and North American forms, attracted Gaudry. The re-
markable collections made by the young Frenchman, Tournoiier, of
the most curious forms of this fauna, supplied him with material
for new studies, which aroused his enthusiasm, because here again he
found problems awaiting solution.
In three successive memoirs he expounded the ideas which his
studies suggested. A summary of them is as follows:
Except at the beginning of the Tertiary, the land mammals of Patagonia
were widely. separated from those of the Northern Hemisphere. All the
genera were distinct and the majority of them to such a degree that it is not
possible to place them in the orders established for the mammals of Europe.
Not alone are the genera different, but the progress of evolution is not the
same. While the paleontology of our Northern Hemisphere offers us the
spectacle of a continuous progress, South America shows an arrest of de-
velopment. In the Miocene, no animal became a ruminant, a pachyderm with
paired toes, a soliped like a horse, a proboscidian, a placental carnivore, or an
anthropoid ape. This condition of affairs has continued until the present,
since mastodons, horses, deer, bears, Machairodi, which have left their
GAUDRY AND EVOLUTION—GLANGEAUD. 429
remains in the Pampean strata side by side with the descendants of the
Tertiary animals of Patagonia, are too distinct to be transformations. There
is no doubt that they emigrated from North America. The faunas formed on
the soil of Patagonia were not influenced by the new arrivals. Rather than
become modified many of the species died out, showing to the end the separa-
tion of the southern world from the northern world.
Analogous conditions existed in Australia, where the mammals have
scarcely passed the stages of our Hocene genera.
Thus, the surface of the earth is divided into two portions, the Northern
Hemisphere where the progress has been continuous to our day, and where
life is manifested in all its magnificence; and the Antarctic regions where the
animal kingdom has suffered an arrest of development. Why? We do not
know yet. This is a new problem which confronts students of the evolution
of organisms, but it is not necessary that two centers of creation should be
recognized, one in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern
Hemisphere.
Gaudry died at the age of 81, after having passed the last years
of his life in the study of Antarctic forms. He left a posthumous
memoir, a very remarkable one, on Pyrotherium, one of the most
curious creatures of the southern world, a work which will soon
appear, and will be, as it were, a last homage rendered to his
memory.
In the foregoing pages I have only skimmed over the work of
Gaudry, but sufficiently to show its variety and greatness. It is due
to him and his contemporaries and his followers, Cope, Marsh,
Osborn, Leidy, Scott, and Ameghino in America; Fowler, Seely,
Woodward, and Lydekker in England; Neumayr, Zittel, and Riiti-
meyer in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland; Douvillé, Boule, and
Depéret in France, etc., that the evolution of the ancient world has
been definitely and solidly established.
But it is necessary to remember that Gaudry was the precursor.
By the depth of the problems which he studied, by the influences
which he exerted, and by his theoretical conceptions, Albert Gaudry
stands with Lamarck. But he is also, in virtue of his remarkable
observations, the Darwin of the vanished faunas, and his name should
shine side by side with the names of these illustrious scholars.
’
Ae ae
haeal wa ay
res
es ay
i : ae Tt r
eee
CHARLES DARWIN.
By AuGcusTt WEISMANN.
Forty-one years ago, when I delivered my inaugural address as a
professor of this university, I took as my subject “ The Justification
of the Darwinian Theory.” It is a great pleasure to me to be able
to lecture again on the same subject on the hundredth anniversary
of the birth of Darwin.
This time, however, I need not speak of justifying the theory, for
in the interval it has conquered the whole world. Yet there remains
much that may be said—much, indeed, that ought to be said at the
present time. In my former lecture I compared the theory of descent
or evolution to the Copernican Cosmogony in its importance for the
progress of human knowledge, and there were many who thought
the comparison extravagant. But it needs no apology now that the
idea of evolution has been thoroughly elaborated, and has become
the basis of the science of life.
You know that Darwin was not the only one, and was not even
the first, to whom the idea of evolution occurred; it had arisen in
several great minds half a century earlier, and it may therefore be
thought an injustice to give, as we now do, almost all the credit of
this fruitful discovery to Darwin alone.
But history is a severe and inexorable judge. She awards the
palm not to him in whose mind an idea first arises, but to him who
so establishes it that it takes a permanent place in scientific thought,
for it is only then that it becomes fruitful of, and an instrument for,
human progress. The credit for thus establishing the theory of
evolution is shared with Charles Darwin only by his contemporary,
Alfred Russel Wallace, of whom we shall have to speak later.
Nevertheless, a reflection of the discoverer’s glory falls upon those
who, about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth century, were able to attain to the conception of evolu-
tion, notwithstanding the incomparably smaller number of facts
@An address delivered at the University of Freiburg on the occasion of the
Centenary of Darwin. Reprinted by permission from The Contemporary Re-
view July, 1909.
431
432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
known to them. As one of these pioneers we must not omit to men-
tion our own poet, Goethe, though he rather threw out premonitory
hints of a theory of evolution than actually taught it. “ Alle Ges-
talten sind aihnlich, doch keine gleichet der andere, und so deutet der
Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz.”
The “secret law” was the law of descent, and the first to define
this idea and to formulate it clearly as a theory was, as is well
known, also a Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus, who
set it forth in his book, “ Zoonomia,” in 1796. A few years later
Treviranus, a botanist of Bremen, published a book of similar
purport, and he was followed in 1809 by the Frenchman, Lamarck,
and the German, Lorenz Oken.
All these disputed the venerable Mosaic mythos of creation, which
had till then been accepted as a scientific document, and all of
them sought to show that the constancy of species throvghout the
ages was only an appearance due, as Lamarck in particular pointed
out, to the shortness of human life.
But Cuvier, the greatest zoologist of that time, a pupil of the
Stuttgart Karlsschule, would have none of this idea, and held fast
to the conception of species created once for all, seeing in it the
only possible explanation of the enormous diversity of animal and
plant forms.
And there was much to be said for this attitude at that time,
when the knowledge of facts was not nearly comprehensive enough
to afford a secure and scientific basis for the theory of descent.
Lamarck alone had attempted to indicate the forces from which,
in his opinion, the transmutation of species could have resulted.
It was not, however, solely because the basis of fact was insufficient
that the theory of the evolution of organic nature did not gain ground
at that time; it was even more because such foundation as there
was for it was not adhered to. All sorts of vague speculations were
indulged in, and these contributed less and less to the support of
the theory the more far-reaching they became. Many champions
of the “ Naturphilosophie ” of the time, especially Oken and Schel-
ling, promulgated mere hypotheses as truths; forsaking the realm
of fact almost entirely, they attempted to construct the whole world
with a free hand, so to speak, and lost themselves more and more
in worthless phantasy.
This naturally brought the theory of evolution, and with it
“ Naturphilosophie,” into disrepute, especially with the true natural-
ists, those who patiently observe and collect new facts. The theory
lost all credence, and sank so low in the general estimation that it
came to be regarded as hardly fitting for a naturalist to occupy
himself with philosophical conceptions.
This was the state of matters onward from 1830, the year in which
the final battle between the theory of evolution and the old theory
CHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 433
of creation was fought out by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier in
the Paris Academy. Cuvier triumphed, and thus it came about that
an idea so important as that of evolution sank into oblivion again
after its emergence, and was expunged from the pages of science so
completely that it seemed as if it were for ever buried beyond hope
of resurrection.
Scientific men now turned with eagerness toward special problems
in all the domains of life, and the following period may well be
characterized as that of purely detailed investigation.
Great progress was made during this period; entirely new branches
of science were founded, and a wealth of unexpected facts was dis-
covered. The development of individual organisms, of which little
had previously been known, began to be revealed in all its marvelous
diversity; first, the development of the chick in the egg; then of
the frog; then of insects and worms; then of spiders, crustaceans,
starfishes, and all the classes and orders of mollusks, as well as of
backboned animals from the lowest fish up to man himself. Within
this period of purely detailed investigation there falls also the dis-
covery, in animals and plants, of that smallest microscopically visible
building stone of the living body, the cell, and this discovery paved
the way for the full development of the newly founded science of
tissues, histology.
In botany the chief progress in this period was in regard to the
reproduction and development of the lower plants, or cryptogams,
and the discovery of alternation of generations, a mode of repro-
duction that had previously been known in several groups of the
animal kingdom, in polyps and meduse, in various worms, and later
in insects and crustaceans.
At the same time it was found that the proposition, which had
hitherto been accepted as a matter of course, that an egg can only
develop after it has been fertilized, is not universally valid, for there
is a development without previous fertilization—parthenogenesis, or
virgin birth.
Thus, in the period between the Napoleonic wars and 1859, an
ever increasing mass of new facts was accumulated, and among these
there were so many of an unexpected nature that further effort was
constantly being put forth to elucidate detailed processes in every do-
main. This was desirable and important—was, indeed, indispensable
to a deeper knowledge of organic nature. But in the endeavor to
investigate details naturalists forgot to inquire into the deeper causes
and correlations, which might have enabled them to build up out
of the wealth of details a more general conception of life. So great
was the reaction from the unfortunate speculations of the so-called
“ Naturphilosophie,” that there was a tendency to shrink even from
taking a comprehensive survey of isolated facts, which might lead
to the induction of general principles.
434 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
How deep was the oblivion into which the philosophical conceptions
of the beginning of the century had sunk by the middle of it may be
gathered from the fact that in my own student days in the fifties I
never heard a theory of descent referred to, and I found no mention
of it in any book to which I had access. One of the most famous of
my teachers, the gifted anatomist, J. Henle, had written as a motto
under his picture, “ There is a virtue of renunciation, not in the
domain of morality alone, but in that of intellect as well.” This sen-
tence was entirely obscure to me as a student, because I knew nothing
of the intellectual excesses of the “ Naturphilosophie,” and I only
understood later, after the revival of interest in general problems, that
this insistence upon the virtue of intellectual renunciation was in-
tended as a counteractive to the over-speculations of that period.
This was one-sided, but it was a necessary reaction from the one-
sidedness in the opposite direction which had preceded it.
The next swing of the pendulum was brought about by Charles
Darwin in 1859 with his book on “ The Origin of Species.”
Let us now consider the development of this remarkable man, and
note the steps by which he attained to his life work. Charles Darwin
was born on the 12th of February, 1809, the same year in which
Lamarck published his “ Philosophie Zoologique.” But he had not
sucked in the doctrines of that evolutionist, or of his own grandfather,
Erasmus Darwin, with his mother’s milk. His youth fell within
the period of the reaction from philosophical speculation, and he
grew up wholly in the old ideas of the creation of species and their
immutability. His birthplace was the little town of Shrewsbury,
near the borders of Wales, where his father was a highly respected
physician, well to do even according to English standards.
If we think of Charles Darwin’s later achievements we are apt to
suppose that the bent toward natural science must have been apparent
in him at a very early age, but this was not the case, at least not to a
degree sufficient to attract the attention of those about him. It is
easy now, of course, to say that the pronounced hking for ranging
about wood and field and collecting, quite unscientifically, plants,
beetles, and minerals, foreshadowed the future naturalist. Even as
a boy Darwin was an enthusiastic sportsman and an excellent shot,
and the first snipe he brought down excited him so much that he was
hardly able to reload.*. But he must have been not merely a sports-
@T can say the same of myself for, although in my boyhood I did not shoot
birds, I had a passion for butterfly hunting. When I saw the rare Limenitis
populi resting on the ground in front of me for the first time, I became so ex-
cited that I could not at first throw my net, and when I did throw it, though my
aim was usually very accurate, I struck the butterfly obliquely over the wing
with the iron ring of the net. The traces of this awkward aim are visible on
the wing to this day,
CHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 435
man but an eager observer, especially of birds, for at that time he
wondered “in his simplicity” that every gentleman was not an
ornithologist, so much was he attracted by what he observed of the
habits of birds.
The school which he began to attend at Shrewsbury in his ninth
year was probably very similar to our earlier gymnasia. Darwin
himself maintained that nothing could have been worse for his
intellectual development than this purely classical school, in which
nothing was taught, in addition to the ancient languages, except a
little ancient history and geography.
Darwin had no talent for languages, and no pleasure in them. So
he remained a very mediocre scholar, and his father therefore re-
moved him from school in his sixteenth year, and sent him to the
University of Edinburgh to study medicine.
The condition of the English universities at that time must have
left much to be desired, for Darwin characterizes the majority of
the lectures as terribly dull, and the time spent in attending them
as lost. Moreover, anatomy disgusted him, and the tedium of the
geological lectures repelled him so that he vowed never again to open
a book on geology, a resolution which, happily, he did not adhere to.
In his student days, as in his school time, he roamed about in the
open air, sometimes shooting, sometimes riding, sometimes making
long expeditions afoot. But even then he was not a conscious ob-
server of nature, not a naturalist, but rather a lover of the beauty of
nature and a collector of all sorts of natural objects, though he col-
lected still, as he had done at school, rather from the collecting im-
pulse frequently characteristic of youth than from any real scientific
interest. If he had had that interest his chief passion would not
have been the shooting of birds. His friends even found him one
day making a knot in a string attached to his buttonhole for every
bird he succeeded in bringing down! Thus he must have been
mainly a sportsman, a hunting fanatic whose chief desire was to
bring down as many birds as possible in a day. However, this de-
votion to sport must have stood him in good stead later, especially
on his great journey, for through it he not only acquired the tech-
nique of shooting, but he sharpened his naturally acute powers of
observation.
He remained two years in Edinburgh, and then entered the Uni-
versity of Cambridge. His father, who had observed his disinclina-
tion for medicine, proposed that he should study theology, and
Darwin knew himself so little that he was quite willing to agree to
the proposal. He examined himself very conscientiously to see
whether he was able to subscribe to the dogmas of the Anglican
Church, and he came to the conclusion that he could accept as truth
every word that the Bible contained, This was certainly remarkable,
436 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 1909.
and proves that the “ Zoonomia” of his grandfather, Erasmus, and
the doctrines of Lamarck, as far as he was acquainted with them,
had not taken very deep root.
So he proceeded to study theology. But he did it much in the same
way as he had studied medicine in Edinburgh; he listened only to
what pleased him, and that can not have been very much, for here,
too, he complained of the dullness of official lectures. Nevertheless,
at the end of three years he passed his examination quite creditably
and received the degree of B. A.
Of the greatest advantage to him in Cambridge was his intercourse
with two distinguished teachers of the university, and this inter-
course probably guided him imperceptibly toward the real work of
his life. One of these teachers was Professor Henslow, a theologian
who afterwards accepted a living, but who had a comprehensive
knowledge not only of entomology, but of chemistry, botany, min-
eralogy, and geology. By Henslow, Darwin was introduced to the
professor of geology, Sedgwick, and he, too, interested himself greatly
in the young man, taking him with him on his longer geological excur-
sions, and thus giving him a most valuable introduction to the science.
This proved of the greatest use to Darwin on his travels, and probably
enabled him to make his numerous geological observations.
Other older men also admitted Darwin to their friendship, so that
it is obvious that there must have been something about him even
then which distinguished him from others of his age. His interests
now began to widen; he came under the educative influence of art,
and studied the picture gallery in Cambridge, and later the National
Gallery in London. He gained the entrance to a musical circle, and
derived great pleasure from music, though, curiously enough, as he
tells us, he was almost destitute of “ ear,” and could not even whistle
“God Save the King” correctly. He was thus one of those rare
persons who are exceedingly sensitive to the emotional effect of music
and yet possess little or nothing of its physical basis, the sense of tone.
In addition.to all this, Darwin retained his passion for beetles, and
collected with such ardor that twenty years later he recognized at
sight small rare species he had found under bark or moss at that time.
His powers of observation had thus been awakened, although as yet
they were employed mainly to minister to his zeal for collecting.
But collecting is not a mere amusement for the young naturalist;
it is a necessary discipline in surveying a definite range of forms, and
it can not well be replaced by anything else. One who has never
collected, and thus never made himself thoroughly acquainted with
a limited circle of forms, will find it difficult to fill up the gap in his
attainments in later life.
In vacation time toward the autumn of each year Darwin turned
again with enthusiasm to sport, either at his home in Shrewsbury
CHARLES DARWIN——WEISMANN. 437
or on his uncle Wedgewood’s large estate of Maer. He did not lose
2 possible day from this amusement, for as he says in his auto-
biography, “I should have thought myself mad to give up the first
days of partridge shooting for geology or any other science.” Thus,
notwithstanding his interest in geology and beetle collecting, in pic-
tures and music, the old passion for the chase was still the dominant
one; one pleasure crowded upon another, and the whole made his life
a joyous symphony, so that he could say of that period, “ The three
years which I spent at Cambridge were the most joyful in my happy
hfe.” But in the midst of all the joyousness of life he was under-
going an inward preparation for the seriousness of it. We can
gather from his own account of that time that the strongest impulse
toward the study of natural science came from reading two works
which aroused his interest, Humboldt’s “ Personal Narrative ” and
Herschel’s “ Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy.”
Darwin says of these: “ No other book influenced me so much as
these two.” He used to copy long passages from Humboldt about
Teneriffe and read them aloud to Henslow. He was very anxious
to go to Teneriffe, and even made inquiries in London about a ship
to take him there, when an event happened which overthrew that
project, but at the same time opened up the way to a naturalist’s
career—the only one really suited to him—in a much more satis-
factory manner. He received a proposal to make a voyage round the
world.
It must appear to us singular that a young man who had just
finished his university course, and had done no scientific work of any
kind, should be invited to accompany, as a naturalist, a naval vessel
which was being sent round the world by the Government for the
purpose of making nautical observations. It proves that Darwin’s
older friends must have had very high expectations in regard to his
future.
Captain Fitzroy, of the English navy, was looking for a young
man who would go with him as naturalist, on a voluntary footing,
on his voyage in the Beagle.
Darwin himself was at once eager to accept, but his father objected
very decidedly, seeing no reasonable object in spending five years
ranging over the globe. But he concluded his letter with the sen-
tence, “If you can find any man of common sense who advises you
to go, I will give my consent.”
The necessary adviser was found in his uncle, Wedgewood, who,
as soon as he heard of the matter, immediately drove the 40 miles
from Maer to Shrewsbury and persuaded the elder Darwin that he
must allow his son to go.
Thus it happened that Darwin made the journey which he speaks
of later as “the most important event of my life,” as it undoubtedly
438 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
was. It was only later that he learned that even then his going was
not a certainty, for Captain Fitzroy, after seeing him, was in doubt as
to whether he should accept him, for a reason not easy to guess—be-
cause of the shape of his nose! Fitzroy was an enthusiastic disciple
of Lavater, whose doctrine of physiognomy was then widespread.
He believed that the shape of Darwin’s nose proclaimed a lack of
energy, and he was doubtful about taking anyone deficient in that
quality on such a journey. Happily, Darwin’s friends were able to
reassure Fitzroy on this point, and he must often enough afterwards
have had opportunity to convince himself of Darwin’s energy.
Thus it was apparently by mere chance that Darwin got the oppor-
tunity to develop actually into the great naturalist we now know that
he must have been potentially. But I do not believe that this is a
correct judgment. His inward impulse would certainly have forced
a way after he had been led to perceive, through Humboldt and
Herschel, what the way for him was to be. And even at that time
no serious obstacle would be likely to stand in the path of a young
Englishman of fortune who wished to explore foreign lands and seas.
But undoubtedly this manner of traveling for five years through the
seas and countries of different zones was particularly advantageous.
And Darwin used his opportunities to the full. On board ship he
studied the best books, especially Lyell’s “ Principles of Geology,”
but he also collected certain kinds of natural objects, and investigated
all that came in his way, keeping a detailed journal of everything
that struck him as worthy of note in what he observed. Thus he
became a well-informed and many-sided naturalist. But he valued
much more highly than any other result of the voyage the habits of
energetic industry and concentrated attention to whatever he had in
hand that he then acquired. And thus he became the great naturalist
for which nature had designed him. |
Darwin published his journal later; it fills a closely printed volume
of 500 pages. Like all his books, it is characterized by a simplicity
and straightforwardness of expression; there is absolutely no striving
after sensational effect, but an innate enthusiasm and truth pervades
it, and I have always found it most enjoyable reading. Other people
must have found it so, too, for by 1884 16,000 copies of the English
edition had been sold. I can not here give even a brief account of
the voyage of the Beagle; I can only say that its work lay chiefly on
the southern coast line of America, and the journey included the east
coast of Bahia to Tierra del Fuego, and the inhospitable Falkland
Islands, and the western coast to Ecuador and Peru.
This occupied several years, and thus the young explorer had a
chance to make himself thoroughly acquainted with a great part of
the South American continent, for while the ship lay at anchor
taking soundings in some bay or other, Darwin ranged over the
CHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 439
country on horseback, in a boat, or on foot. In Brazil, on the plains
of the La Plata River, and in Patagonia he made excursions into the
interior which lasted for weeks, and he was thus able to see and
investigate everything that interested him.
In all his descriptions of what he saw his keen appreciation of the
beauty and grandeur of nature are manifest. Thus he writes from
Bahia on the first day of his arrival in South America: “ The day
has passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to
express the feelings of a naturalist who for the first time has wandered
by himself in a Brazilian forest. The elegance of the grasses,
the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the
glossy green of the foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of
the vegetation, filled me with admiration. A most paradoxical
mixture of sound and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood.
The noise from the insects is so loud that it may be heard even in a
vessel anchored several hundred yards from the shore; yet within
the recesses of the forest a universal silence appears to reign. Toa
person fond of natural history such a day as this brings with it a
deeper pleasure than he can ever hope to experience again” (p. 4,
1884 ed.).
Not less delightful are his descriptions of the monotonous and
almost endless plains of Patagonia and the La Plata River, over which,
accompanied by Gaucho Indians, he rode for many days; or his
account of the wild mountain scenery of Tierra del Fuego, with its
gloomy evergreen woods, broken into by deep inlets and bays in
which whales disported themselves, and its mountains whose dark
cloud-laden summits are swept by the most violent storms. A
different picture is called up by Darwin’s description of his ascent
from the “ Vale of Paradise” (Valparaiso) up the Cordilleras to a
height of 13,000 feet, and the view from there down upon the coast
region and the Pacific Ocean far beneath him. And how many
other passages might be cited!
He cared, however, not only for what was beautiful, but for what
was most interesting from a scientific point of view. Thus he dis-
covered in a pass in the Cordilleras a stratum of fossil shells, a
proof that this place was at one time a part of the sea floor, and
that therefore it had been raised in the course of ages more than
13,000 feet.
His journal contains a wealth of observations about plants and
animals as well as about man and many detailed accounts of the
geological structure of the countries visited. We see how well his
Cambridge studies and the excursions he made there had prepared
him for this work.
I can not enter into any details of his observations, but I must at
least mention those which deal with the facts that led him gradually
45745°—sm 1909——29
440 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
to change his previous views in regard to the nature and origin of
species.
When he first began his explorations in South America he was,
as he expressly says, still completely under the influence of the
dogma of the creation of species once for all, and their immutability,
and he regarded it as unassailable. But very soon he was struck
by certain facts which seemed to him difficult to reconcile with this
dogma, and these increased in number in the course of his journey,
till finally they led him to the conviction that the old position was
untenable, and that the organic world had not been created immu-
table, but had slowly evolved.
T select two of these phenomena, first, the occurrence of the fossil
remains of gigantic mammals in the diluvial strata of the great
plains of La Plata and Patagonia. Darwin found a gigantic arma-
dillo (Dasypus gigas), and he was led to ask how it happened that
small armadillos now live in South America, whereas they do not
occur, either living or fossil, anywhere else in the world. The answer
was easy, if it was possible to assume that the present-day species
were descended from the diluvial forms, or from other smaller, still
undiscovered forms from the same period. But he was especially
impressed by the fauna and flora of the Galapagos Islands, which
lie under the equator, 500 nautical miles to the west of the South
American coast.
On these isolated and comparatively barren volcanic islands there
live many animals which could not fail to arrest the attention of the
-naturalist—land birds which are like those of the neighboring conti-
nent, and are of purely American type, yet are not identical but
closely related species. Most of them are so-called “ endemic ”
species, that is, species which occur in no other part of the world.
This was striking enough, but the matter proved even more remark-
able on closer investigation, for several of the fifteen islands of which
the archipelago consists possess species of the same genus peculiar
to themselves—mocking thrushes, for instance, which are represented
in the other islands by similar but not identical species.
What inference is possible from these facts except that, at some
earlier period, bird migrants from the neighboring continent had
landed on these volcanic islands, and in the course of thousands of
years had varied, that is to say, had become distinct species on each
island ?
These and other phenomena aroused in Darwin’s mind the idea
of evolution, and he resolved to devote his attention to this problem
after he returned home, for he was persuaded that he could attain to
certainty in regard to it by patiently collecting facts. Thus he set
himself the task of his life. It may be well to inquire here whether,
or to what extent, Darwin had taken over the idea of evolution from
CHARLES DARWIN-—WEISMANN. 441
his predecessors at the beginning of the century, and especially from
his grandfather, Erasmus. It is certain that at 16 he had read the
“ Zoonomia,” and that he admired it. He relates in his autobiogra-
phy that, during his student days in Edinburgh, Doctor Grant, after-
wards a professor at University College, London, spoke to him, in
the course of a walk, in the most enthusiastic manner of Lamarck and
his views on evolution. Darwin listened to these views with interest,
but was in no way impressed or convinced by them. The same is true
of the “ Zoonomia,” and when he reread it fifteen years later he was
disappointed in it, “ the proportion of speculation being so large to
the facts given ” (p. 38).
Thus Darwin was quite familiar with the views of his grandfather
and of Lamarck, but it was not these that incited him to follow in
the same paths; it was rather his own observations of nature that led
him to abandon his old opinions, and it was only after long years of
investigation, study, and doubt that he gained sufficient certainty to
venture on giving his ideas to the world.
I must refrain from saying more about this journey, which was so
fruitful for Darwin himself and for science; the two groups of facts
of which I have spoken were undoubtedly decisive in their effect
on his conception of nature. In December, 1836, with a wealth of
great impressions and rich experiences in all the domains of natural
science, his mind concentrated on the new idea of evolution, Darwin
returned to his fatherland after an absence of five years.
Two years after his return he married, bought the estate of Down,
in the county of Kent, and retired there to spend the whole of the
rest of his life in constant work, but also in constant fellowship and
personal touch with the most prominent naturalists of the day, who
were readily accessible in London. He gradually came to have cor-
respondence also with many naturalists in other countries.
His “ chief pleasure and constant occupation ” was his work, which
sometimes even enabled him to forget the daily discomfort due to
his health, which had been bad ever since his voyage. From the
very beginning of the voyage he had suffered from severe and per-
sistent seasickness, and his constitution had apparently suffered last-
ing injury, for in his autobiography he often speaks of being unable
to work because of illness, and sometimes of having lost days and
weeks, and on one occasion two whole years, from this cause.
In dealing with his work it is impossible for me to speak of all
the important volumes he published in the course of his life. The
first were the results of his voyage, various geological observations,
and a new theory of the origin of coral islands.
Up till that time it had been believed that the so-called atolls, or
lagoon reefs, had been simply built up by the coral polyps from
the ocean floor until they finally reached the surface, where they
442 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
formed flat islands. Darwin recognized that the process could not
be quite so simple, because the polyps can not live at great depths.
He therefore assumed that a secular subsidence of the ocean floor
must have played a part, and this hypothesis not only explains in
the most beautiful way the details of the structure of an atoll, but
it has been brilliantly corroborated by later investigations, especially
by borings on one of the islands, and the theory is now a permanent
possession of science. After the completion of this volume he worked
for eight years at the rich material he had brought from the coast of
Chile, of that remarkable group of sedentary crustaceans, the Cirri-
pedes, usually known as barnacles and acorn shells. Two thick
volumes on this subject appeared in 1851, and later two other quarto
volumes on fossil species of the same group. Even here, in this appar-
ently dry and purely systematic province, the true spirit of the in-
vestigator revealed itself, for he did not neglect what was unintelligi-
ble to him, and therefore inconvenient for his theory, but devoted the
-most persistent attention to obscure points until he had found a
solution of the difficulty. Thus he discovered that within the group
there are species which, like all Cirripedes, are hermaphrodite, but
which possess in addition small degenerate-looking males of dif-
ferent structure attached as parasites to the hermaphrodite animals.
It is, however, only in our own day that it has become possible to
understand the deeper significance of this important discovery.
In addition to these special pieces of work Darwin collected with
untiring energy facts which had any bearing on the theory of trans-
mutation, having begun in 1837, just after his return to England, a
large collecting notebook, in which he entered all the facts referring
to the variability of animals and plants, in particular of those which
are under the care of man. By means of printed lists of questions, of
conversations with expert breeders of animals and plants, and of
wide reading in books and journals, he sought to lay the foundation
of fact which he required in order to attain to clearness in regard to
the supposed transformation of organisms.
He was very soon led to the conviction that the essential factor in
the artificial modification of an animal or plant form was selection
for breeding. But how could such selection take place in free nature é
For a long time he was unable to find the answer to this question,
until chance. made him acquainted with the work of the economist
Malthus on “ Population,” and the ideas developed in this book sug-
gested to him the solution of the problem. Malthus showed that the
human population multiplied much more rapidly than the means of
subsistence could increase, and that therefore catastrophes must occur
from time to time to diminish the excessive number of human beings.
Darwin said to himself that in the rest of nature, among other forms
of life also, an enormous number of individuals must perish, since
GHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 443
all that were born could not survive, and since the greater part of a
species furnishes food for some other species. Thus the ceaseless
“ struggle for existence ” became clear to him, and suggested the ques-
tion whether it was merely a matter of chance which of the many
born should survive and which should perish. He concluded that the
answer to this question was, evidently, that favorable variations
would have more prospect of survival than unfavorable, and thus he
discovered the principle of natural selection—that principle at once
so simple and so powerful, which alone enables us to understand the
transmutation of organisms in adaptation to the conditions of their
life. But it was a long time before Darwin ventured to publish this
luminous idea. For his own satisfaction he wrote quite a short
sketch of it in 1842, and in 1844 he expanded this to 230 pages; but it
was not till the fifties that, urged by his friends Lyell and Hooker,
he resolved to give his ideas to the world. Even then he might have
delayed publication, but that in the meantime the same idea had
occurred to Alfred Wallace, in Ternate, in the Malay Archipelago,
and had been communicated by him, first to Darwin, and then through
Darwin to Lyell and Hooker. Then followed the memorable meet-
ing of the Linnean Society, London, in July, 1858, at which two
papers were read, one written by Darwin, the other by Wallace, both
setting forth the same far-reaching idea of evolution based upon the
principle of selection—a beautiful example of the unenvying mag-
nanimity of two great discoverers.
This private communication to a scientific society made no great
stir. But the publication in the end of 1859 of Darwin’s book,
“The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” attracted
great attention. A new edition was called for on January 2, 1860,
and during the twenty-two years between that time and 1882, the
year of Darwin’s death, one English edition followed another, and
more than 24,000 copies were printed. During the same period one
German edition succeeded another, and it is doubtful whether any
other purely scientific book has ever attained to such a circulation.
Yet the book is simple and straightforward, never sensational in
style, but advancing quietly and concretely from one position to
another, each supported by a mass of carefully sifted facts. Every
possible objection is duly considered, and the decision is never an-
ticipated, but all the arguments on both sides are carefully and
impartially discussed in a manner that is apt to seem to the impatient
reader almost too conscientious and cautious.
To readers who were acquainted with the scientific results of the
time, who were aware of the numerous important facts that had
been discovered, but missed the unifying idea which should gather
them all together into a harmonious picture of life, the book came
as a revelation. I myself was at the time in the stage of metamor-
444 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
phosis from a physician to a zoologist, and as far as philosophical
views of nature were concerned I was a blank sheet of paper, a
tabula rasa. I read the book first in 1861, at a single sitting and
with ever-growing enthusiasm. When I had finished it I stood firm
on the basis of the evolution theory, and I have never seen reason
to forsake it.
This must have been the case with many. You know that the
generation at the beginning of the century, satiated with speculation,
threw itself wholly into detailed research, and its whole endeavor
was to acquire new facts. Darwin furnished the unifying idea for
these: it was evolution. Almost the whole younger generation of
naturalists ranged themselves at once on his side; the older genera-
tion gradually followed, first zoologists, then botanists; even my
excellent friend, Anton de Bary, was only converted to the new
views in 1880, and from that time onward there was little further
opposition, even on the part of the botanists.
_ Although Darwin’s book was straightforward and simple, its effect
was nothing less than revolutionary; it upset the old deep-rooted
doctrine of creation just as completely as Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck,
and Oken had desired. The book raised a conflagration like
lhghtning in a full barn. This was soon so widespread that people
read only “against ” or “ for” Darwin, especially in Germany, but
later also in England. At first the opponents had the upper hand;
the church regarded the new doctrine as dangerous to religion,
because the old Mosaic mythos of creation could no longer be re-
garded as the basis of belief, and many of the older naturalists did
not care to give up their inherited opinions without a struggle, and
therefore strove to depreciate the new theory, either by serious
argument or by satire and ridicule. The first to publish a work
“for” Darwin was the German naturalist, Fritz Miiller (1864), in
Brazil. His book contained the first important deduction from the
Darwinian theory; it went further than Darwin himself, and con-
tained the germ of what Ernst Haeckel called, in his suggestive
“ Generelle Morphologie ” (1866), the “ fundamental biogenetic law.”
I myself was probably the third champion of Darwin’s views when,
in 1867, I delivered my academic inaugural address on “The Justi-
fication of the Darwinian Theory.”
At that period almost every special study in the domain of
embryology and “ comparative anatomy ” revealed fresh facts which
were only intelligible on the assumption that the theory of descent
was valid; much was now observed that had formerly been over-
looked, simply because it was not understood, and much of the work
done in the period of detailed investigation had to be done over
again, because the points that were now most important had pre-
CHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 445
viously been disregarded. In this no reproach is implied to the
many excellent observers of that period. No one can possibly
observe everything that takes place; for instance, in the develop-
ment of an animal, each notes only what seems to him to have some
significance, whether he is able to interpret it or not. We do not
work with our eyes alone; we must think at the same time.
But I need not dwell longer on the manner in which the Dar-
winian theory gained over the scientific workers of all countries,
and penetrated deeply even among the laity. We have all had some
personal experience of it, for the triumph of the theory of evolution
has not long been won. A few words may be necessary as to why it
was won so easily and so completely.
This was due in part to the enormous and increasing mass of facts
in support of it, but mainly to Darwin’s discovery of a principle
capable of explaining transformations, in so far at least as these
are “adaptations”—the principle of selection. Lamarck, too, had
thought out a principle of explanation—the use or disuse of parts—
*but it was obviously insufficient to explain evolution as a whole,
since it could only apply to actively functional organs.
The discovery of the principle of selection is the greatest achieve-
ment of Charles Darwin and his contemporary, Alfred Wallace, and
it alone, in my opinion at least, affords a secure basis for the theory
of evolution. It reveals to us how the apparently impossible becomes
possible, how what is adapted to its purpose can have arisen without
the intervention of a directing power.
The principle of selection shows us how the thousands of adapta-
tions in living beings which arouse our constant admiration may have
arisen in a purely mechanical way. And they must necessarily have
done so if the evolution of the living has resulted from the same
forces and laws as the not living; in other words, if, in explaining
natural phenomena, we can leave out of account altogether any forces
outside of or beyond nature. The principle of selection enables us
to do this, and therein lies its far-reaching significance. It is, I
believe, the discovery of this principle that will make the name of
Darwin immortal. Wallace, too, deserves a full share of the credit,
although he did not base his theory on such a broad foundation of
facts, and did not apply it in so many directions.
This principle is fully developed in “The Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection,” as, indeed, the title of the book shows.
It might be thought that the publication ofthis book finished the
labors of the hermit of Down, but this was not the case; it was
followed by the richest creative period of his life. Between 1860
and his death in 1882 he issued a whole series of works, small and
large, each of them based upon numerous observations and experi-
ments, and most of them containing wholly fresh associations of
446. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ideas, usually connected directly or indirectly with the theory of
evolution, and sometimes extending and corroborating it more fully.
I must at least give a few indications as to the nature of these dif-
ferent books.
In 1862 Darwin published his book, “The Various Contrivances
by which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects.” Orchids often exhibit
the most special and diverse adaptations to the visits of insects, and
they help to make clear to us how flowers may have been developed
in all their manifoldness in relation to the needs of their insect
visitors.
In the same year and those following there appeared several
treatises on “ Dimorphism in the Flowers of Primula.” Darwin had
discovered minute differences in the length of the stamens in the
same species, and he demonstrated that these differences are not
mere chance variations, but are adaptations which secure the crossing
of individuals and prevent self-fertilization. He obtained the proof
-of this through many careful experiments.
This was followed, in 1864, by a treatise on “ The Movements and
Habits of Climbing Plants,” showing the different ways in which
they climb—another study in plant adaptations. In 1868 appeared
the great work begun in 1860, “ The Variation of Plants and Animals
under Domestication,” and this book greatly extended and strength-
ened the basis of his theory of selection. The phenomena and laws
of variation and heredity are discussed and illustrated by a wealth
of examples, and the work concludes with a theory of heredity which
he called “ Pangenesis.”
“The Descent of Man” appeared in 1870. Up till that time
Darwin had made no definite pronouncement upon this subject,
though of course he must from the very first have deduced from
the variability of species that man also was a product of evolution.
He now discussed this view in detail in a two-volumed work, which
also contained a fuller treatment of an aspect of the theory of
selection only briefly sketched in “The Origin of Species.” Here
the phenomena of “sexual selection” are traced throughout all the
animal groups in which preferential mating plays a part. The
principle is illustrated by a positively overwhelming mass of detailed
facts, and is shown to have been a factor even in the differentiation
of the sexes in the human race.
Closely associated with this work is the one which followed it in
1872 on “ The Expression of the Emotions in Man and in Animals.”
The birth of Darwin’s first child in 1839 had induced him to record
in a special notebook all his observations on the gradual awakening
of the sensations, and their expression on the features of the child,
for he was convinced that even the most complex and delicate
emotional expressions of man had their natural roots in animals,
CHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 444
just in the same way as the parts of the body and the mental
faculties. For thirty-two years he followed out this idea, experi-
menting, observing, collecting facts, until finally he was able to write
his remarkable and fascinating book, the first English edition of
which consisted of 5,000 copies.
Darwin’s next book appeared in 1875, and this also had been a
long time in course of preparation. In ranging about the country
during a summer holiday in 1860 he had noticed a dainty little plant,
the “sundew ” (Drosera rotundifolia), to the viscous leaves of which |
several small insects were usually found adhering. Many other
collectors had noticed this, because of the difficulty of procuring
a clean specimen for the herbarium. Darwin took a few of the
plants home with him, and soon discovered that certain parts of the
leaves exhibit movement as soon as small insects are brought into
contact with them. This led him to the discovery of “ Insectivorous
Plants,” and his book bearing that title was published fifteen years
later.
In 1876 Darwin published a work on “ Different Forms of Flowers
on Plants of the Same Species,” and in 1880, jointly with his son
Francis, “The Movements of Plants.” Finally, in 1881, the year
before his death, there appeared “The Formation of Vegetable
Mould through the Action of Worms.” This last book, lke some
of the earlier short treatises, had no direct connection with the theory
of evolution, but it illustrates in a very characteristic manner Dar-
win’s eminently scientific mood, which led him to note everything
that seemed unusual or interesting in the most ordinary things, and
to follow it out till it led him on to new discoveries. How many
hundreds of people, and even of naturalists, had seen the little earth-
castings that cover the damper parts of our garden paths on summer
mornings! These are due to earthworms, and are the remains of
the decaying leaves on which they feed. The earthworms cover the
whole land with fertile mold, and through their agency in the course
of time the surface of the ground is raised, and bad soil is trans-
formed into good.
But no one had deemed the phenomenon worthy of attention.*
It is a case parallel with that of the sundew, which hundreds of
botanists had passed by without ever suspecting that the adherence
of the insects was more than a matter of chance.
The fruitful discovery of the “struggle for existence,” too, was
due to this vision of the true naturalist, who sees in what lies before
him much that others pass by unheeding. It was certainly no chance
“Tn regard to the earthworm, I must note that my countryman, Professor
Hensen, the excellent zoologist of Kiel, displayed the same acuteness of obser-
. vation and drew the same conclusions from the castings at the same time as
Darwin did.
448 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
that the “struggle for existence” first revealed itself to men who
had spent the greater part of their lives in the open air; no chance
that it was two travelers ike Darwin and Wallace who first per-
ceived the dependence of one species upon another and the com-
petition between them.
From the little that I have been able to tell you of Darwin’s life
in Down you can gather what a rich, full life it was. You will now
wish to hear something of the man himself and his character.
Unfortunately I never saw him. An affection of the eyes which
has troubled me for forty-five years, and has restricted my activities
in many directions, prevented my traveling to England while Darwin
till lived and was relatively vigorous. Therefore I can not sketch
the impression made by his personality from experience. But we
have a short autobiography which reveals his nature clearly, and in
addition a most detailed and sympathetic picture of him by his son
Francis.
He was tall, nearly 6 feet in height, and his most striking features,
the high forehead, the large, prominent and bushy eyebrows, the
blunt nose, and energetic mouth are well known. No one interested
in Darwin’s personality should fail to read both Francis Darwin’s
account of him¢ and his autobiography. Taken together they give
a picture of the man which could not be more truthful and could
hardly be more complete.
Add to this picture what we can gather from his scientific works,
and especially from the accounts of his journey, and we find that
he had a great and comprehensive mind, concerned in the main with
general conceptions, yet possessing in a high degree the faculty of
becoming sympathetically absorbed in detail. He took pleasure in
small things as in large, and was able alike to study with the most
painstaking minuteness the structural details of a flower or a -crus-
tacean, or to draw far-reaching conclusions from an enormous number
of isolated facts. He possessed the fundamental qualities of a nat-
uralist; great powers of observation and absolute accuracy; the
most extreme caution in judgment is revealed in all his writings,
and his presentment of his ideas is always simple and entirely free
from arrogance or vanity, for a great natural modesty was one of
the main features of his character. But his theories clearly show
that he was not lacking in imagination, for they could never have
been thought out without it. He was not a keen critic, grasping a
thing quickly and illuminating it at once; he was, on the contrary,
rather inclined to take too favorable a view of the work of others,
and had a tendency, by no means very common, to acknowledge the
achievements of strangers, and to take a positive delight in them.
@“Tife and Letters of Charles Darwin, including an Autobiographical Chap-
ter.” Edited by his son, Francis Darwin. London, 1887.
CHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 449
His mind was of the penetrating order which worked persistently at
any problem until he began to see light on it.
He was not concerned with practical aims; he was an idealist who
desired knowledge for its own sake, and not for any utilitarian end;
a naturalist who worked for pleasure in the work itself, and rejoiced
in the advancement of science his work brought about.
He was not lacking in ambition, but it was ambition on a large
scale, not-to gain fame and position, but to create works which
should seem to him worthy. Fame came unsought, and, as he tells
us, 1t was a satisfaction to him to feel that he was held in esteem
by those whom he himself esteemed.
He has sometimes been called an amateur, and in a certain sense
this is true, in as far as he worked in several different scientific
provinces, each of which requires a man’s whole strength. But he
had full command over these different provinces, at least as far as
was necessary for the end he had in view. He was certainly not a
restricted specialist. The zoologists accepted him as a zoologist, the
botanists as a botanist, perhaps also the geologists as a geologist.
But he was not an expert in any, or rather, it would be more correct
to say, he was so wherever he himself had done productive work.
For he was essentially self-taught, and had passed through no nor-
mal school of zoology or botany, but with his great energy and un-
flagging industry he had acquired a profound knowledge from books
and from personal intercourse with specialists, and every piece of
work he did added to this store of knowledge. He was perhaps the
last not merely to survey, but to do productive work in every domain
of biological science. Yet I will not assert this, for we have all been
convinced in recent times through the evolution theory that it is
not enough to be at home in a single science; it is necessary also
to have at least a general acquaintance with the essentials of allied
branches.
Darwin has sometimes been accused of being one-sided, of caring
for nothing but his science. But this was not the case; it is less
true of him than of many specialists in natural science. He had a
wide knowledge of English literature, Milton and Shakespeare hav-
ing been his favorite reading in his youth. In later life he had
novels, historical works, and books of travel read aloud to him every
day. He was fond of music, too, though, as we have said, he had no
musical ear.
Darwin was a man not only of lofty, noble spirit, but of the
tenderest feeling. Let anyone who doubts this read the touching
pages in memory of his little daughter Annie, who died young;
they form one of the most beautiful memorials ever dedicated by a
father to his child. His son’s picture of him, too, reveals the beauti-
ful and intimate relations that prevailed between them, and the whole
450 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
quiet and joyous life of the Darwin family testifies to the cheerful
and affectionate disposition of its head. :
It remains to estimate the influence of Darwin’s theories on his
time and on the future. But this is a task for which a whole book
would not be too much, and a task, moreover, which could be better
accomplished on the two hundredth than on the one hundredth
anniversary of his birth.
We can at least say, however, that the influence was a great and
many-sided one, and that it will endure throughout all time. All
who know the position of science before 1859 will be ready to admit
this; the younger generation have grown up so thoroughly under
the influence of Darwin’s ideas that it must be difficult for them to
realize the state of matters before his day.
Let us speak of biology first. But was there a biology then?
Strictly speaking, there was not; there was a zoology, botany, and
even anthropology. Each of these sciences consisted of a very large
- and well-arranged mass of facts, but with no intrinsic coherence
among them. This was supplied by the theory of evolution. The
different departments of science were not even then regarded as
complete; it was well known that there were many gaps in our
knowledge, but we were only seeking for missing details, whereas
in reality it was the main thing that was lacking—the unifying idea
which Goethe had sought for, and tried to supply in his theories of
the plant prototype, and of the skull.
The science of embryology, or, as we now call it, ontogenesis, at
that time consisted of a great number of observations, interesting
enough, but without any recognized unity; 1t was not a harmonious
structure, but a collection of finely-cut building stones. But what
a change when the luminous idea of evolution was added! Life
seemed to be infused into the stones, and almost spontaneously they
formed a magic edifice. The ovum, now at last recognized as a
cell, was seen to be a reminiscence of the descent of all higher
animals from unicellular organisms; rudimentary organs, such as the
rudimentary eyes of blind cave animals, were found to be signposts
indicating the racial history of these animals, and pointing back to
their sight-endowed ancestors. This evolutionary view illuminated
the whole science, and not embryology alone, but also “ compara-
tive anatomy,” the understanding of the structure of animals. It
became plain why the New Zealand kiwi should have little rudimen-
tary wings under its skin, although it does not fly. It is not in order
that it may conform to an ideal of a bird, as was previously thought,
but because its ancestors had possessed wings which were used in
flight.
Physiology also gained much, especially the theory of reproduc-
tion, of heredity, of organs, of the cell, and especially of the cell
CHARLES DARWIN—WEISMANN. 451
nucleus. I do not mean to say that ali these were the direct result
of the idea of evolution, but they have an indirect connection with it.
Anthropology gained quite a new interest after it was recognized
that man, too, was a product of evolution. A vast number of prob-
lems presented themselves; it was necessary to investigate the gradual
becoming not only of the body but of the mind, the evolution of
the Psyche and all that flows from it. Before that time there had
been a history of language, of law, of religion, of art, and so on,
but 1t now became necessary to carry these further back—beyond
Adam and Eve to the animal ancestors. Undoubtedly a study of
the psychology of animals is one of the essential tasks of the future!
I can here only give a few hints without elaborating them, but I
must emphasize the fact that the idea of evolution, in the form in
which Darwin presented it to us, has given an impulse to new life
and further development in every department of human knowledge
and thought; everywhere it acts as the yeast in cider—it sets up
fermentation. This has already borne rich fruit, and we may hope
for much more in the future.
Our greatest gain from the theory of evolution has, however, been
the evidence it affords of the unity of nature, the knowledge that the
organic world must be referred back to the same great everlasting
laws which govern the inorganic world and determine its course.
Even if formal proof of this be still wanting, the probability is now
so strong that we can no longer doubt it.
It is not only the theory of evolution as a whole, but the active
principle in it, the principle of selection, that is transforming and
illuminating all our old conceptions. It is teaching us to understand
the struggle, silent or clamant, among human races, their rivalry for
the possession of the earth, and to understand, too, the composition
of human society, the unconsicious division of labor among the
members, and the formation of associations. The development of
“classes” and their union in a State appears in a new light when
looked at from this point of view. In this department a good deal
has been already accomplished.
The study of human health must be particularly influenced by the
theory of evolution, and a beginning has already been made in this
department also.
But there is another and very important point in regard to which
the theory, of selection must be our guide. If we take a survey of
the evolution of the world of life as we know it, we see that, on the
whole, it has been an ascending evolution, beginning with the lowest
organisms and advancing through higher and higher to the highest
of all, man himself. It must be admitted that at certain stages in
this evolutionary series we find retrograde steps (as, for instance,
452 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
parasites and sedentary animals), but on the whole the direction of
evolution has been an ascending one.
I see no ground for assuming that this will be otherwise in the
future. According to the principle of selection the best will survive
in the future as in the past, and mankind will ascend. I do not
believe we are likely to undergo any essential changes in a crude
physical sense; we are not likely to grow wings, and even our mental
powers may not be capable of much further improvement, but ethical
improvement seems to me not only possible but probable, on the
principle of selection. Mankind will never consist of wholly selfless
saints, but the number of those who act in accordance with the ideals
of a purer, higher humanity, in whom the care for others and for
the whole will limit care for self, will, it is my belief, increase with
time, and lead to higher religions, higher ethical conceptions, as it
has already done within the period of human existence known to us.
But here again I can only indicate without following out my ideas.
_I wished to express them, because the principle of selection has so
often been applied in an inverted sense, as if the brutal and animal
must ultimately gain the ascendency in man. The contrary seems
to me to be true, for it is the mind, not the body, that is decisive in
the selection of the human race.
Thus we see the principle of evolution intervening, transforming,
re-creating in every department of human life, and thought, and
endeavor. Weowe this principle, which has been so fruitful in results,
mainly to Charles Darwin, though he was not the only one nor the
first to think it out. But it was he, with Wallace, who secured it its
place in science and made it a common possession of mankind by
working it out in all directions, and supporting it with another prin-
ciple, that of selection, which explains the riddle of the automatic
origin of what is suited to its purpose in nature. Thus he cleared
away the obstacle which would otherwise have stood in the way of
the acceptance of the theory of evolution.
By all this he has earned enduring fame in the annals of science.
His own country has not been ungrateful to him. A colossal statue
of him in marble decorates the British Museum; from the background
of the entrance hall he looks down on the passers-by with the calmness
of the sage. His mortal remains lhe in Westminster Abbey beside
those of Newton.
Fate, too, was kind to him. He could truly say that his life was a
happy one, for it was filled with a great idea, and he was Supported
by the consciousness that Goethe expresses through his Faust: “ Es
kann die Spur von meinen Erdentagen nicht in Aeonen untergehen.”
This is true of Darwin, and we may think of him as one of the great
immortals among men.
PRESENT PROBLEMS IN PLANT ECOLOGY :* PROBLEMS
OF LOCAL DISTRIBUTION IN ARID REGIONS.?
By Prof. VotNry M. SPALDING,
Desert Botanical Laboratory.
The physical conditions prevailing in arid regions are such as
render it unsafe to admit without further investigation generaliza-
tions regarding their plant life which have been drawn from studies
conducted elsewhere. This is sufficient justification of an attempt to
analyze certain problems which confront the student of desert ecology
in his efforts to apply knowledge or principles drawn from previous
experience. These problems have the advantage of a certain clear-
ness of definition, which corresponds in a way with the sharp features
of the desert and its characteristic vegetation. Their solution may
involve great difficulties, and some of them, with our present methods,
may be incapable of solution, but they are, at all events, capable of
clear statement.
In the attempt to present such a statement, which may or may not
prove successful, I shall for the present limit the discussion to the
desert country of the southwestern United States, for the sufficient
reason that my own studies have been conducted in that region; and
IT shall omit all consideration of the higher elevations of the moun-
tains, which, though in the desert, are not of it; so that whatever is
said at this time will be understood to apply to the floor of the desert,
that is, the great plateaus and valleys which from Texas to California
lie between the mountain peaks and ranges, together with the long
slopes and low hills which border them on every hand and form the
natural approach to the mountains.
Proceeding in a manner that will be indirectly a record of personal
experience, one of the first questions presented to a student of desert
botany is this: What are the conditions that determine the successful
occupation of a desert habitat by certain plants, but prevent its
occupation by others?
4A series of papers presented before the Botanical Society of America, at the
Baltimore meeting, by invitation of the council.
> Reprinted by permission from The. American Naturalist, vol. 48, No. 512,
August, 1909.
453
454 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
It will be necessary at the outset to understand what is meant by a
desert habitat, since on this point the popular conception—and _pos-
sibly that of some botanists—is not clear. There is as much differ-
ence between habitats in the desert as in any other region, possibly
more, and their definiteness of location and relative sharpness of
demarcation form one of the most striking and characteristic features
of arid regions. The rivers of the valley trough, such as the Santa
Cruz, the Gila and Salt rivers in Arizona, though inconstant, are none
the less the main drainage channels between the adjacent watersheds.
Along their banks water-loving willows, cotton woods, and arrow
weed find a congenial home. The adjacent flood plain, with its water
table within reach of their roots, is the natural habitat of the mesquite
and some other semimesophytic species. Within its limits the areas
known as salt spots are inhabited by various halophytes, especially
by species of Atriplex and Sueda. Just beyond the flood plain is
the long slope, a most characteristic feature of desert topography,
- which rises slowly to the foot of the mountains, often miles away,
its soil and drainage conditions presenting a sharp contrast to those
of the flood plain, and its vegetation being correspondingly different.
The low outlying hills, in their turn, present quite as marked pecu-
harities of soil, and furthermore introduce differences of aspect which
are correlated with marked differences of vegetation. In short, the
habitats of such a desert region as that of southern Arizona, as far
as edaphic relations are concerned, present conditions which vary all
the way from distinctly hydrophytic to extreme xerophytic, and all
these may be in close proximity.
For all these habitats the fact is to be emphasized that the general
climatic conditions are the same, and it is important to note that
not a few of the plants which grow where a sufficient or even abundant
water supply is assured are nevertheless marked, as a rule, as plants
of an arid region by their coriaceous, hairy or otherwise xerophilous
leaf structure. The point to be specially noted here is that while
plants of the arid or semiarid southwest grow in a great variety of
habitats, some of which are by no means dry, all are subject to the
severe conditions of a desert climate, especially intense insolation,
low percentage of atmospheric moisture, and drying winds. The
problem, therefore, of the occupation of any one of these habitats is
successfully met only by those plants that are already adapted, or
are capable of individual adjustment to the dry air and hot sun in
which they must live; all others inevitably fail.
This will be made clear by reference to the introduction, or
attempted introduction, of various cultivated plants, a subject which
presents a most instructive history. The yards of Arizona cities
constitute an experiment station in which year by year, at private
instead of public expense, the availability of one species after another
PLANTS IN ARID REGIONS—SPALDING. 455
for desert planting is being determined. From the great number of
plants successfully cultivated there seems, at first sight, to be suf-
ficient justification for the reiterated assertion that anything will
grow here if you only give it water enough, but closer attention to
the actual facts of the case makes it evident that this statement is
true only in part, and that there are many plants that will grow only
indifferently or not at all under the atmospheric conditions which
prevail here, especially in the summer time. To give a few ex-
amples, geraniums, the universal easily raised plants of moister
regions, are very uncertain, some varieties accommodating them-
selves fairly well to the desert air, while others fail altogether.
Cannas and gladiol, which grow side by side in the east, part com-
pany here, the former making a good growth in Arizona Paeiens the
latter eee altogether. Tina who have handled roses for a period
of years have learned what varieties may be expected to do well in
the dry air of the desert, and what ones may be counted out, and so
on through a long list of plants which, by knowledge gained in the
costly school of experience, are coming to be depended on, or are being
rejected one after another, as they are found to be unsuited to the
environment into which they have been brought. Thus, in a purely
empirical way, it has been found that many plants successfully cul-
tivated in regions of greater atmospheric humidity make an entirely
normal growth in the desert, if their roots are well supplied with
water, but that others, however well cared for in this respect, either
fail completely, or come short of making a healthy growth, and that
this is especially true in the summer months when desert conditions
are most pronounced.
With the accumulation of such facts the more evident does it
become that a very complicated problem is here presented. Why is
it that one plant, properly watered, does well in the desert, while
another, though treated in the same way, makes a poor growth or
fails altogether? At first thought it would seem as though there
must be a difference in the capacity of the root systems of the two
plants for absorption, and that this may be a sufficient explanation
of their different behavior; but it is evident on consideration, that
with precisely the same capacity for root absorption, a plant in
which transpiration is successfully regulated may thrive in an
atmosphere in which one subject to excessive transpiration will
perish. The most elaborate experiments and the most exact deter-
minations of rate of absorption—assuming that such determinations
are possible—would be very likely to throw no light on the problem.
Comparisons of the transpiration rate of the plants in question
appear more promising, but the same difficulty arises in an attempt
to pursue the investigation along this line, for there is no reason to
suppose that two plants of widely different rates of transpiration
45745°—sm 1909——3@
456 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
can not successfully occupy the same habitat if their capacity for
root absorption differs in the same ratio. But supposing that with
infinite patience and with a reasonable approach to accuracy both
sets of physiological data have been determined, we are still, quite
possibly, entirely in the dark as to the real cause of the different
behavior of the plants under investigation. It may be in their case
that the whole matter of absorption, conduction, and transpiration
is beside the mark, and that certain plants can not succeed in the
desert because the intense insolation exerts directly a prejudicial
influence to which they have not become inured. The intricate
nature of the subject is apparent, and it is also evident that there is
little encouragement for any one to take it up who has not had
extended training and thorough equipment for physiological re-
search. Yet with all its difficulties the problem is an attractive one,
and the abundance of material to be had in any desert city, together
with the great mass of data that has accumulated in the hands of
horticulturists and at the experiment stations, offers the best of
opportunities for extended and fruitful work.
If, as we have seen, the different deportment in the desert of plants
growing, or having the opportunity to grow, side by side in well-
watered ground, is an exceedingly complicated matter, by how much
are the difficulties increased when we pass from a habitat of uniform
and highly favorable conditions to the various and often extremely
trying conditions which prevail in different neighboring habitats,
such as the dry slopes underlaid by caliche, the salt spots, and others.
Tf the case of a plant growing in well-watered soil may become des-
perate because of the scorching winds or the intense insolation to
which its top is exposed, what hope is there for one that essays to
grow where both dry air and dry soil present the supreme test of
endurance? As a matter of fact only relatively few species meet
the test successfully, yet there are some that do, and they present
some of the most instructive data yet derived from the study of
desert plants. |
But little reflection is needed to arrive at the conclusion that the
classical question regarding the relative importance of physical con-
stitution and chemical composition of the substratum to plant
growth—though like the poor it promises to be always with us—does
not and can-not reach the heart of the problem. For every plant
which successfully holds its place in a true desert habitat there is a
delicate balancing of the regulation of transpiration, the power of
absorption, the capacity of the conducting system, the presence or
absence of storage tissues, and, we may well believe, the possession of
protoplasmic properties which contribute to its powers of endurance.
This being the case, it would seem that in future, investigations of the
habitat relations, of desert species especially, must be directed mainly
PLANTS IN ARID REGIONS—SPALDING. A457
to the plant itself. The advantage of a thorough knowledge of soils
is too obvious to call for comment, but it must be remembered that we
are as yet only at the threshold of a greater and more promising work;
namely, the investigation of the physiological requirements and capa-
bilities of plants that can grow in a true desert habitat as compared
with those that can not. In such comparative study lies, as it seems,
the hope of real progress. It is impracticable for any investigator
at the present time to mark out a straight path for others to pursue,
and it would very properly be regarded as an impertinence were he
to attempt this; yet there are certain obvious suggestions that may be
offered.
In the first place, important results have already followed the
simplest experiments and observations when these have been con-
ducted with exactness and with a definite end in view. To refer to
a specific case, Professor Thornber, of the University of Arizona,
undertook a few years ago to compare the habits of certain desert
plants as regards germination. It was found that while the seeds of
some species germinated at a given temperature, others could not be
made to do so until they had been subjected to temperatures approach-
ing the freezing point. These latter were seeds of winter annuals,
and by this method a fundamental physiological difference between
them and the summer annuals was established. Doubtless an in-
definite amount of instructive and necessary work remains to be done
in this direction, but the key to the situation was found in carrying
out the simple experiments described. Again, partly as a relief from
severer work, Doctor Cannon undertook, in the midst of his investi-
gations at the Desert Laboratory, to map the distribution in the soil
of the roots of some of the plants growing in the vicinity. Hardly
was the work well in hand, and the root topography of less than half
a dozen species mapped, when it was found that the clue to certain
facts of distribution, blindly observed up to that time, had been dis-
covered. I have spoken of this in more detail in another connection.
Obviously it is indispensable that determination of physiological
data and of those belonging to the physical environment should pro-
ceed step by step together; and nowhere is this more strikingly true
than in the investigation of soil relations. To refer to one more case
of recent experience, within the past year Doctor Livingston has
determined the percentage of soil moisture present in soils obtained
from each of the topographic areas of the Desert Laboratory domain
and the adjacent flood plain of the Santa Cruz River. His studies
were conducted independently, though naturally not in ignorance of
ecological studies which were being carried out at the same time on
the same ground. It now appears that a well-nigh perfect cor-
respondence exists between the two sets of facts obtained by inde-
pendent workers, so perfect, in truth, that a causal relation offers
458 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the only satisfactory explanation. The accumulation of physical
data, however, has proceeded so far and so satisfactorily that the
successful conduct of this line of investigation may be regarded as
assured, but for the plant the relations are more. complicated, and
their investigation correspondingly more difficult. It seems likely
that in the study of ecological relations from the side of the plant
we shall employ more and more the methods and conceptions of
physics and mathematics, but the fact is too patent to call for argu-
ment that neither now nor hereafter can these methods and concep-
tions be employed exclusively. In fact there has never been greater
need than at the present time for exact observation coupled with
correct judgment, and these can never be replaced or superseded so
long as this department of botanical investigation continues to be
cultivated. This will receive additional emphasis in the following
division of the present paper.
The relations of desert plants to each other present a chapter the
‘importance of which has been unduly minimized until the general
impression, even among botanists, seems to be that desert plants are
to be studied only in relation to their physical environment; they are
thought to grow so far apart, in “open” associations, that they are
quite uninfluenced by each other’s presence. Like other erroneous
or incomplete conceptions, this may be true in part, especially where
the most extreme desert conditions prevail, as for example in parts
of the Colorado or Mojave deserts, but in the great semiarid region
of the Southwest, taken as a whole, it is most misleading. The
Desert Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution was located where it
stands on account of the great natural advantages which the region
and locality offer for the study of desert plants in place, yet I venture
the assertion that over at least nine-tenths of the area of the labora-
tory domain the establishment of a plant in the place which it occu-
pies is conditioned quite as certainly by the influence of other plants
as by that of the physical environment. It hardly needs more than
simple observation to convince one that severe competition is the
rule, though naturally its severity is heightened and the result
hastened by the prevailing adverse physical conditions.
Beginning with some of the most obvious cases, the winter annuals
of southern Arizona present an instance of as unmistakable competi-
tion of individuals with individuals and species with species as can be
found in the eastern forest region of the United States. As the
warmth of spring follows the winter rains the ground is thickly car-
peted with Amsinckia, Pectocarya, Bowlesia, and various other her-
baceous plants, which stand thick together and present to the eye the
familiar crowding which is seen in a field of grain too thickly sown.
Certain individuals dwindle and finally die, robbed of water, food, and
light by their stronger competitors. It might be interesting to repeat
PLANTS IN ARID REGIONS—SPALDING. 459
the experiment in the laboratory and to tabulate the results statisti-
cally, but it could hardly add to the conclusiveness of the demonstra-
tion. The same is true of the manifest competition of species with
species, as seen for example in the occupation of relatively extended
areas by some of the perennial grasses which, but for their presence,
would certainly be covered, as the adjacent areas are, by a thick growth
of other plants. Here the actual advance of the grasses from year to
year may be observed, and such observations for the sake of more
definite statement are now in progress on the Desert Laboratory
domain. Convincing evidence of competition is thrust upon one’s
attention in passing from the desert to areas beyond its borders, and
if the transition is abrupt, as for example on the western edge of the
Salton Basin, where the desert abuts almost upon a mountain wall,
the case is all the more striking. In this instance a straight course
of less than 5 miles brings one from the actual desert, with its char-
acteristic sparse growth of salt bushes, creosote bush, galleta grass,
and the like, to the chaparral of the mountain side. Along the way
the desert species fall out one by one, and are replaced by elements
of the chaparral. As far as can be judged by their habits elsewhere
and from their known range in altitude, there is absolutely no reason
for this, except their inability to compete with plants of the cha-
parral, which, however incapable of normal development in the
desert, hold their own ground where the conditions are less strenuous
so tenaciously and completely that the desert species make no head-
way against them.
This, of course, is an interpretation merely, but with such an
accumulation of evidence we are now in a position to proceed with
the problem along definite lines with the expectation of definite
results. Sowing together seeds of desert and other plants, the trans-
ference of individuals to denuded areas beyond their natural limits,
and multiplied comparative observations of the deportment of dif-
ferent species on the “edge of the desert” are simple and obvious
methods of procedure at the outset. Some of this work has already
been done, enough to convince those engaged in it that in general the
problem of the successful occupation of a desert habitat involves the
recognition of actual competition on the part of its would-be occupants,
a competition severe enough in some quarters to set up a barrier be-
yond which, in the midst of otherwise entirely favorable environ-
mental conditions, they can not pass.
In their relations to each other, desert plants frequently exhibit
not merely competition but accommodation. This has been clearly
shown by recent studies of the root systems of certain cacti and other
plants by Dr. W. A. Cannon. To take a striking example, superficial
observation of the association of the sahuaro (Cereus giganteus)
with one of the palo verdes (Parkinsonia microphylla) and some
460 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
other shrubby perennials gives no satisfactory clue to the reason of
this relation, and the common explanation that they are plants of
similar biological requirements, and therefore grow together, is
altogether inadequate and in part misleading. The careful study,
however, that has been given to the root systems of these plants
brings out the important fact that they grow close together by virtue
of simple accommodation, which enables them to utilize to the utmost
the scanty rainfall. The roots of the sahuaro are spread just beneath
the surface of the ground, where they take up and promptly pass on
to the storage cells of the trunk the water brought to them by every
light rain. The roots of the palo verde, on the other hand, extend
much more deeply into the ground, and are in a position to utilize
the water which soaks down to lower levels after heavier rains. Thus
the sahuaro profits by all rains, hght and heavy alike, while its con-
stant companion, the palo verde, is free from all competition on its
_part for the water which penetrates to lower levels. Much the same
thing is seen on the flood plain of the Santa Cruz and other rivers,
where the mesquite, with its deep roots reaching to the water table, is
associated with Bigelowia and other plants, the roots of which extend
to relatively shallow depths. In short, it appears that just as in a
tropical forest the vegetation occupies successive “ stories,” so here the
root systems of various plants habitually reach to different depths,
and thus enable at least some species that would otherwise compete
with each other to live in close and advantageous association.
From what has been said it is evident that in the successful occupa-
tion of a desert habitat the mutual relations of the associated species
play a highly important part. It is not quite easy at this stage of
progress to point out the exact steps by which these complicated re-
lations are to be determined and estimated; meantime the homely and
effectual method of patiently gathering the data that are obtainable
by careful observation is open, and as far as it has been pursued has
yielded valuable results.
The broad general problem of the local distribution of desert plants
is necessarily approached along the several lines that have been
indicated. As we have seen, atmospheric conditions, whether of
intense insolation or extreme dryness, that obtain in arid regions are
limiting factors which many plants successfully meet, but to which
many others succumb. There has been great need of more practical
methods of determining and estimating the influence of atmospheric
factors, and it is a matter of congratulation that the methods devised
by one of the participants in this discussion, already widely in use in
different parts of the United States, promise to meet this need to a
degree that could not be hoped for at an earlier period. But it is
never to be forgotten that under the same atmospheric conditions, and
with equal chances in other respects, the deportment of two plants side
PLANTS IN ARID REGIONS—SPALDING. 461
by side, their capacity for adjustment, let us say, is so different that
the essential problem lies first of all in the physiological capabilities
of the plant itself.
More strikingly true, if possible, is this seen to be the case when
the relation of desert plants to the soil is considered. It is well that
so much soil work has been done; that we have soil maps; that de-
terminations of water capacity and other physical as well as chemical
characteristics have been ascertained in so many habitats, and that
we have a growing literature embodying observations of the relations
of plants to underlying rocks; in short, that the substratum has been
the object of so long and so thorough study. ‘There is no danger that
we shall have too much of this, but there may be danger that we may
sometimes forget to place the emphasis where it belongs, namely, on
the fact that every species and every variety of plant is a law to itself
in its relations to rock or soil. It is true enough that the different
percentages of alkali salts at different distances from the center of a
salt spot stand apparently in causal relation to the growth of different
plants in corresponding concentric zones, but it is equally true that
this zonal arrangement is also the visible expression of the capacity
of these different plants to cope with the conditions there existing,
and of this capacity, if it is to be expressed, as some day it must, in
physical measurements, how inadequate is our knowledge. How
greatly we need to really know the physiological constants, not of
one but of many desert plants.
It is in the same line of thought and with the same purpose that I
have referred to the inadequate conception according to which the
relations of desert plants to each other have been so persistently over-
looked, or, at least, underestimated. It may now be set down as an
established fact that over a large part of the arid or semiarid terri-
tory of the southwest, competition on the one hand and accommoda-
tion on the other have much to do with the association of plant species
and the density of the plant cover. Far more, it would seem, than
has usually been thought, the character of various associations in this
region is determined not simply by the physical, but also by the living
environment. More than ever, too, it is plain that the path of prog-
ress lies in the direction of applying to the plant itself, in its natural
surroundings, the experimental methods of the physical laboratory.
Notable and fruitful beginnings have been made in this direction,
but one who has attempted quantitative work with the sahuaro or
ocotillo in the open need not be told that it involves difficulties not
presented by seedlings of Vicia faba grown in pots, and that prog-
ress will necessarily be slow.
Thus far adjustment and adaptation have not directly entered into
the discussion, although a moment’s thought shows that all the paths
along which we have come converge right here. If one variety of
462 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
geranium flourishes in the desert air, while another by its side dwin-
dles and dies, we can only say at present that the latter is not
“adapted,” or is apparently incapable of “ adjustment ” to the atmos-
pheric conditions in which it has been placed. We find that plants
growing in the wash near the Desert Laboratory do not, as a rule,
succeed in gaining a foothold on the long slope leading to the hill
near by; they are not adapted to the soil conditions there existing;
but the creosote bush, which makes its home on these slopes, grows—
thanks to its capacity of adjustment, even more luxuriantly in the
wash than on its own domain. Similarly, certain plants of the salt
spots grow better beyond than within their limits; they have become
adapted to large percentages of alkali salts, but their capacity of
adjustment is such that they grow just as well or better along an
irrigating ditch carrying fresh water. Various other plants in the
immediate neighborhood have not become adapted to the conditions
prevailing in the salt spots, nor do they appear capable of adjust-
ment to them, and accordingly are not found growing in such places.
We need not multiply citations of these familiar cases. Adapta-
tion and adjustment have long been words to conjure with, out of
the desert as well as in it, but we have made so little real scientific
progress in the definition and determination of the things for which
they stand that some of our foremost students of ecology seem ready
to abandon the effort, while others apologize when they use the terms,
as if they were myths and had better be left alone. But nothing is
gained, and much may be lost, by this method of procedure. We are
face to face with a great body of phenomena of the most striking
character, in connection with which these words are fittingly em-
ployed. We can not ignore the existence of the facts, and as scien-
tific men we can not let them alone, while they insistently rise at
every turn in our pathway and demand investigation. True it is
that they bring in their train whatever is fundamental in biological
inquiry—heredity, the direct influence of the environment, and differ-
ences in the properties of protoplasm in different plants. It is not
customary, howéver, in laboratories worthy of the name, to shun
investigations that approach to the deep mysteries of life. There is
every reason why students of ecological problems should seek, not
shun, this difficult but hopeful line of study. I say hopeful advisedly,
for within the past three years there have come under my observation
various definite cases of adjustment in plants, some of which have
been accurately measured, correlated with external factors, and ex-
pressed by curves. Though essentially more difficult, there is no
reason, as far as now appears, why the different degrees of adaptation
of two species or varieties to a given external factor may not be simi-
larly determined and graphically represented, as the expression of a
definite difference of physiological activity, as shaped by heredity, in
PLANTS IN ARID REGIONS—SPALDING. 463
relation to that particular factor. Very little, as far as I am aware,
has yet been accomplished in this direction, but it is a way that is
wide open, and one that should attract those real investigators who,
knowing difficulties, do not shrink from them.
We have considered in a way far from exhaustive some of the
problems which specially interest the student of desert ecology, but
which in their broader relations are not confined within geographical
limits. In the efforts now being directed toward their solution the
trend, as it appears to the writer, is not so much away from any
previous form of thought or method as toward the wise and persist-
ent use of every means that promises results. Progress is certainly
being made in the direction of greater exactness; we are learning
something of the possibilities of well-directed cooperation; and in
these and other ways in which “science returns to the obvious,” to
use the apt words of Francis Darwin, is an encouraging promise for
the future.
THE INSTINCT OF SELF-CONCEALMENT AND THE
CHOICE OF COLORS IN THE CRUSTACEA.
By RomuaLpD MINKIEWICZ.
(Translated by permission from Revue générale des Sciences pures et ap-
pliquées, Paris, 20th year, No. 3, February 15, 1909.)
‘
In the following pages I shall give a brief though sufficiently de-
tailed account of the results of my investigations carried on since
1903, which have already afforded material for a long series of pub-
lications.¢ This series, beginning with a short article that I published
(in Polish) in 1905, in a weekly scientific review at Warsaw (Przy-
roda= Nature), is yet, however, far from being finished.
I. THE SELF-DISGUISING ANIMALS.
Although I am the first seriously to undertake this study, the
strange phenomenon of self-concealment has in a general way long
been known. I am not considering here animals recently discovered
@R. Minkiewicz: (1) Krab-ogrodnik. Rev. polonaise, Preyroda, vol. 2, No. 10,
Varsovie (mars 1905).
(2) Sur le chromotropisme et son inversion artificielle. Comptes Rendus Ac.
Se. Paris, t. 143, No. 21 (nov. 1906).
(3) Le role des phénoménes chromotropiques dans l’étude des problémes bio-
logiques et psychophysiologiques. C. R., t. 148, No. 238 (déc. 1906).
(4) Chropotropism and phototropism. (Translation of the two preceding
notes.) Journ. of Neurology and Comparative Physiology, vol. 17, No. 1 (1907).
(5) Analyse expérimentale de l’instinct de déguisement chez les Brachyures
oxyrhynques. Arch. de Zool. expériment. et génér., 1907 (4), vol. 7, No. 2.
(6) Préba analizy instynktu metoda objektywna : por6wnawczai déswiadczaina,
Revue polonaise de Philosophie, vol. 10, fase. 3-4, et vol. 11, fase. 1-2, Var-
sovie (1907-8).
(7) L’étendue des changements possibles de coleur de VHippolyte varians
Leach. C. R., t. 147, No. 20 (nov. 1908).
(8) Etude expérimentale du synchromatisme variable de l’Hippolyte varians
Leach. Bull. internat. de ?Académie Polonaise de Cracovie (noy. 1908).
(9) Sur le chlorotropisme normal des Pagures. C. R., t. 147 (nov. 1908).
(10) L’apparition rythmique et les stades de passage de l’inversion expéri-
mentale du chlorotropisme des Pagures, C. R., t. 147 (déc, 1908).
465
466 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
or unfamiliar; on the contrary, many people, including the bathers on
the Breton coast, are acquainted with the creatures that I am going
to discuss, which are commonly
called by the name of sea-spiders.
These self-disguising Crustacea,
although they belong exclusively
to the rather restricted group of
Brachyura Oayrhyncha, are very
common, not only along all the
European coasts (of the Mediterra-
nean, the English Channel and the
Fic. 1.—Disposition of the dorsal hooks
in Maja verrucosa M. Edw. (Only Fic. 2.—Second left foot, outer side.
the right side is completely drawn.) (Hyas araneus L.)
Atlantic as far as Spitzbergen and Greenland), but also along the
coasts of the Far East and southern Asia (Japan, Celebes, Java,
Bengal, India, etc.), in the Pacific along the coasts of Tasmania,
Australia, and New Zealand, and along the coasts of
of South America (Peru, Chile, Cuba, Brazil, etc.).
Of this group there are more than 70 species be-
longing to 38 genera and 4 families.
These Crusta-
Fig. 3.—Group of
hooks on a dorsal cea, ay. h 2 S e
tubercle. (Hyas strange habits
as impressed me
forcibly during the very interest-
ing dredging that we did in the
vicinity of the Balearic Islands on
board the Roland, of the Arago
Laboratory during the month of FG: 4.—Vertical section made through a
; : aos dorsal hook and the adjacent parts of
August, 1903, form a quite distinct the carapace. Beds of chitin, chitog-
group, possessing extraordinary enous epithelium and conjunction tis-
: : : sue. (Hyas coarctatus Leach.)
morphological adaptations which
are not found elsewhere. A Swedish naturalist, Carl Aurivillius, has
made an elaborate study of these adaptations, and it is from his work
that I have taken the few drawings here reproduced (figs. 1-7).
* The list published by C. Aurivillius gives only 66 species, but it is far from
complete, not containing, for example, a form so common as Maja squinado
Latreille.
°C. Aurivillius: Die Maskirung der Oxyrrhynchen Dekapoden durch beson-
dere Anpassungen ihres Kérperbaues vermittelt. Hine biologisch-morphologische
Studie. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., bd. 23, Stockholm (1889).
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 467
Of this entire group I personally know in life 14 species belong-
ing to the genera Stenorynchus, Inachus, Acanthonyx, Maja, Pisa,
and Lambrus. But although I have made observations on several
different species, I shall speak in this article of only two, both
belonging to the genus Maja Lamarck (d/. verrucosa Milne-Edwards
and MW. squinado Uatreille), species very closely
allied and with identical habits.
Il. THE SELF-CONCEALMENT OF THE CRABS.
With reference to Hyas araneus Linneus, a
species of the family Majid, the process of con-
cealment has been very accurately described by
Carl Aurivillius. It is almost identical with that
of the species of J/aja, which is described below:
Having found an alga (of any kind, red, brown,
or green, depending upon circumstances), the crab
seizes it with its long, slender claws, puts it first
Fie. 5.—Left claw
recurved on the
into its mouth, and, while holding it by one end
with its maxillipeds, begins to tear it to pieces
with its two claws, one drawing it toward its cara-
pace, the other pushing it away.
back of the animal
and scraping the
hooks of the last
group of the upper
left line. (Hyas
araneus L.)
When a piece, the size and form of which may
vary indefinitely, has once been cut off, the crab pushes it with
one of its claws between its maxillipeds and whirls it around
several times, acting as if it were its prey—a mussel or a piece of
fish.
After having rumpled it, it takes it again with one of its claws
(indifferently with the left or the right), then extends the claw
forward as far as possible, and,
after making a rotary motion,
bends it around over its back¢
and proceeds to affix the alba upon
a group of dorsal hooks, rostral,
branchial, ete., moving the claw
slightly back and forth until the
alga hooks on. Sometimes it at-
taches it on the outer surface of
the ambulatory feet, which are
similarly provided with hooks, by flexing the foot and bending it
under the ventral face of the carapace.
I have more than once shown this operation to my fellow-laborers
in the laboratories of Villefranche-sur-Mer and of Roscoff.
Fie. 6.—Right claw curved under the
ventral surface of the animal toward
the branchial hooks of the left side.
(H. araneus L.)
“This movement is seen only in the crabs under consideration.
468 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The proceedings are the same if the crabs are furnished with
sponges, hydroids, or compound ascidians instead of alge. If they
do not find living material they content themselves with débris, with
pieces of the carapace of dead Crustacea, with shells—in fact, with
anything that they may find, paper, rags, threads, ete.
The species which we dredged on board the Roland having come
from different bottoms and different depths, varied correspondingly
in their method of disguise, especially in regard to color; and it is
this very fact which suggested to me the idea of undertaking some
investigations in regard to the question
of the relation between the color of the
covering and that of the environment.
The material suitable for these ex-
periments I found indicated in this pas-
sage by M. Hermann Fol:¢
I tried once to take away from it (Maja)
all the weeds it might have taken for cut-
tings, and to give it instead bits of hay and
of white paper. It conscientiously stuck on
its back these objects, which could only serve
to make it still more conspicuous than if it
had put nothing there at all.
Fic. 7—The same movement seen | decided, therefore, to use colored
from the ventral side. (AH. a i 5
ee, oe ee paper, and employed a fine paper called
papier de sole.
The crabs behaved in regard to this material just as if it had been
an Ulva (U. lactura Linneus).
III. HXPERIMENTS MADE IN AN ENVIRONMENT OF VARIABLE COLOR.
§ 1. THE COVERING FOLLOWING THE ENVIRONMENT.
The best preparation for experiments, of which I have made hun-
dreds, is the following: :
In an aquarium constructed entirely of glass, the bottom and the
sides to a certain height are covered with colored paper pasted to
cardboard, so that too much light may not pass through, as the
crabs have a strongly marked negative phototropism; they are photo-
phobes, in the psychological language of Vitus Graber and others;
that is to say, they avoid the direct light, as well as fire screens and
light places. There are then placed in the aquarium a few thor-
oughly cleaned crabs, not more than two or three, and some pieces
of two kinds of papier de soie—one the same color as the environ-
ment and the other any different color, no matter what. The shape,
74H. Fol; Linstinct et Vintelligence. Rev. Scient., 3° série, No. 7 (1886).
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 469
the size of the pieces of paper, and their quantity must be absolutely
identical for the two colors, so that all the conditions will be exactly
the same and no secondary influence may vitiate the result.
For the same reason, the pieces should not be so large or so numer-
ous as to conceal the bottom of the aquarium.
These preparations made, the crabs are left in perfect quiet, an
absolutely necessary precaution.
After a little while (the lapse of time, however, being very vari-
able), sometimes at the end of a quarter of an hour, the crabs will
be found covered with little bits of paper; if everything has been
normal, the physiological state of the crabs, the temperature of the
water, etc., they will have chosen the pieces presenting the same color
as the surroundings. If the walls are white, they will be covered
with white only; they will take neither green, nor yellow, nor black;
if the walls are green, they will be clothed only in green.
As a control experiment, the crabs are put into two aquaria, differ-
ently colored and placed side by side, or else the color of the aqua-
rium is changed, leaving in it the same crabs and placing in it the
same bits of paper. The results are then very striking, the color
of the costume always corresponding exactly with that of the envi-
ronment. There is perfect instinct in all its admirable teleology!
Thus it is shown that these are Arthropods which distinguish
colors and, still more important, distinguish all colors.¢
It can not be questioned, since I have established the objective
proof, furnished by the covering, that corpus delicti found each time
on their backs.
Thus the very long discussions in regard to the choice of colors
among the Arthropods may be closed.
I am certain that similar proofs could be established regarding
other animals. I can already point out two of them: The movable
dwelling of the Pagurids and the burden of the Dromiids.
My experiments on these animals having scarcely begun, I can at
present only assert the possibility of solving the question, the Pagu-
rids living very well in tubes of colored glass, and the Dromiids
taking voluntarily on their backs pieces of colored material.
It may be possible to increase the number of these cases. The
question is worthy of the attention of biologists.
Returning to our Maja, it is to be remarked that the process is
not so simple as one might think at first sight. Positive results are
not easy to obtain. But this I dare affirm after all that I have seen in
4Tt has been impossible for me to determine absolutely whether they can
distinguish yellow from green, in spite of the often repeated experiments but
that is the case with the Pagurids, the Linews, and other animals, which dis-
tinguish them most clearly, better than we do,
470 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the course of two years of research, that if the results are negative
or undecided, it is because the animals are disturbed by secondary
causes, which it is necessary to find and to eliminate if possible.
There is one inconvenience about the material employed, certain
papers, like red and blue, being quickly and almost completely
changed in color by sea water. In these cases I have used success-
fully some coarse paper placed in the water several days in advance
in order to soften it and to make it sink.
§ 2. THe HABITAT ACCORDING TO THE COVERING.
The crabs are put into two preparatory aquaria of different colors,
each aquarium containing material for concealment of the same color.
Another aquarium is divided in halves, each half corresponding in
color to one of the preparatory aquaria, and the crabs are trans-
ferred to it after they have clothed themselves in the preparatory
aquaria.
The crabs are then invariably seen to make their way toward the
half of the aquarium corresponding in color to their covering, re-
maining there a long time. Thus, for example, in the aquarium red-
green, the red crabs go toward the red end, the green crabs toward
the green one.
The most surprising experiment was one that I made in an aquarium
divided into three equal parts, the middle white, the other two black.
The white crabs reached the central part (white) and stayed there
during the time of the experiment (several hours). The control
experiment in the aquarium white-black-white gave me the same
result for the black crabs.
These last results are all the more striking, as it is a well-known
fact that crabs rest normally in crevices, having, as is said nowadays,
a thigmotropism (Jennings=stereotropism of Loeb), that is to say,
taking a regular position (++) in contact with solid bodies.
The experiments I have just described in paragraph 2 are perhaps
more difficult to perform than those described in. the preceding para-
graph, because the crabs, upon being transferred from one aquarium
to the other, are usually much excited and consequently in an ab-
normal physiological state. This must be taken into consideration
if one has not attained definite results.
What marvelous instinct, is it not, of active variable mimicry, if
we would employ the Darwinian expressions in use, although to my
mind too anthropomorphic! Or, indeed, if we go a little further in
the psychological and determinate path, it would be rather conscious
choice, perhaps even deliberate, carried out with premeditation, ete.
For myself, I prefer the new expression, instinctive synchromatism,
containing nothing but the statement of the facts, with no explana-
tion, mechanical, selective, or psychological. I prefer this definition
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 471
because all the striking finality of the instinct in question is only
apparent, as we shall see immediately.
§ 3. OBSERVATIONS APPARENTLY CONTRADICTORY.
There are plenty of these facts, and they are not the negative or
indistinct results mentioned above; on the contrary, they are most
clear and absolutely positive. I will select from them these three:
The first, which I have already quoted from the observations of
H. Fol, is that the crabs place on their backs objects which make
them still more visible than they were before.
Secondly, in spite of H. Fol’s observation that “ when the vegetable
covering has increased to the point of becoming cumbersome it tears
it bit by bit with one of its pairs of feet (always with its claws!
R. M.), cleans itself thoroughly, and then proceeds to stick on its
carapace ”’—in spite of that—I say—the crabs, covered with one
color, when transferred to an aquarium of another color, even the
most discordant, from what I have been able to observe, never re-
move their old costume. ‘They hang new papers beside the old ones
in sufficient quantity to fill the unoccupied space.
Lastly and most important: In the black aquarium the crabs never
take black paper if they find any other color. They cover them-
selves with green, red, or white, making a bright patch on the black
floor of the aquarium, instead of concealing themselves.
How can these strange errors of so perfect an instinct of so-called
mimetism be accounted for? Can facts recurring constantly under
definite conditions be considered, as is usually done, as errors of
instinct ?
It will be said, perhaps, that we have here a case of terrification,
of warning colors, to use Wallace’s term, or aposemathic colors accord-
ing to Poulton. But is it possible that under the conditions of ex-
periment the self-disguising animals transform themselves in a
moment into terrifying animals?
Is it not more logical to seek some other explanation? Is it not
possible to penetrate by careful analysis the ultimate significance of
these actions, and to find a scientific explanation by which these
will be shown neither as exceptional or contradictory occurrences,
nor as normal teleology of instinct, but as a resultant of the physi-
ological determinism of instinctive actions? This is what I shall
try to bring out in what follows.
IV. BLINDED CRABS.
I found it impossible successfully to blind the crabs by covering
their corneze with asphaltum or any other black substance, as the
claws of Maja are too mobile and quick; I therefore cut the ocular
peduncles. i comecun ie
45745°—sm 190931
472 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The animals thus operated upon become greatly excited, rmnning
incessantly here and there, and fighting with all the other crabs they
meet. But they disguise themselves at once, and in quite a normal
manner without, however, any reference to the color of the sur-
roundings.
The fact of the persistence of normal concealment in blinded ani-
mals is of very great importance, because it proves that the primor-
dial cause of that instinct is not in the photoperceptions. It is
rather the tangoperceptions, or the tactile receptions of the claws,
and of the flexible dorsal hooks, which give rise to the whole series
of instinctive actions previously described. If that is true, then in
order to accomplish these operations the animals have no need of the
action of their cerebral ganglia, all the movements of the buccal and
thoracic extremities having their centers in the central ganglionic
mass.
V. THE INSTINCT OF MAJA AFTER THE COMPLETE SEVERANCE OF
THE BRAIN.
It is impossible for me to give here either a description of the
method of operating or detailed observations on the animals operated
upon. I shall simply point out that I made use exclusively of the
sharp hook employed for the first time by Ward, and that I always
performed the operations on the ventral side by Bethe’s method
slightly modified.
If the operation is well done® the animals, after the severing
above the csophagus of the two longitudinal connectives, the only
communication between the cerebral ganglia and the subcesophageal
ganglionic mass, live long enough (I have kept them as long as five
weeks) for one to study them sufficiently.
When the shock of the operation has disappeared, all the most
complete reflexes remain intact, as has been known for the last ten
years from the excellent work of Bethe: The animal can walk, chooses
its nourishment, eats well, defends itself, etc.
But what interests us especially is, that it begins before long to
clean itself, scratching the hooks with its claws, especially those of
the ambulatory feet and the posterior extremity of the thorax, but
also, though very rarely because of the weakness of the muscles, those
of the superior surface of the thorax. If the crab happens to touch
with its claws a piece of paper or alga, it is often seen to disguise
itself, executing the whole series of movements without omitting
any, and in the same order as when in the normal condition.
@This is verified in studying the simple reflexes, especially those of the
antenne and the eyes. After the observations are finished an autopsy is
performed.
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 473
I have been able to show this more than once at the laboratory of
Roscoff. On the other hand, the crab often takes bits of paper with
its claws and throws them far away, as it rejects the nourishment
that it can also hook anywhere on its carapace.
There is nothing strange in this variability of the reactions, when
analogous facts, sometimes much more striking among animals not
operated upon, are borne in mind. The explanation is found in the
internal perturbations of the physiological state, which are com-
pletely unknown, but of which the modified reactions of the animals
give incontestable proof.
The essential thing in these experiments is that the instinctive
actions of concealment take place after the removal of the brain.
What conclusions can be drawn in regard to the psychology of
instinct? I know of only two: Either it must be frankly admitted
that we can know nothing definite, and, consequently, must re-
nounce in scientific studies of instinct all psychological tendency, or
else it must be declared as frankly that the animal psychism, at
least the inferior, instinctive, and unconscious psychism, as it is
customary to call it, is not necessarily connected with the brain; that
it is, instead, diffused in the entire ganglionic nervous system with-
out the necessity of its anatomical functional integrity.
I might be criticized* on the ground that, in cutting the con-
nectives, I did not eliminate other possible means of communication,
as by the peripheral nervous network (cf. of the tegumentary nerve).
But the experiments made afterwards at Villefranche-sur-Mer (1907)
on completely decapitated Phronimas as well as the numerous
analogous observations on completely decapitated insects and myria-
pods, especially those of Wagner,’ on Blatta, Nepa cinerea, Geophilus
longicornis, etc., show in an indisputable manner the slight founda-
tion for this supposition.
Thus, the experimental method by operation enables us to establish
the physiological determinism of the instinct of self-concealment,
which is nothing else than a series of refiex actions of the anterior
thoracic extremities, induced by the tangoperceptions of the claws,
directed by the tango- and chemoperceptions of the buccal pieces and
helped on by the tangoperceptions of the flexible dorsal hooks.
It is not difficult to demonstrate directly the sensibility, or per-
haps the tactile receptibility, of the hooks. It would be most inter-
esting to study their innervation in more detail.
The determination here indicated is not yet complete, as it con-
cerns only instinct artificially simplified in animals modified by the
Ag, by M. Yves Delage in the discussion which took place after my first
lecture at Roscoff (September 11, 1906).
b’W. Wagner: Les problémes de la Zoopsychologie (St. Petersburg, in Rus-
sian, 1896).
474 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
removal of the eyes (or of the ocular nerve cords), and thus de-
prived of all the perfection and the charm given by the photore-
actions. It would perhaps be sufficient to conceal the crabs under
the normal conditions of their life at the bottom of the sea, among
alge, sponges, ete.
It is, however, much more complicated, and the most difficult part
remains for us to analyze.
The problem of the choice of colors, of the existence of which we
have given incontestable proof, cannot be solved at once. It was
impossible to enter upon it before the discovery of chromotropism as
a phenomenon sui generis, independent of common phototropism—a
discovery made by myself at Roscoff in 1906.
VI. ANIMAL CHROMOTROPISM.
I have given this name to the kinetic reaction of animals in rela-
tion to the action of colored rays (or screens), this reaction being
either positive or negative, as in all other tropisms.
It must be pointed out that I do not propose any theory of chro-
motropism, nor of tropisms in general, the physiological nature of
the phenomena being at present too obscure. I understand the fact,
to which I apply the word tropism, as including only the objective
statement, with no explanation, which would be premature in the
present state of knowledge.
The freshly hatched larve of Maja squinado (Zowe) present, as
is well known, a very marked positive phototropism and heliotropism.
I have been able to prove that they are at the same time very sensi-
tive to the chromatic rays, that they are constantly directed toward
the rays with the shortest wave, that is to say, toward the violet, and
in its absence, toward the blue, etc.
They distinguish also all the visible rays. The reaction is almost
instantaneous: All the Zoze swarm toward the most refrangible rays
as soon as they come under their influence.
The phenomenon takes place not only in the horizontal glass tubes,
but also in vertical tubes, whatever may be the distance from the
most intense region to the surface of the water.
The Nemertean, Lineus ruber, behaves in a very different manner.
First and foremost, it is strongly negative with respect to diffused
light. If the individuals are put in small square crystallizing pans,
and colored light is made to fall upon them from only one side, it
is found that the animals turn immediately and invariably toward
certain rays (red, yellow: positive chromotropism), while they are
repelled by others (blue, green: negative chromotropism), all the
other conditions being identical in the crystallizing pans, which are
placed side by side.
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 475
Now, the animal is decidedly positively erythrotropic (+) and at
the same time negatively janthinotropic (—). The result is, it seems
to me, sufficiently conclusive.
But I have ascertained facts much more suggestive, drawn from
numerous experiments that I made during these last years, very
varied experiments, bearing upon the most dissimilar animals (Ante-
dons, Nemerteans, Daphniids, Phronimas Dromiids, Pagurids, larvee
of Saccocirrus and of Crustacea, etc.), and concerning both the action
of incidental light coming from the prismatic spectrum or from col-
ored glass, and the action of light reflected by screens and by colored
backgrounds.
It would be superfluous and inconsistent with the aim of this article
to dwell too long on the question of chromotropism and to give a de-
tailed description of all my results.
I shall select only what is necessary to find the data in the succes-
sive development of my analysis. Among all these results there are
two which are of chief importance to the problem which occupies us.
The first is, that
ge i W | reen
it is not only direct
colored light which
ait!
gi a
mal is placed. I
hws. for? iex- +
produces its specific
tropic action, but also
ample, Lineus Pu- Fic. 8.—Diagram showing the chromotropism of the
: Pagurids.
daylight reflected
by colored surfaces
on which the ani-
Blue
Violet
ber, an _ erythro-
tropic animal, becomes motionless in diffused daylight on the red
floor of a small aquarium the bottom of which is divided into two
parts differently colored, or, in the absence of red, on the yellow,
green, etc., always on the background which has the color nearest to
red and avoids the one the color of which is nearest violet, the condi-
tions of lighting being identical.
The second result is the autonomy of the phenomena of chromo-
tropism and their functional independence of ordinary phototropism
(with relation to daylight).
One of the best pr oofs in this matter is furnished us by the case of
the Pagurids. It is to be remarked that each animal requires par-
ticular conditions in order to manifest its chromotropic pecularities.
Those conditions must be ascertained or no results will be fortheom-
ing in regard to the present question. Thus the Pagurids (Bern-
hardus prideauxti, B. cuanensis, B. striatus, etc.) manifest their
chromotropism only when placed on the bottom of an aquarium of
476 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
two colors with diffused and equal light in the two halves, as shown
by figure 8.
All the other processes successfully employed in my studies on
other animals give no definite results in the case under consideration.
But in the conditions indicated, the Pagurids are very favorable
subjects for experimentation, as their shell permits them to turn
aside from all external excitation and they may be placed in a de-
sired position on the line between the two colored surfaces without
over exciting them. Placed on this line and left in complete quiet,
they gradually emerge from their shelter, and at the moment of their
emergence from their shells they feel the difference in the reaction
of two colored environments on their eyes and their neuro-muscular
tonicity.
This difference manifests itself as soon as the Pagurids begin to
move, and then they are seen to turn immediately toward the tropic
color (more strongly positive than the other).
The color green, is, in the case considered, the most positive; what-
ever be the spectral color (red, yellow, blue, violet) coupled with the
green, the Pagurids will turn always toward the green, as is well
shown in figure 8. They are, then, chlorotropic. If kept a long time
in the aquarium described, they occupy the green side, never crossing
(during the day) the fatal limit. But they are at the same time
phototropic (+), or rather, leucotropic. On the white-black back-
ground the white will be constantly chosen. This can be represented
by the formula:
(1) (—) black — white (+).
The white background is even more positive than the green, as is
expressed by the formula:
(2) (—) green — white (+).
The tropic value of any other color (green excepted) corresponds
to its position in the solar spectrum and increases in the spectral
order toward the violet, according to the formula:
(3) (—) red — yellow — blue — violet (+).
Thus, for example, on the red-yellow surface the Pagurids pro-
ceed toward the yellow; on the yellow-violet surface, toward the
violet.
Black is the most negative, thus:
(4) (—) black — red (+).
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MIN KIEWICZ. 477
If green did not exist, the scale of tropic values would be:
(5) (—) black — red — blue — violet — white (+),
normal, according to Loeb’s theory.
But the green possesses the same influence over the Pagurids as over
the human eye; consequently the tropic scale appears quite different:
(6) (—) black > red — yellow — blue — violet > green — white (+).
It is certain that it is not the intensity of color that plays a pre-
ponderant role here; careful comparison of the tropic reactions of
the Pagurids (positive animals) with those of Lineus (negative)
and especially with those of Zozez (positive), in relation to the same
chromatic rays, gives sufficient proof. In the case of the Pagurids,
the yellow is much less tropic, not only with regard to green, but also
in relation to colors as slightly intense as blue and violet.
VIl. THE EXPERIMENTAL INVERSION OF CHROMOTROPISM.
Thus, each chromatic ray has a specific action, autonomous and
independent of the action of the other chromatic rays and of that of
white light.
But this statement, although very important, would not give us
the means of examining carefully the instinct of self-concealment,
had I not obtained at the same time the inversion of chromotropism.
After long and fruitless research with isotonic solutions of various
chlorides, with concentrated sea water, etc., I accomplished my ends
in quite an unexpected fashion, by an extremely simple process,
namely, the addition of distilled water (from 25 to 80 cubic centi-
meters to 100 cubic centimeters of sea water). Placed in that solu-
tion Lineus ruber becomes the next day wholly janthinotropic. While
remaining negative in relation to white light, it turns toward the
most refrangible rays of the spectrum as decidedly as it had previ-
ously avoided it. It is by this process that I have been able to sepa-
rate chromotropism from phototropism, and thus prove in an indis-
putable manner its functional autonomy, which I have mentioned
above.
If, before this, the normal Zineus, put into a horizontal tube par-
allel to the luminous source and placed behind a series of differently
colored plates, all assembled under the red plate or, in its absence,
under the one which allows the least refrangible rays to pass, they
will now all assemble under the plates which allow the passage of the
most refrangible rays.
Thus, the change in the physiological state of the organism under
the influence of the dilution of the surrounding medium brings about
a change in all the reactions due to chromotropism.
478 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
But hydratation is not necessarily united with janthinotropism of
Lineus, nor dishydratation with erythrotropism, as might be inferred
from the statements of G. Bohn.¢
The following facts show this well:
1°. The inversion of the chromotropism of the Nemerteans, appear-
ing the second day, continues generally two days and disappears the
fourth. The animal becomts normal—erythrotropic.
2°, After having lived during two or three weeks in my solutions
(sea water with distilled water), and presenting consequently their
normal chromotropism (erythrotropism), the Zineus changes again
when it is transferred to pure sea water and become janthinotropic.
It would seem to be therefore rather the disturbance of the physi-
ological equilibrium which provokes the inversion of the tropism, a
fact which agrees well with my recent experiments on the Pagurids.
Let us leave a normal and chlorotropic Pagurid in a square, bi-
colored basin, of one to two liters, without changing the water.
Let us try from time to time its chromotropism by putting it on the
line dividing the two colors.
A few days afterwards we shall see the animal gradually intoxi-
cated by the products of its excretions, change the type of its chromo-
tropism and become clearly erythrotropic (and negative with regard
to the white screens). The scale of tropic values of the different
colors remains the same, but it diminishes toward the green and
white, the negative action of which is strongest, according to the
formula:
(+) black — red <— yellow — blue <— violet — green <— white (—).
Thus, on the green-violet background, the Pagurids proceed toward
the violet, though they are negatively phototropic and erythrotropiec,
which again confirms the relative autonomy of the tropic actions of
the different hght radiations.
The results essential for us are: 1°, that the change of chromo-
tropism is no longer a possibility a priori, but a concrete fact, experi-
mentally established; 2°, that the disturbance of the physiological
equilibrium, which determines the changes, can be provoked by the
most diverse agents.
VIII. THE VARIABLE CHROMOTROPISM OF HIPPOLYTE AS A NORMAL
PHENOMENON, ACCOMPANYING SYNCHROMATISM.
Is it not possible that among the agents which provoke the altera-
tion of the chromotropism may be also found the luminous agents
and especially the chromatic properties of the surrounding medium ?
“@G. Bohn: Attractions et oscillations des animaux marins littoraux sous l’in-
fluence de la lumiére. Mém. Inst. gén. psychologique, t. I.
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 479
It has long been known that there exists a close relation between
the phototropism of an animal and the intensity of the hght to which
it is subjected.
Groom and Loeb®@ first on the larve of Balanus and later G. H.
Parker on the copepod Labidocera; S. J. Holmes on the amphipod
Orchestia and on the flagellate Volvox; G. P. Adams on the annelid
Allolobophora, ete., have shown that the changes from positive to
negative phototropism, or the reverse, are produced under the influ-
ence of the intensity of the light alone; that is, of the amplitude of
the waves of the luminous radiations.
It is not impossible, then, at least a priori, to find analogous cases
in which the inversion of the chromotropism might be produced
under the sole influence of the wave length of the luminous radia-
tions, otherwise called their chromatic quality.
Of course, this phenomenon can be established only with regard
to animals which are extremely sensitive to luminous agents.
They must be endowed with such plasticity of their sensorimotor
organization that its state is capable of being changed under the
direct action of the chromatic environment and that this change may
be manifested by their tropic movements.
The number of such creatures is evidently very small.
At present I know, belonging to this category, only the little
shrimps of the genus Hippolyte (H. varians) and the self-disguis-
ing crabs.
It is as a result of the work of two English biologists, Messrs.
Keeble and Gamble,’ that I have recognized this phenomenon
among the Hippolyte. I give here some passages from their first
work:
That the prawns exert powers of selection with respect to their weed will
be readily realized from plates 32 and 33, figures 1 to 9, representing prawns
placed in a dish with sea water, to which subsequently pieces of different
coloured weeds were added. The prawns were left free to select their weeds,
and ... they succeeded in making wonderfully accurate colour matches. .
The brown variety of Hippolyte varians (mature specimens) abounds amongst
the masses of brown Halidrys siliquosa which flourishes in the “ Laminarian
zone.” ... Young specimens of a uniform brown tint occur chiefly among
the fronds of Dictyota dichotoma. Mature green prawns are somewhat rare
at Piel, though young ones are plentiful in the clear and shallow water of the
Zostera pools. Red, again, is not a tint commonly found in full-grown Hippo-
lyte varians at Piel, though a few large and many small pink specimens were
from time to time discovered. Very probably the somewhat muddy water,
stunted weeds, and the comparative scarcity of clean red weed are the causes of
the rarity of this form.
4Groom u. Loeb: Der Heliotropismus der Nauplien von Balanus perforatus
und die periodischen Tiefenwanderungen pelagischer Tiere. Biol. Centralbl.,
bd. 10.
+ Keeble and Gamble: Hippolyte varians, a Study in Colour-change. Quart.
Jour. Micr. Se., t. 48, pp. 601-603.
480 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
This phenomenon, which the English authors term choice (power
of selection), is only chromotropism, but very complicated, very
much differentiated, and as it were, individual.
For this phenomenon I have proposed the objective name of syn-
chromatic chromotropism, a name well describing its specific char-
acter.
What, then, are these chromatic varieties of Hippolyte, having
each its synchromatic chromotropism ?
In the third memoir by Keeble and Gamble,* in the chapter en-
titled “ Sympathetic colouration,” we read that the young individuals,
still colorless, or nearly colorless, rapidly assume the coloration of
the algze upon which they are placed.
What is still more interesting is, that not only young colored indi-
viduals, but also adults which have been transferred to backgrounds
of another color, readily change their initial coloration and assume
a new one, which is exactly that of their environment.
The following are the principal results of the experiments that I
performed on this animal at Roscoff in 1906-7:
1°. I obtained numerous Hippolyte of the following colors:
A. Simple colors; that is to say, in which the corresponding pig-
ments are only dilated: (a) Red, dark and light; (0) yellow, dark.
light, and whitish; (¢) blue and bluish (transparent).
B. Composite colors: (d) Orange (yellow pigment-+-red pigment) ;
(e) green, lemon and olive (yellow pigment-+-blue pigment in dif-
ferent mixtures) ; (7) violet, dark and lilac (red pigment--blue pig-
ment).
Without counting the usual colors—green, brown, and brownish
(the last two composed of red pigments+-yellow+-blue).
Thus I obtained all the fundamental colors of the solar spectrum
with numerous shades, corresponding always to the color of the paper
used.
It is surprising to find in the above results the bright colors, yellow,
blue, and violet, which are not met in the natural environment of
HHippolyte as it fee among plants and alge.
It must be deduced from this fact that the extent of the chromatic
plasticity of Hippolyte is not due to natural selection, that it is of
primary origin, and depends directly upon the chromatic agents of
the environment.
2°. Every chromatic variety, whether natural or obtained experi-
mentally, can be changed into any other.
3°. The intensity of the colored hght plays a much less important
part than its chromatic equation; this may be concluded, at least, from
“Keeble and Gamble: the colour physiology of higher Crustacea. 38. Phil.
Trans,, series B, vol. 198.
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 481
the experiments made in 1906, in which I obtained the same colors
in Hippolyte with varied intensities of lighting, in small crystallizing
pans wrapped in fine colored papers. This method is a little too
primitive, but it was the only one that I was able to employ.
4°, There exist Hippolytes very ill adapted to change (within a
week or more). But if they do alter their color, it is only after the
molt* that the change appears, either in part or totally. This
proves that the molting is not merely an external process, but a
process which affects all the tissues while increasing their plasticity.
5°. Once changed, the color of the Hippolyte, even in the most
obstinate, becomes plastic and can be changed with astonishing
rapidity, sometimes in ten minutes.
The fact is most interesting to me, because it demonstrates the
part that habit (in the purely physiological meaning of the word)
may have; that is to say, the use or the want of use of an organ (as
Lamarck has said) in the formation of the permanent varieties of an
animal primitively polychromatic.
Thus the ideas of Lamarck, often derided, again take the place that
is their due.
Now the chromatic varieties of Hippolyte are developed only in-
dividually, without being hereditary.
And since each of these diversely colored individuals has, according
to the observations of Keeble and Gamble, its corresponding specific
chromotropism, it is evident that in acquiring its coloration it acquires
simultaneously its synchromatic chromotropism.
Color and chromotropism are here intimately connected; they are
always synchromatic with the color of the environment, under the
direct action of which they develop each time by a sort of resonance
of the entire organism, as well as of its chromatophores and its
“retina” as of its neuro-muscular apparatus. It is impossible for
me to concern myself here with the question of this chromo-kinetic
resonance, to which I shall devote a special chapter in my next work.
T have wished only to insist upon this constant parallelism of variable
color with variable chromotropism.
It would be most important and interesting to study by the experi-
mental method the progressive steps in the changes in these two
phenomena; to try to establish whether these changes are absolutely
simultaneous or whether they follow each other in time, the parallel-
ism being then only the definite stage of the physiological process.
This is a problem to tempt a biologist, and one which, I believe,
it is not impossible to solve.
It is certain, from my researches, that the power to effect changes
of color diminishes with the prolonged failure to exercise the chro-
4@The molting of Hippolyte, as of many other Crustacea, occurs habitually
during the night.
482 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
matic plasticity of the animal. It is probable that in the fixed con-
ditions of a colored environment the plasticity of the chromatophores,
diminishing by degrees, would become nonexistent (after a long
time). The color would then be constant.
Would the chromotropism lose its synchromatic resonance also?
I know nothing about this. But it is probable on a priori grounds
that there are creatures which, having completely lost their power
of changing color, because of the anatomical structure of their in-
teguments, have preserved or evolved their chromotropic plasticity
and their chromo-kinetic resonance of their instinctive movements.
Such is the case of our Maja.
And so we are brought back after all to the immediate subject of
the present analysis.
IX. THE “CHOICE” OF COLORS, AS INSTINCTIVE, VARIABLE SYN-
CHROMATISM, DUE TO THE CHROMO-KINETIC RESONANCE OF THE
ANIMAL.
We are so fortunate as to be aided in this difficult question by the
objective proofs which J/aja presents by its covering and as Hippolyte
presented by its organic color.
The covering indicates each time the chromatic past of the crabs,
the environment in which the crabs have lived. The “choice” of
colors presents itself then in the following aspect:
§ 1. THe “CHOICE” or COVERING.
The animal, put into a colored environment—green for instance—
in acquiring under its direct influence, by chromo-kinetic resonance,
the corresponding chromotropism (synchromatic), becomes chloro-
tropic, and consequently negative in relation to other colors. If it
finds colored papers, it can take (that is to say, approach) neither the
red nor the white, etc., these colors making, in the green aquarium,
negative spots (repellant) for the chlorotropically adapted animals.
It will disguise itself, then, in such green as it encounters while
wandering over the green surfaces. It will do the same in an en-
vironment of any color, except black.
It will now be understood, what would otherwise be inexplicable,
why the old coverings in the experiments of chapter III, paragraph
1, had no influence upon the color of the new covering.
It will also be understood why one should not use too large or
too numerous bits of paper, the characteristic color of the aquarium
diminishing relatively its decisive influence. The bits of paper
should not be, however, too small, the negative tropic surfaces ef-
fecting, then, either no action at all or an action too weak to prevent
the animal from approaching it.
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 483
Again, it can be seen why the crabs, in numerous experiments,
selected all the synchromatic papers, without having touched the dis-
cordant papers, although these were present in considerable quantity.
§ 2. THe CHOICE OF ENVIRONMENT.
The animals disguise themselves in preparatory aquaria of a cer-
tain color, containing only papers of the same color. Under the direct
action of this environment they acquire the corresponding chromo-
tropism. Once put into the conditions where chromotropism can
be attained, as in our experiments of chapter III, paragraph 2, in
the aquarium divided in differently colored halves, the crabs proceed
toward the corresponding environment. The covering itself plays no
part in this phenomenon. It is of use only to the experimenter, con-
stituting a true recognition mark, thanks to which one cannot be
deceived as to the chromatic past of the animal.
In order to confirm this manner of regarding the facts, I went
again to Villefranche, especially to perform some new experiments
and to procure some irrefutable data.
1°. IL raised several A/aja during a certain time in colored aquaria,
without giving them material with which to cover themselves. I
then studied their reactions with relation to the colored surfaces of
another aquarium divided in two. The corresponding chromotrop-
ism was established without covering.
2°, In an aquarium of any color whatsoever, for example red, I
have noticed the “ favorite” corner where my thigmotropic crabs
habitually crowded together. Afterwards I have changed that cor-
ner to a different color, for instance green.
Then the crabs harmonizing with red no longer came into this green
corner which now presents a surface negatively tropic. Many times
I found them near the limit of that color, where they stopped and
after a short time drew back.
Then I changed the discordant corner. The crabs frequented it
again, but now they could not go beyond the boundary of the new
negative corner. ‘These two recent series of experiments are, it seems
to me, sufliciently conclusive.
§ 3. Errors or INSTINCT.
“ Errors of instinct ” no longer exist in our explanation of the facts
of self-concealment.
In the black aquarium, the chromotropic action of the environment
being nil, each colored surface (papers) which might be found would
exercise a positive action; the animal would go toward it and would
clothe itself eventually with colored paper and not with black paper,
which exerts no action. It may take some occasionally, if it meets it
by chance, on its way toward the tropic paper; but that only very
rarely occurs.
484 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
If we compare once more the facts of histological synchromatism
of Hippolyte with the facts of accidental or instinctive synchro-
matism of Maja, we shall see that the essentials of the two phenomena
are identical, and that they consist in a chromo-kinetic resonance in
response to the luminous agents of the environment.
This resonance, by the medium of the retino-neural channel, is
manifested in Hippolyte by the kinetic phenomena of the chromato-
phores, while, in the JJ/aja, it is interpreted by the chromo-kinetic
phenomena of the entire animal, that is to say, by the chromotropic
movements which necessarily determine the corresponding conceal-
ment.
This is all that I have to say in regard to the experimental analysis
of the instinct which leads the Brachyura Oxyrhyncha to disguise
themselves. There remains only to recapitulate the results.
X. GENERAL CONCLUSION: THE PHYSIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM OF
THE INSTINCT OF SELF-CONCEALMENT IN ITS ENSEMBLE.
I feel obliged to speak only of physiological determinism, exclu-
sive of any psychological tendency. The reason is, that it is abso-
lutely impossible for us to know anything whatever respecting the
psychic state of the lower animals, to which one can not even apply
reasoning by analogy with our introspective states. Thus, the ques-
tion of “ choice,” either conscious and voluntary, or determined by
“sensations ” of color, sensations “ agreeable” in certain conditions
and “ disagreeable ” in others, this question may be very interesting,
but it does not exist for us as a scientific question; all the more as
everything takes place with our animals as if psychic states did not
exist, these states having no influence over the course of the instinct-
ive reactions that we have just described and analyzed.
Now, neither from the gnoseological point of view, nor from the
methodological * point of view, have we committed an error in limit-
ing ourselves in this study to the objective method: Physiological
(experimental) and biological (comparative).
Here is the general result:
The instinct of the d/aja in all its curious complexity is composed
of two parts, the second of which, the one which constitutes the fun-
damental part of instinct, can be separated and studied by itselt.
This simplification of instinct is shown in the case of the resection
of the cerebral mass containing the photo-receptive ganglia or of
the removal of the peripheral organs of photo-reception.
*The fundamental statement of my gnoseological and methodological concep-
tions in zoopsychology will be found in the first part of my complete work in
the Revue Polonaise de Philosophie (Przeglad filozoficzny), vol. 10, fase. 8,
Warsaw, 1907,
CONCEALMENT AND COLORS IN CRUSTACEA—MINKIEWICZ. 485
In instinct not maimed, the first phase is that of the chromo-
reactions of the animal in regard to the color of the environment and
the colored surfaces of the objects of concealment. The material for
disguising is determined by the variable synchromatic chromotropism,
which drives the animal inevitably toward certain colored surfaces,
according to the sum of the given conditions. Once the animal
touches the material, whatever it may be, if nothing prevents it, there
begins immediately the long series of very complicated reflex move-
ments provoked by the tangoperceptions* of the claws, directed by
the tango- and chemoperceptions of the buccal pieces, and helped on
toward the end by the tangoperceptions of the dorsal hooks.
“Tactile perceptions,
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PARASITICAL
HABITS IN THE CUCULIDAi.*
[With 2 plates.]
By C. L. Barrett, Melbourne.
For nearly two thousand years certain remarkable habits of the
family Cuculide have exercised the minds of naturalists and philoso-
phers. The origin of these habits has remained hidden behind an
impenetrable veil of mystery, which is only now being slowly and
patiently lifted by means of the observations and researches of a
number of ornithologists in different parts of the world. The first
actual record which has come to us out of the past of the unusual ways
of these strange birds is contained in a scientific treatise written by
one Aélian, a Latin author, who flourished during the second century.
In this ancient monograph it is stated that the cuckoo always lays
her eggs in the nests of other birds, being too indolent to undertake
the care of her own offspring.
We do not find many other important references to the cuckoo
until the time of Gilbert White, the famous old naturalist-parson of
Selborne, whose charming series of letters on the wild life in his
Hampshire home, known to us as “ The Natural History of Sel-
borne,” are full of interest still. White mentions that the European
cuckoo (C. canorus) is a summer migrant, appearing in his garden
early in the month of April each year, and the whole of one letter,
dated from Selborne, February 19, 1770, is devoted to a consideration
of the habits of the mysterious stranger.
Daines Barrington, a wealthy and aristocratic young naturalist,
had written to the Reverend Mr. White, asserting that the cuckoo did
not deposit her egg indiscriminately in the first nest she came across,
but, on the contrary, searched out the home of a bird whose natural
food was to some extent similar to her own and therefore a desirable
foster parent for the prospective baby cuckoo. White, in reply, said
that the idea was quite new to him, and that, after giving much
thought to the subject, he had come to the conclusion that the
2 Reprinted by permission of The Emu, Melbourne, vol. 6, 1906-7, pp. 55-60.
45745°—sm 190932 487
488 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
hypothesis was reasonable enough, as, personally, he could not re-
member ever having witnessed a young cuckoo being tended by any
but soft-billed insectivorous birds. He adds, very quaintly, that the
depositing of its eggs by the cuckoo in another bird’s nest is such a
monstrous outrage on maternal affection that, had it been related of a
bird in the Brazils or Peru, it would not have merited belief. On
October 8, 1770, the observant old naturalist again writes, this time
from Ringmer, in Sussex, to the effect that he has just seen a young
cuckoo in a lark’s nest, and that it was very pugnacious, pursuing his
finger and buffeting and sparring with its wings like a game cock.
T have often noticed this bad-tempered disposition myself amongst our
Victorian species, and it seems to be quite in accordance with the
general nature of the birds as a class.
Coming to more recent time, we find Charles Darwin, in his chapter
on instinct in the “ Origin of Species,” throwing the searchlight of
his genius into the dark corners of the cuckoo problem. Variation
~ and natural selection, the great naturalist considers, have undoubtedly
been the main factors in building up the parasitical instinct which we
see working in all its horrible perfection to-day. Let it be supposed,
for instance, that an early progenitor of our lovely little shining
bronze cuckoo (Chalcococcyx plagosus) occasionally departed from
the natural order of things, and deposited one of her tiny eggs in the
nest of some other species of bird, either accidentally or by reason
of being compelled to lay before her own nest was completed, just as
to-day we frequently find the pale blue eggs of starlings and mynahs
scattered about the open fields or on our suburban lawns. If we con-
ceive further that the egg thus consigned to its fate in an alien nest
has duly brought forth a baby cuckoo, which, being reared by the
foster-parents, has unconsciously acquired, during the nestling period,
a predilection for the company of its foster-parents and their kind, is
it not probable that this particular cuckoo would, if a female, some-
times deposit an egg in the nest of a bird belonging to the species
amongst whom her infancy was passed? The cuckoo would also nat-
urally transmit this predilection to her own offspring, and they in
turn would rear young, or leave them to be reared by foster-parents,
endowed with the same inclination toward parasitism. As time
went on, and successive generations of cuckoos from the same parent
stock had been born and died, the parasitical instinct would gradually
become more pronounced in the family, and, being an aid to its pres-
ervation and perpetuation, would finally become a fixed, immutable
instinct.
As a proof of this theory I may cite the peculiar habits of certain
species of the American Icteride or cowbirds (Jolothrus), which,
according to Mr. W. H. Hudson, author of “The Naturalist in La
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Barrett. PLATE 1.
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PARASITICAL HABITS IN CUCULIDEZ—BARRETT. 489
Plata ” (with whom I am in correspondence), are only partially para-
sitical, being apparently still at the halfway house between virtue
and vice. The cowbirds live together promiscuously, in flocks com-
posed of many individuals of both sexes, and either build a nest for
themselves or forcibly seize upon a suitable one belonging to some
unfortunate member of another family of birds. In the event of
there being either eggs or young in the appropriated nest the feathered
robbers proceed to cast them out—a first trace of the ejecting in-
stinct—before laying their own eggs therein. Strangely enough,
cowbirds will sometimes construct a loose, untidy nest for them-
selves on top of a stolen one, without making use of the latter for
purposes of nidification. One species of Molothrus has the parasit-
ical habit much more strongly developed than other members of the
genus, as it almost invariably lays its eggs in the nests of other birds;
but sometimes several individuals will club together and attempt the
construction of a large, shapeless nest, which, however, is never com-
pleted or made use of. These strange birds frequently lay as many
as twenty eggs in a single nest, and they also possess the remarkable
habit of piercing holes with their bills either in their own eggs or in
those of other birds. Another curious fact relating to cowbirds is
that one species (J/. rufaxillaris) is actually parasitic upon another
member of the same genus (J/. badius), which builds its own nest.
Additional proof of the gradual development of parasitism among
the Cuculide is found in the fact that an American cuckoo (Coccyzus
americanus), Which, as a general rule, builds a nest and rears its own
offspring, has yet been known to depart from its normal habit in this
respect and leave its pale green egg in an alien nest. The hawk
ecuckoos (Hierococcyx) of southern India, which exactly resemble
both in color and flight the sparrow hawks of that region, furnish
still another instance. Of the six known species of Hierococcyx one
only is said to build a nest, the remaining five being parasitic on the
babbling thrushes. In the great spotted cuckoo (Coccystis glan-
darius), ranging through southwestern Europe, Asia Minor, and
Africa, we can see the instinct to shirk parental cares yet more
highly developed. These birds are truly parasitical, inasmuch as they
foist their eggs on certain species of crows and magpies whose eggs
bear a marked resemblance in color to their own. In this case, how-
ever, several cuckoo’s eggs are found in the same nest, and when
these are hatched out it is stated that the intruders live in perfect
harmony with such of their foster-brethren as have survived, and
make no attempt to eject them. Occasionally the female spotted
cuckoo, before laying in the chosen nest, breaks the eggs of the right-
ful owner in order to make more room for her own. Thus we find
the parsitical habit and instinct to eject fellow-nestlings being mani-
490 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
fested in various stages of development by certain existing repre-
sentatives of the Cuculide.
Concerning the origin of these instincts and habits, the theory
that natural selection, acting during a long period of time upon a
chance beneficial variation in habits displayed by an early progenitor
of the race, is responsible for the habit, receives much support from
a further fact. Certain birds have been known to lay eggs in the
nests of others belonging to widely different genera, moor hens’ eggs
have been found in a coot’s nest, and an egg of the former species
was taken in the half-finished home of a blackbird. Starlings eject
woodpeckers from their nesting-holes in trees, and eggs of gulls
and eider ducks have been noticed in each other’s nests. Romanes
in his “Animal Intelligence” says that we are justified in setting
down the cuckoo instinct to the creating influence of natural selec-
tion, and a consideration of the facts just mentioned will show how
easily the parasitic instinct may have originated. The practice is
by no means confined to birds, and an interesting comparison may
be made between birds and insects by referring to the habits of a
certain kind of bee, which always consigns its eggs to the care of
another species. These parasitical insects are structurally modified
in obedience to the law of coordination of structure with function
and habit, for they are devoid of the pollen-gathering apparatus,
which would have been absolutely essential had they been obliged to
rear their own offspring.
There are two other phases of the cuckoo problem that I should
like to touch upon briefly, viz:
(1) The resemblance that certain cuckoos’ eggs bear to those of
the chosen foster parent.
(2) The nature of the impulse acting on a newly-born cuckoo and
causing it to eject its fellow-nestlings from their home.
As regards the first much debated point, it is interesting to note
that the great spotted cuckoo (C. glandarius) of South Africa lays
eggs closely resembling those of certain crows and magpies which
constitute its victims. Other members of the Cuculide, especially
some of the Australian species, do the same thing. The salmon-
tinted egg of the pallid cuckoo (C. pallidus) is frequently found
among a clutch of flesh-colored honey eaters’ eggs; the narrow-billed
bronze cuckoo (C. basalis) favors the blue wren (J/. cyaneus), with
her tiny pink-spotted egg; and most wonderful of all is the fan-
tailed cuckoo (C. flabelliformis). I have found a great number of
the eggs of the last-named species in nests of the white-browed scrub
wren (Sericornis frontalis), and in several instances the resemblance
between the eggs of foster parents and cuckoo has been most pro-
nounced.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Barrett. PLATE 2.
YOUNG NARROW-BILLED BRONZE CUCKOO (CHALCOCOCCYX BASALIS)
BEING FED BY FOSTER PARENT—BLUE WREN (MALURUS CYANEUS).
PARASITICAL HABITS IN CUCULIDH—BARRETT. 491
It is thought by some naturalists to be highly probable that the
food eaten by birds during the nesting period has much to do with
the future coloration of their eggs, and, if such be the case, it goes far
to explain the similarity between the eggs of many species of cuckoos
and those of their foster parents, for it follows that the latter would
rear the alien chicks upon the same food on which they would have
fed their own offspring. The stomach of a female bronze cuckoo
(C’. plagosus) shot at Olinda Creek last September was found, on
dissection, to contain the remains of a number of the large green
caterpillars of the cup moth (Pelora) and the emperor gun moth
(Antherea eucalypti). In the oviduct was a soft-shelled egg, on
which the beautiful bronze-green tint characterizing the eggs of this
species was just becoming visible. I have watched closely several
young bronze cuckoos being fed by blue wrens and various species
of Acanthizw, and in many instances have noticed that the devoted
little nurses were attempting to satisfy the voracious appetites of
their charges with lepidopterous larve of a greenish hue.
With reference to a recently made suggestion that the action of the
infant cuckoo in ejecting its nest fellows is purely automatic,?
rhythmic, and governed by external stimuli or reflex action, I still
cling to the belief that the process is referable to hereditary instinct
or subconscious memory, aided by dawning reason. I am strength-
ened further in my conclusions by comparing notes with other or-_
nithologists in various parts of the world. Mr. Edward Step,
F. L. S., in his essay on “The Cuckoo,” distinctly stated that
“shortly after birth the young cuckoo shows that it has inherited
the knowledge that its foster parents will have all they can manage
to satisfy its own wants, and that the presence of nest. fellows
means overcrowding and inevitable death for the majority, should
they be allowed to remain.” My friend, Mr. W. Percival Westell,
M. B. O. U., a well-known British ornithologist who has devoted
years of study to elucidating the habits and life history of the
European cuckoo (C. canorus), writes that his observations lead him
to credit the blind nestling with hereditary reasoning powers, and
that he agrees almost entirely with my theories on the subject as set
forth in a previous paper published in The Emu, Vol. 5, Part 1,
July, 1905. Mr. Westell has been kind enough to forward me copies
of his series of remarkable cuckoo photographs, which were ex-
hibited recently before the Royal Society of Great Britain.
I was fortunate enough to witness a miniature combat between
a narrow-billed bronze cuckoo nestling and a baby blue wren, which
took place in a nest of the last-named species at Olinda Creek in
November, 1904. A snapshot of the struggle by Mr. C. P. Kinane
@The Emu, Vol. 5, p. 145.
492 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
has already appeared in The Emu.* The actions of the blind,
featherless, infant cuckoo on this occasion certainly showed no sign
of being due to reflex action, but on the contrary appeared to me
a marvelous and almost uncanny exhibition of instinct and subcon-
scious reasoning. If it be objected that the term instinct 1s meaning-
less, I can only reply that there are many things in nature to which
we attach convenient labels, although they still remain beyond our
understanding.
@Vol. 5, Part 1, July, 1905.
SOME REMARKS ON THE PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE
OF SOUTH AFRICAN BIRDS.
[With 2 plates.]
By ALWIN HAAGNeR, F. Z. S., M. B. O. U.
In this article it is my intention to give a short general sketch of
this subject, dealing chiefly with those families with which I have
had some field experience, supplemented by a few of the more striking
instances in detail.
It is greatly to be regretted that hitherto local ornithologists have
paid so little attention to this interesting branch of research, and it
is sincerely hoped that the contents of this paper may stimulate their
activity toward further observations.
Order PassEREs.
Family PLocEIDé,
At first sight one would be inclined to think that there was very
little protective resemblance in this family, containing, as it does,
some of the most gorgeously plumaged of South African birds; but
this is, perhaps, the most interesting part of it. It is a very note-
worthy fact that with the majority of the smaller and defenseless
species the female is almost always a most inconspicuous object, with
a somber-colored feathering, and generally manages to pass unob-
served among its surroundings. On the other hand, the males are
often very gaudily attired, which is true of a large number of the
Ploceide. This is the case with the bishop birds (Pyromelana), the
males of which may be numbered among South A frica’s most beautiful
pirds, while the females are little brown-colored objects, whose colora-
tion, blending, as it does, with the grass and reeds of their favorite
haunts, renders them almost invisible to the casual eye. The same
remarks apply to the widow birds (Viduine). Can anyone imagine
anything more conspicuous than the long-tailed widow bird (Colio-
passer procne), or even the smaller red-collared species (C. ardens) ?
“Reprinted by permission from The Journal of the South African Ornitholo-
gists’ Union, Pretoria, Transvaal, vol. 4, No. 1. April, 1908.
493
494 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Yet their spouses are the very opposite, resembling the females of the
Pyromelana in their somber dress, which is of very material assist-
ance to them among the long grass of the veld, and especially so in the
nesting season. During the winter months, when the cock birds have
doffed their showy attire, they have the same advantage as the females
of an inconspicuous plumage. This is also the case with regard to
the pin-tailed widow (Vidua principalis) and the remainder of the
species of Vidua, also the red-billed weaver (Quelea quelea).
One of the reasons for the gaudy attire of the males, or rather lack
of protective coloring, may be the more or less polygamous habits
these birds are accredited with. An interesting case is that of the
little scaly-feathered weaver (Sporopipes squamifrons), which is a
denizen of bushy country, where its light-brown plumage lends itself
admirably toward the concealment of the bird; even during the winter
months, when the camel thorns and mimosas (Acacia giraffe and
A. horrida) are devoid of leaves, their inconspicuous dress is of enor-
“mous value in aiding them to find a hiding place. The second sub-
family, the Estrildine, is a large one, containing those well-known
little birds called rooibekkies (from the color of their bills) and tink-
tinkies (from their call). Two of the commoner species of Z'strelda,
the red-breasted and black-faced waxbills (2. astrilda and EL. erythro-
nota), may be said to possess protective resemblance in a fairly well-
developed degree. Although they have conspicuous colors relieving
the brown tint of their plumage, they are nevertheless very inconspicu-
ous when feeding on the ground among the short grass on the partly
bare patches of old lands and alongside roads (their favorite haunts),
as the brighter portions of their plumage are then hidden. Their
upper surface, which is of a very assimilative color, blends with the
bird’s surroundings to such an extent that to walk among a flock of
them, and suddenly flush them from almost under one’s feet, is a
common occurrence.
To a certain extent these remarks also apply to the orange-breasted
species (2. clarkei), affecting the banks of spruits, etc., and grassy
slopes of damp localities; they are most inconspicuous little birds,
notwithstanding the bright colors which relieve the olive brown of
their upper parts. Perhaps the best-endowed member of the sub-
family, so far as assimilative coloration is concerned, is the little bar-
breasted weaver finch (Ortygospiza polyzona), which has only a
white chin and a black throat to relieve the buff and brown tints of
its feathering.
Family FRINGILLID»®,
Before I pass on to the next family I would like to briefly refer
to the cape and rock buntings. The former (Fringillaria capensis) ,
a tame and pleasing little bird, was fairly common around Aliwal
PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE—HAAGNER. 495
North, C. C., in 1894. Its brown coloration struck me as being of
immense protective value, as the bird is not easily discernible when
sitting against a rock or when creeping among the crannies between
the stones. I also noticed this fact with respect to the rock bunting
(Fringillaria tahapisi). Once, at Irene, on the 18th of April, I shot
one and it fell among some loose stones; it took me fully a minute
to find the bird, such was its protective coloring, although the body
was not actually hidden.
Family ALAUDID®.
I have unfortunately given but little attention to this interesting
group of birds, so can not do better than quote the remarks of Mr. Guy
A. K. Marshall, F. Z. S., of Salisbury, Mashonaland, with reference
to a member of the lark family. In an article in the Zoologist (vol.
1900, p. 548), entitled “‘ Conscious Protective Resemblance,” he says:
“There are few birds in this country which show a stronger apparent
reliance on their protective coloring than the little rufous-capped lark
(Tephrocorys cinerea) or the cape long-claw (Jacronyx capensis).
They will readily permit one to approach within a few yards of
them, and they will merely run on ahead in their curious crouching
rat-like manner. This action is certainly of considerable protective
value in their ordinary surroundings.” I concur fully with these
remarks, as this bird is very common at Modderfontein, and I have
often noticed that its plumage is decidedly assimilative in its coloring.
To this bird I can add, from personal experience, the following
species: Rufous-naped lark (Aftrafra africana), gray-collared lark
(Alemon semitorquata), and the rufous long-billed lark (Certhilauda
rufula), as Mr. Marshall’s observations in a measure also apply to
these birds.
Family MOorTaciniip&,
Perhaps one of the most conspicuous cases of protective resemblance
in this family is that of the cape long-claw, already referred to.
This bird has a bright orange-red throat, but when it is in the
crouching attitude so aptly described by Mr. Marshall this brightly
tinted portion is invisible.
The remarks on the Alaudidw may serve for most of the pipits,
if not all, so I need not go into a reiteration. I will only draw atten-
tion to the commonest local member of this family, the tawny pipit
(Anthus rufulus). This bird’s coloration is strongly assimilative
with regard to the surrounding sea of grass of its natural home. Its
movements also closely resemble those of 7’. cinerea, already referred
to, so that when it is crouching down, even among the more stubbly
portions of the veld, it becomes all but invisible. This applies to
A. pyrrhonotus and several other species as well.
496 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Family NECTARINIID.
The sunbirds, or zuiker-bekkies (it. sugar-bills) as they are called _
by the Boers, may be ranked among the most brilliantly plumaged
members of the local avifauna, yet their gay colors are often of a
decidedly protective nature. They spend such a large portion of
their existence feeding on various flowers that their coloration lends
itself to assimilation. Mrs. M. E. Barber, a most observant natur-
alist, drew attention to this fact as far back as 1878, when she pub-
lished a paper in part 2, volume 1, of the Transactions of the South
African Philosophical Society, entitled “ Peculiar Colors-of Animals
in Relation to Habits of Life.” She noted how the colors of certain
South African sunbirds accorded with those of the flowers of the
aloes and Erythrina trees on which they feed. She says: “ The most
unguarded moments of the livesof these birds are those that are spent
among the flowers; it is then they are less wary than at any other
time. * * * Even the keen eye of the hawk will fail to detect
them, so closely do they resemble the flowers they frequent.” She
particularly draws attention to Cinnyris afer in connection with the
latter paragraph. With regard to the scarlet-chested sunbird
(Cinnyris gutturalis), according to the late Doctor Stark these
birds feed largely on the scarlet blossoms of the kaflir-boom (/7ry-
thrina caffra), hence it naturally follows that their scarlet feather-
ing is conducive toward protective resemblance. The malachite sun-
bird (Nectarinia famosa) is of a bright green color, with yellow
pectoral tufts. Yet, when sitting among the almost equally bright
foliage of the mimosa, with its fluffy yellow blossoms (a favorite
haunt of theirs), it is not easy to locate, always provided, of course,
that the bird does not move. This species, moreover, loses its bright
plumage about the same time as the mimosas shed their leaves, both
assuming a general brown tint, the bird thus still retaining its assimi-
lative coloration. The females are of a brown color at all seasons,
which naturally renders them, winter and summer, inconspicuous
among the branches of trees.
I can also speak from experience regarding the black sunbird (C.
amethystinus), having had the good fortune to watch many, both in
the gardens of Johannesburg, and among its natural scrub on Mod-
derfontein. I can do no better than quote Doctor Stark’s words:
x * * so closely does the nearly black plumage of C. amethyst-
inus assimilate in color with the dark naked branches of the tree,
that as long as the bird is still it is not easily distinguished on its
perch.” This I can fully substantiate. One instance, that of a young
male in the “brown,” is perhaps worth quoting. In my journal,
under date September 3, 1899, I find: “‘ While strolling through an
orchard I heard the plaintive ‘ peep’ of a sunbird, so I halted and
PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE—HAAGNER. 497
crept under the tree from whence the sound emanated. I searched
the branches carefully, and finally traced the call to a certain twig.
I then climbed the tree cautiously, but look as I would I could
not locate the bird among the twigs and blossoms, although as soon
as I remained quiet it continued uttering its cry. I was beginning
to lose patience when the bird moved, changing its position, and
only then I saw it, wondering at the same time why I had not done
so sooner.” Mrs. Barber also relates the following of this species:
“ The black sunbird is never absent from that magnificent forest tree
the ‘ kaffir-boom’ (/’rythrina caffra) ; all day long the cheerful notes
of these birds may be heard among its spreading branches, yet the
general aspect of the tree, which consists of a large mass of scarlet
and purplish-black blossoms without a single green leaf, blends and
harmonizes with the colors of the black sunbird to such an extent that
half a dozen of them may be feeding among its blossoms without be-
ing conspicuous or even visible.”
Family ZosTEROPIDA.
I will only make a passing reference to this family, as all the mem-
bers are doubtless of protective coloration. I have often noticed how
the green plumage of Zosterops virens and Z. capensis assimilate to
the foliage of the trees which they frequent.
Family LAND,
One would hardly think that the members of this pugnacious
family required protective resemblance, but I noticed a case with
regard to the ordinary fiskal shrike, which leads one to an interesting
phase of the subject. The male is a fairly conspicuous bird in its
dress of black and white, the female, with her duller feathering, not
nearly so much, and the fully fledged young still less so; as a matter
of fact, the last named possess a plumage of a most protective nature,
as the following will show: On December 29, 1904, while collecting on
the Jokeskei River, District of Pretoria, I first noticed this fact. I
found three fully fledged young shrikes hopping about a tree. As I
neared them they suddenly stiffened themselves and sat motionless.
When I kept still they soon recommenced their excursions among the
branches, but I had only to shout or shake a branch of the tree when
they would suddenly assume the stiffened posture alluded to. They
seemed (unconsciously, I presume) to rely on the perfect harmony
existing between the tints of their ashy-brown plumage and that
of the tree bark and twigs of their arboreal abode. They could not
fly more than a couple of yards, so that the assimilative nature of
their feathering must have been of immense assistance to them. This
498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
instance was so striking that I could not help noticing it, and since
then, having been on the alert for similar cases, I have verified my
experience.
Family SYLVUID.
The warblers need only a passing reference, as, owing to their dull
coloration and small size, they can all be said to more or less possess
protective resemblance, and it would therefore be idle to attempt to
give a list of those species endowed with it. I am well acquainted
with the habits of many of the species, and have often noticed how
inconspicuous they are when sitting among the grass or bushes of
their usual haunts. They are, moreover, for the-most part of retiring
habits.
Order Picart™.
Family CAPRIMULGID.
The members of this family are on the whole very well endowed
with assimilative coloration. I have noticed this fact in regard to
the European nightjar (Caprimulgus europeus). Crouching on the
ground it is a most inconspicuous object, even on brightly moonlight
nights. I first became acquainted with the case of the rufous-cheeked
nightjar (C. rufigena) on September 27, 1898. During a collecting
excursion to a farm about 5 miles southwest of Kaalfontein station
I happened to be resting under a tree. Staring aimlessly up into
the foilage overhead, my gaze was arrested by an irregular bump
or protuberance on a bough about 12 feet above my head. I could
not make out what it was, so, thinking it might be a nest of some sort,
I ascended the tree and was considerably astonished to find a nightjar
fiy up from almost under my nose. The bird had been sitting
lengthways on the bough, flattened up against it, and the assimilative
nature of its plumage was most marked, the mottled gray-brown and
rufous feathering harmonizing beautifully with the bark of the tree
on which the nightjar sat. I followed the bird with my eyes as it flew
up, and descending to the ground I proceeded to the tree it had taken
refuge in, but was forced to study every branch before I located it
again. Being mostly nocturnal in habits, a protectively colored
plumage would naturally be of very material assistance to them when
in hiding during daylight in some recess or on a bough. Since this
occasion I have repeatedly verified this experience, as this bird is
fairly common in the Modderfontein district. In the neighborhood
of Grahamstown I also noticed this fact with reference to C.
pectoralis, which seems to be the commonest species of the bush
region. My friend, Mr. Robert Ivy, has also repeatedly noted the
remarkable assimilative coloration of this bird, and photographed a
PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE—HAAGNER. 499
female on its eggs on the ground, a reproduction of which is given
herewith. The bird is nearly in the center of the picture (pl. 2).
I also show a photograph of a young nightjar on the ground among
the forest débris; the resemblance even here is extraordinary (pl. 1,
eee.)
Families Prcipa: and CAPITONID®.
Among the woodpeckers and barbets—birds all more or less of a
coloration which, although often conspicuous enough in the open,
lends itself decidedly to the reverse among the twigs and branches
of its home—I have found the cardinal woodpecker (Dendropicus
cardinalis) when clinging to a tree trunk to be almost invisible. This
is still more marked in regard to the South African wryneck (/yna
ruficollis), whose mottled brown and gray plumage so closely assimi-
lates to the colors of the tree trunks on which the birds feed. This is
also true of the pied barbet (77icholema leucomelas), but to a less
extent, as this bird has more white in its plumage.
Family MusoPpHAGIDA.,
These birds, all more or less of a green tint and denizens of thick
forests, are bound to be protectively colored. Writing of the knysna
lourie (Z’uracus corythaix), Mrs. Barber, that excellent lady natural-
ist, says: “ The favorite food of that superbly arrayed bird, the lory,
are the berries of the wild vine. Like the plumage of the lory, the
foliage of this climber varies considerably in its shades of green, and
the berries alter in color as they ripen, from light red to crimson, and
ultimately to almost a black color, while the twining stems of the
plant are of a pale gray or white. These colors being the same as the
lory, blend and harmonize with them admirably, rendering the bird
protection from her foes. This climber, with its long twining
branches, covers large patches of the forest ; it is seldom without fruit,
and forms the favorite haunt of the lory; it is there they may be
found if you seek diligently, but they are by no means conspicuous,
hidden among its sheltering leaves.” This I can fully substantiate
by my own experience of these birds during the month of January,
1907.
Order Srrices. .
Families Stricgip# and BuBoNID&.
The reasons for an owl requiring protective coloration are obvious
to anyone conversant with the habits of the members of this order,
and need not be detailed here. Probably every species of the Striges
is more or less endowed with this provision of nature, at least every-
thing seems to point that way. The birds are lighter or darker in
coloration as their place of abode may require, even to the extent, as
500 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
we well know, that those species inhabiting the regions of snow and
ice are white or very nearly so. Of South African owls, all those
with which I can claim persona] acquaintance are certainly protec-
tively colored: Strix capensis, Strix flammea, Scops capensis, Asio
capensis, and Bubo maculosus. With reference to the last named,
which is a fairly common bird in the district in which I reside, I have
had some correspondence with Mr. W. L. Distant, the editor of the
Zoologist magazine. He is of the opinion that this species does not
possess protective resemblance in the same sense as this term is gen-
erally understood, and ascribes to the bird what he calls “ active
mimicry; ” as he says the bird consciously conceals itself. Perhaps
it does this—the instinct implanted in every dumb creature would lead
it to do this; but with all due respect to Mr. Distant’s superior knowl-
edge in matters zoological, I must contend that if its coloration was
not of the protective order, of what use would the conscious conceal-
ment of the bird be, unless it crept into a hole or otherwise completely
hid itself? Therefore why should the mere fact of its conscious con-
cealment be against the theory of “ protective resemblance?” I will
just relate two instances in brief detail to illustrate my meaning and
prove my theory. On July 30, 1898, while out shooting I put up
from almost under my feet an eagle owl. It settled a short distance
ahead; so I followed it. When I reached the spot I commenced
searching for the bird and after some minutes succeeded in flushing
it again, but very nearly treading on it in so doing. This invisibility
of the owl somewhat puzzled me, so I determined I would see it on
the ground before firing at it. I followed this bird from place to
place for over half an hour before I could see it clearly enough to be
sure of its identity, and then even it was more its “ ears,” momen-
tarily erected, that betrayed it,as,although it was only sitting among
the grass tufts, I could not make out anything like the outline of an
owl, so beautifully did the tints of its mottled gray and brown plum-
age harmonize with the surrounding grass and stones. It was a clear
case of “ protective resemblance,” as had the bird been of any other
color—red, green, or black, for instance—I must surely have seen it
repeatedly from a much greater distance than I was from it when it
was flushed. I have noticed this fact repeatedly since, but will only
relate one other instance in further defense of my assumption. On
the 18th of October, 1903, I found a nest (if such the depression in the
soil can be termed) of this species on a ledge or platform in a rocky
hollow. This ledge was covered with ground on which several of the
ordinary veldt plants grew. I flushed this bird from her two eggs
quite suddenly, and was certainly not more than 10 feet distant when
it flew up. I returned to the spot later with my camera, but in try-
ing to get it properly focused on the bird had perforce to drive it up
to find its exact locality. I was above the owl’s position at the time
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Haagner. PLATE 1.
Fic. 2,.—THREE-COLLARED PLOVER AND EGG.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Haagner. PLATE 2.
f ‘ ‘ ¥ i ‘
See
Nee Lae teed
SOUTH AFRICAN NIGHTJAR ON ITS Eaas.
PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE—HAAGNER. 501
and would have seen it easily enough but for its assimilative colora-
tion. When the bird settled again I immediately lost sight of it,
and although it was only partially screened by the herbage I had to
use my glasses to be sure of its identity. I took particular notice of
this case, remembering Mr. Distant’s friendly criticism. That owls
are subject to dimorphism is a well-known fact. Professor New-
ton mentions it in his admirable Dictionary of Birds. This dimor-
phism, not necessarily sexual, obtains in Bubo maculosus without a
doubt. I have noticed a very fair degree of difference in the tints
of the various birds that have come under my observation, and there
are, or were, several specimens of this owl in the Pretoria Zoological
Gardens which amply illustrate this fact. This, then, is a further
proof of my contention that this species does possess protective
resemblance.
Order CoLuMB.
The doves and pigeons afford another group of birds seemingly
well endowed with assimilative coloring.
With reference to the green wood pigeon (Vinago delaland?), Cap-
tain Shelley has noticed the advantage this bird derives from its pro-
tectively tinted plumage. Writing of this species in the eastern
Cape Colony, Mrs. Barber says: “ The colors of the green wood
pigeon of the Transkeian country so closely resemble those of the
fruit and foliage of the wild fig (/icus sp.), their favorite fruit tree,
that a flight of them may be concealed among its branches without
being seen; on anyone approaching the tree, the birds being fully
aware of the protection which their colors afford them, remain per-
fectly motionless. A shot, however, fired into the tree will send them
flying in all directions. The plumage of this pigeon consists of
beautiful shades of green with red beak and legs; these colors blend
admirably with those of the wild fig. The tree is an evergreen, and
bears fruit all the year round, this continually affording the green
wood pigeon not only food, but also protection, because it is the home
of these birds.”
I have repeatedly noticed how beautifully the slate and drab tints
of the majority of our doves lend themselves to the concealment of the
birds. This is so with regard to Zurtur capicola and T. senegalensis,
and the fact is more worthy of notice in winter, when the mimosas
have shed their leaves; the birds are even then most inconspicuous
objects as they sit motionless among the naked branches and twigs.
Writing of Haplopelia larvata (cinnamon dove), W. R. Ogilvie-
Grant (in the Royal Natural History) says it is common in thick
bush along the coast of Natal, where its brown coloring renders it
difficult to detect as it sits motionless among the dense creepers. This
is also applicable to the so-called bush dove or rock pigeon (Co-
502 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
lumba pha@onota). Its coloration is particularly helpful toward the
effective concealment of the bird when among the rocks, ete., of its
nesting haunts.
Order PrerRoc.etes.
This is another group where every member may be assumed to
possess nature’s gift of protective resemblance. I have seen the
namaqua sand grouse (Pteriocles namaqua) among the scrub and
sand of its Karoo home and in the stunted grass of the Transvaal
“ winter” veld, and in both cases the assimilative coloration of the
bird was admirable.
It seems to me as if the majority of the game birds of South
Africa are possessed of this type of coloration, and I need, therefore,
not go into detail with regard to the francolins, which are all more
or less of the “veld” tint, and consequently the reverse of
conspicuous.
Orders Orrpipa% and GALLINe.
I have just referred to the general veld tint possessed by most of
the members of these orders. I have hunted the various bustards
in the O. R. C. and Transvaal and, even guided by their harsh croak,
it is often no easy matter to locate them without a dog. Their
coloration is very similar to the surrounding grass of the veld, and
unless the males protrude their dark-colored heads above the grass
you will find your horse almost on them before they take wing. The
male of Otis afra is much more conspicuous than the female, with
its dark head and white wing patches, so that the protective coloring
is much more developed in the female, being particularly helpful to
the latter during the nesting-season.
Other observers have also noticed the assimilative nature of the
South African bustards. Writing of Otis cwrulescens in the Jour-
nal of the South African Ornithologists’ Union, Mr. Guy C. Short-
ridge says: “ When on the ground these birds, in spite of their size,
are very difficult to see, even when the very spot they have alighted
on has been marked.” The cape quail (Coturnix capensis) is also
of this veld color. I have often been startled by one suddenly
whirring up from under my feet, so closely do they sit and so well
does their coloration fit in with that of the surrounding herbage.
Order Limt1cou®.
The Dikkop (@dicnemus capensis) has the advantage of a won-
derfully assimilative coloring. Anyone who has observed this bird
in its native haunts must have been struck with the wonderful re-
PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE—HAAGNER. 503
semblance existing between the coloration of the thickknee’s plumage
and that of the grass, stones, and tree trunks of its most cherished
haunts among the mimosa scrub. I have hunted this bird often in
the QO. R. C. and Transvaal and always noticed this fact; it is no
easy matter to sight it while it is on the ground. It does not readily
rise, nor does it seem to be a very strong flyer, requiring a run before
it rises on the wing. It seldom, if ever, goes higher than the tops of
the mimosas. Hence the probable reason for the very protective
nature of its plumage.
Coming to the Charadride, burchell’s courser (Cursorius rufus)
is perhaps one of the best examples of protective coloration in this
family. I have often observed this in the Maroka district of the
O. R. C. between Thaba N’chu and Ladybrand, where they are very
common, feeding in flocks on the dried and burnt stretches of veld.
When in pairs or small parties they are seldom flushed at once;
they run with great rapidity and then suddenly drop down and
crouch close to the earth, possibly relying on their assimilative
coloration, which is very great, for further concealment. These
birds make delicious eating, and consequently were often hunted by
me. When one is wounded and settles a little way off it requires
no small amount of patience and perseverance to locate it, as it
crouches close to the ground among the grass. The foregoing ob-
servations hold good for C. bicinctus, which bird can be met with
in the O. R. C. consorting with C. rufus. It is, however, a much
scarcer species. The three-collared plover (Charadrius tricollaris)
is also protectively colored. They are well endowed with this, as
Charles Dixon has also noticed (Curiosities of Bird Life) ; but when
it is most useful is during the period of nesting, at which time the
bird requires this gift of nature, hatching as it does in the open or
among sparsely growing weeds (see pl. 2). This applies equally
to the crowned lapwing (Stephanibyx coronata), as indeed, we may
safely assume, to most if not all of the species of the family under
discussion. One notable exception, of course, is the cape painted
snipe (Rhynchwa capensis), the female of which (contrary to the
usual course) is a brightly plumaged bird. The reason of this
strange case has as yet not been ascertained.
I will now close my remarks on protective resemblance with a very
brief reference to the nest and eggs of some South African birds.
The eggs of the majority of birds which lay in the open are pro-
tectively colored, viz, those of the sand grouse, which are deposited
in a slight hollow in the bare sand; the plovers, etc., which are laid
among the mud clots and dried weeds of the water’s edge or among
the half-dried grass of the veld; the game birds (francolin, bustard,
etc.), which are deposited among the grass. All are tinted with
45745°—sm 1909——33
504 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
shades which certainly harmonize with the eggs’ surroundings, a
provision of nature most valuable for the continued existence of the
birds as species.
Lastly, many nests are also constructed in such a manner that they
fit in with their surroundings, as, for instance, many of the fly-
catchers, which build their nests in trees and cover the sides with
lichen to conceal their real identity; or the warblers, which build in
grass tufts, and construct their nests of various grasses deftly woven
and placed to appear as inconspicuous as possible.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE HISTORY OF THE CURRENT
ENGLISH NAMES OF NORTH AMERICAN LAND BIRDS.2
By SPENCER TROTTER.
Technical nomenclature is the embodiment of that orderly
and definite arrangement of knowledge which constitutes a science.
It serves to symbolize a conception of the relationships that exist
between living beings, one with another, and is at once the expres-
sion of a logical system of classification; a working basis for the
ideal scheme which the mind constructs from observed facts. It is
eminently a rational process. In direct contrast to this is the ver-
nacular—the loose, quite indefinite, and often haphazard way of
naming things, that has its root in the soil of common life. The
stratum out of which it springs is emotional rather than rational.
In ornithology these two contrasted forms of the embodied ideal—
the technical or scientific and the vernacular names—have been of
more equal value than in many other branches of natural history,
from the fact that birds have always presented themselves to men’s
minds in a peculiarly attractive way. Most of us think of the various
kinds of birds, certainly of the more familiar ones, in terms of the
vernacular rather than in the garb of science. A song sparrow 1s
a song sparrow more often than a Melospiza melodia as well to
the ornithologist as to the untechnical wayfarer.
A respectable antiquity attaches itself to the vernacular. Long
before the scientific mind had invaded the field of natural history
the folk had given voice to its ideas about various animate and inani-
mate things. A vast vocabulary of popular names was an early
heritage of the common people. With this stock of names and
notions about Old World birds the colonists in Virginia and New
England were fairly well equipped, and the more familiar birds of
the new country soon received names indicative of some trait or
likeness to certain of the Old World varieties. Mark Catesby in
his History of Carolina was the first one to give any substantial
“Reprinted by permission from The Auk, Cambridge, Mass., new series, vol.
26, No, 4, October, 1909.
505
506 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
account of American birds, and his work contains an array of
names, some of them more or less familiar in the speech of to-day.
To William Bartram we owe a large number of our common bird
names, names that reached the intellectual world of eighteenth
century England through the works of Edwards, Pennant, and
Latham. Alexander Wilson was likewise a large debtor to Bartram
for the names of numerous species, but he blazed his own trail by
applying names to species discovered by himself as well as in the
recasting of many Bartramian names.
In the present inquiry I have arranged the matter of the history of
our American bird names under the following six heads:
I. Names of old English origin applied to American birds.
II. Names derived from a Latin equivalent.
III. Names suggested by voice.
IV. Names suggested by some peculiar habit or habitat.
V. Names suggested by color or other external feature.
VI. Names suggested by geographical locality (place names) or
in honor of some person.
I. NAMES OF OLD ENGLISH ORIGIN.
Many of the Catesbian.names of birds undoubtedly originated in
the vernacular of the colonists and some are clearly of old English
ancestry. In the main they are of generic rather than of specific
application, as is the case with most of the folk terms for natural
objects. The specific distinction is often one of locality merely, as,
for example, “the cuckow of Carolina.” Relationship is often
broadly recognized by the people and embodied in a general name
with appropriate qualifications to indicate minor differences or
differences in distribution. The “species” of the profanum vulqus,
however, more nearly corresponds to the generic conception of the
naturalist, even in some cases to the idea embodied in the term
“family.”
A number of these Old World bird names, given to American birds,
appear very early in the history of English speech. In a vocabulary
compiled by Archbishop A¢lfric toward the close of the tenth cen-
tury (955-1020 A. D.) there is a Nomina Avium in which a number
of bird names appear, though somewhat different from their modern
form. In this list the robin redbreast is called “rudduc” or “ rud-
dock,” which long continued to be its general English name and is
probably still alive in local dialects. The word appears as a variant
of the modern “ ruddy,” referring no doubt to the russet of the bird’s
breast. The earliest recorded instance of the use of the popular
epithet, “robin,” which as a word of endearment has been trans-
ferred to many different birds throughout the English-speaking
ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. 507
world, occurs in the Vomina Avium of an English vocabulary of the
fifteenth century, where the name appears as “ robynet redbreast,”
literally “ little robin redbreast.” Our American robin was known to
the early southern colonists as the “ fieldfare,”’ and is so termed by
Catesby (“The Fieldfare of Carolina,” vol. 1, 29). The bird has
many of the qualities of the fieldfare, and, like its British congener,
came from the north in autumn, scattering over the cleared lands in
loose flocks. William Bartram (Travels, 290) speaks of it as the
“ fieldfare or robin redbreast,” and Kalm mentions it under the latter
name (English Trans., II, 90). Our familiar name “ robin ” is thus
a contraction of the “ robin redbreast ” of old English speech.
In the Vomina Avium of Ailfric the cuckoo occurs as “ geac.” In
some provincial dialects it is still called a “ gowk,” a survival of the
httle-altered Anglo-Saxon name. ‘“ Cuckoo” or “ cuckow ” (the latter
an earlier form of the name and given as such by Catesby) is un-
doubtedly derived through later Norman speech (French coucoi;
Italian cucco or cuculo; old English cuccu). The German name
kuckuk or koekoek, the Danish kukker or gj6g, and the Swedish gék
are clearly allied to the Anglo-Saxon geac or gowk, all being un-
doubted variants expressive of the bird’s voice, and the same is true
of “ cuckoo” and its variants.¢ The colonists were not deceived in
giving to the American species its rightful name, though Catesby may
have been the first to bestow it.
“Crow ” appears in Atlfric’s vocabulary as crawe,; “kite” as glida
and glede, the last name continuing down to the fifteenth century.
The Anglo-Saxon staern or staer (later stare) has become the modern
“ starling.”
A manuscript in the Royal Library at Brussels, of eleventh century
date, contains a number of bird names, among which are the gos-
hafoe (literally “ goose hawk”) modernized to “ goshawk,” and
spear-hafoe (“sparrow hawk”). It seems curious that our little
American sparrow hawk has not borne the name of its near relative,
the kestral, rather than that of the quite different sparrow hawk of
the Old World. “ Turtle” was an old name for the dove and appears
as such in Catesby (“The Turtle of Carolina,” I, 24). It originated,
as Skeat observes, from an effort to express the cooing note and is
altogether different from the word used to designate the reptile of
the same name. This last was rendered by English sailors into
“turtle ” from the Spanish tortuga.
Wren, sparrow, and swallow appear in these old vocabularies as
wraenna, spearwa, and swealewe. The first of these names Skeat
asserts is derived from a base wrin, to squeal, chirp, or whine, in
allusion to the bird’s voice. A curious old belief existed among the
@To call a man a “gawk” (simpleton) appears equivalent to calling him a
“euckoo,” a term of no uncertain meaning in the old days.
508 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
folk of several European countries that the wren was the “ king of
birds.” Hence, probably the generic term Regulus formerly applied
to various species of wren, and, likewise, its English equivalent
“kinglet.” “Sparrow ” is literally a “ flutterer” (spar, to quiver),
and ‘* swallow ” means a “ tosser, or mover to and fro; from its flight ”
(Skeat). “Lark” has been softened down from the old English
“laverok” or “Javerock” (Anglo-Saxon Jdaverce), literally “a
worker of guile,” from some old superstition regarding the bird as of
ill omen. The bestowal of this name upon an American bird allied
to the starlings was no doubt due to an effort on the part of the early
settlers to name birds after the more familiar ones of the homeland.
The ground-nesting habits, the long hind claw, the loud twittering
flight notes and clear song of the American bird may have given some
slight reason for this incongruous title.
“Thrush ” with its variants “throstle” and “ throstle-kok,” as
applied to the song thrush (Z'urdus musicus) of Europe, is an old
‘ word and appears in its older forms in a treatise by Walter de Bibles-
worth at the end of the thirteenth century. In the Brussels Manu-
script “ throstle ” seems to refer to the missel thrush (7urdus viscivo-
rus). The song thrush is also referred to by its other old English
name of “maviz” (later “mavis”). In this same treatise of de
Biblesworth’s the European blackbird (7urdus merula) 1s spoken of
as “ osel” or “ hosel-brit,” and lhkewise by its old English name of
“merle.” Later it became “ ousel-cock” as in the quaint ditty in
“ Midsummer-Night’s Dream ”—
The ousel-cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill.
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer, nay; * * *,
“Mawys” or “mavis” as a dialectic name has lasted down to the
present day in the counties of east England. It seems curious that it
was not transferred to any American thrush, notably the wood thrush.
“ Osel ” is clearly the parent word of the modern “ ousel ” and in this
latter form is still applied to an allied species of the European black-
bird—the ring-ousel (7’. torquatus), as well as to a distinct, though
related, family—the dippers or water ousels (Cinclide).
Without doubt the word “ thrasher,” applied to the birds of the
American genus Toxostoma, is a varient of “ thrush ” and “ throstle,”
for we find “ thrushel ” and “ thrusher ” as variants in the provincial
English dialects. The term “thrasher” occurs in Barton’s Frag-
ments (1799), and Wilson also uses the name as a vernacular in his
ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. 509
account of the brown thrush or “ ferruginous thrush” (7 oxostoma
rufum) as he calls it, both of which facts are clear evidence as to the
early current use of this common name for the species in question.
Catesby figures the bird under the title “ fox-colored thrush ” (I, 28).
In the South it is known here and there as the “ sandy mocker ” and
formerly as the “ French mockingbird,” this last from the fact that
its song was considered inferior to that of the true mockingbird
(Mimus polyglottos)—all things French being regarded with a cer-
tain contempt by the English colonists. There is a curious sugges-
tion of the throstle’s song in the song of our brown thrasher, a fact
also noted by Wilson, and this may have given rise to the current ver-
nacular name.
In a metrical vocabulary, supposedly of the fourteenth century,
“ sparrow ” appears in its modern form; likewise “larke,” “ pye ”
(the magpie, “ mag ” being a contraction of “ magot ” or “ madge,” a
feminine name formerly bestowed upon this bird), “ revyn” (raven),
“ parthryd,” and “quale.” “Jay” also appears in its present day
spelling and with its Latin equivalent Graculusque, which may be
the origin of our modern word “ grackle.” “Jay” is from old
French “ gai” equivalent to “ gay ” (plumage).
In a Nominale, or list of words, of fifteenth century date we find
“wagsterd” (wagtail), “nuthage” (nuthatch), and “buntyle”
(bunting). In a curious pictorial vocabulary, also of the fifteenth
century, “ kingfisher” appears as “kynges-fychere” and ‘“ wood-
pecker” as “ wodake” or “ woodhock.” Our “ redstart” evidently
received its name by suggestion from a very different bird of the
Old World (Ruticilla phenicurus). Tt is so called by Catesby
(I, 67). “Start” is from Anglo-Saxon “steort,” a tail. “ Tit-
mouse” has been transferred to various American species of the
family (Catesby figures the “crested titmouse,” I, 57), the prefix
“tit? meaning small. “Mouse” is from Anglo-Saxon mdse, a
name, according to Skeat, for several kinds of small birds, and not
to be confounded with the mammal of the same name. Hence, the
plural “ titmouses,” not “ titmice,” is the proper form, though usage
has established it otherwise. “ Shrike ” is another name transferred
from European to allied American species. The name probably had
its origin in the voice of this bird or of some thrush, and later be-
stowed upon the members of the Laniide (see Newton, Dict. of Birds,
843). “Martin” (and its older form “ Martlet”) was evidently a
nickname applied to a European swallow (Chelidon urbica) and
given by the colonists to our species of the genus Progne. Bartram
calls the bird “ The great purple martin.”
“ Blackbird,” applied to certain American species of Icteride, is
a name suggested purely by color. Catesby early gave to our
Agelaius phaniceus its more nearly correct title of ‘“ Red-wing’d
510 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
starling” (I, 13). Kalm (Forster) uses the older form “ stare ”
(Eng. Trans., IT, 73-79) and lkewise refers to the species of
Quiscalus as “ blackbirds,” remarking that “The English call them
blackbirds” (Eng. Trans., I, 291). Our goldfinch appears first in
Catesby as “The American goldfinch” (I, 43), the name clearly
borrowed from the Old World Carduelis elegans. “Siskin” in like
manner comes from the Old World, the word being originally of
Scandinavian origin and meaning “chirper” or “piper.” “Snow
bunting ” is the old name of Plectrophenax nivalis and should rightly
replace the fanciful “ snowflake,’ Our “tree sparrow ” is the re-
sult of a confusion of the American species (Spizella monticola)
with the mountain or tree sparrow of Europe (Passer montanus).
This was corrected by Pennant, but the name “ tree” was retained.
A rather curious case of name transfer is that of our yellow-
breasted chat (/cteria virens). The bird first appears under this
title in Catesby’s Work (I, 50), and was evidently so called by him
-in a mistaken idea that it was related to the birds of the same name
belonging to the European genus Sazicola. This fact is made evi-
dent by the Latin word wnanthe used in the descriptive designation.
The name “buzzard” as applied to the turkey vulture appears
early in the literature of American birds. Catesby calls it “ turkey
buzzard” (I, 6). As an old English name of Norman French deri-
vation (Busard, Latin Buteo) it had, as Newton points out (Dict.
of Birds, 767), a definite meaning in relation to the old sport of
“hawking.” Birds of the genera Buteo and Circus (Harrier) were
styled “ buzzards ” (more especially the species of the former genus),
of slow and heavy flight, and “ were regarded with infinite scorn,
and hence in common English to call a man a buzzard is to denounce
him as stupid.” With the exception of eagles and owls and a few
kites all birds of prey in this country are termed “ hawks,” and
“buzzard” has been relegated to this slow-moving, carrion-feeding
species.
II. NAMES DERIVED FROM A LATIN EQUIVALENT.
Several of our English bird names have come into every day
speech by the anglicizing of their generic titles. The Linnean
genus Oriolus (from “ Oriole,” Latin aurum, gold) included certain
species of Icteridx, which though very different from the European
Oriolus galbula, still bear its name. “Junco” and “ Vireo” are
anglicized generic names. The word “ grackle” applied to certain
species of our Icteride appears to be an anglicized word derived
from the Linnean genus G'racula. The word originally referred to
the daw or jackdaw of Europe and the relationship between the
American birds and the European species, though somewhat distant,
was recognized by early writers, Quiscalus quiscula appears in
ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. Balad
Catesby as “The purple jackdaw” (I, 12). Bartram calls it the
“ Lesser purple jackdaw or crow blackbird” (the first notice I have
found of this last common name). Wilson calls it the “ purple
grackle,” from which source it has without doubt spread into the
current vernacular of ornithology, though not into the speech of the
people at large.
The name “ parula” recently in vogue for the warblers of the
genus Compsothlypis is clearly borrowed from the old Bonaparte
genus Parula (diminutive of titmouse). The bird (C. americana)
has appeared under various titles—“ the finch creeper ” of Catesby
(I, 64), “the various-colored little finch creeper” of Bartram
(Travels, 292), and the “blue yellow-backed warbler” of Wilson,
Audubon, and later authors.
In “ Kinglet” we have a word rendered into English from the
generic name,Regulus (Cuvier), though its use is somewhat recent,
“wren ” being the vernacular designation of the species of Regulus
until a comparatively late period. Edwards (Gleanings, V, 95)
refers to the species as “ Le Roitelet ” (also Buffon).
“Tanager” is another derived word from the Linnean genus
Tanagra, probably of Brazilian origin (Marcgrave, Hist. Rer. Nat.
Bras., 214).
Ill. NAMES SUGGESTED BY VOICE.
In this group, and in the ones that follow, the vernacular names
are more specific in their nature, indicative of some peculiar fea-
ture or habit of a species. Bird voices have been embodied from
the earliest times in various expressive syllables which have given
rise to a variety of names. “Cuckoo” was one of these, and in
like manner “wren,” “crow,” and other bird names of the Old
World. The babble of our voluble chat, as we have seen, undoubt-
edly led Catesby to ally the bird with a group of very different
species. In America the colonists soon found names by which to
designate a number of birds from peculiarities in their vocal per-
formances. Latham speaks of the “ Phcebe-bird ” (Sayornis fuscus) ,
unquestionably given him by some trans-Atlantic correspondent. Our
name “pewee” is given “pewit” by Bartram. Wilson named the
“wood pewee” (Contopus virens) from its voice and its habitat.
The older writers give “rice bird” as the chief caption of Doli-
chonyx oxyzivorus (Catesby, I, 14) and Bartram calls the male
“the pied rice bird.” Wilson calls it “rice bird,” but mentions
its other names, “boblink” and “reed bird.” Nuttall, as a good
New Englander, gives “bob-o-link” as its principal name, and
Barton, in his Fragments, has “ bob-lincoln.” I find this last title
also in a sketch of the English writer William Hazlitt (1785). These .
512 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
are the earliest references I can find to this song name of the bird
which appears to have been early in use throughout New York and
New England.
Among the current specific appelations of certain sparrows some
recent changes are noteworthy.
The “yellow winged sparrow” of Wilson is now the “ grass-
hopper sparrow,” the first allusion to its grasshopper-like notes
being, as far as I can find, in Coues’s Birds of the Northwest (p. 133).
We owe the attractive name of “vesper sparrow ” to John Burroughs
(Wake Robin), which has superseded the older “grass finch” of
Pennant and Gmelin and the “ bay-winged finch” of Wilson. The
“ chipping sparrow ” is through Wilson from the earlier “ little house
sparrow or chipping bird” of Bartram. “Song sparrow ” unques-
tionably originated through Wilson, as also the specific title melodia.
Catesby (I, 34) figures and describes “the towhe-bird” (Pipilo
erythrophthalmus). Wilson speaks of its name in Pennsylvania as
-“chewink.” “Towhee” is a later form of the word by adding an
additional “e.” “Swamp robin” and (in Virginia) “ bulfinch ” are
other names mentioned by Wilson.
“ Pipit ” is an old English name applied to the titlarks (Anthus)
and is derived through “ peep ” from “ pipe,” imitative of the bird’s
note.
Catesby calls the mockingbird (Afimus polyglottos) “The mock
bird,” though Bartram gives it its modern form. “ Catbird ” appears
as such in Catesby (I, 66) and Bartram adds “ chicken bird” as a
synonym (Travels, 290). ‘“ Chickadee” as a general imitative ver-
nacular name for the species of Parws I find first in Audubon. The
name “ veery,” given to the tawny thrush (Z’urdus fuscescens) in imi-
tation of its note, is first used as a synonym by Nuttall.
“Warbler,” as a general term for small song birds of the Old
World family Sylviide, has come down from a word in several of
the old European tongues (Old French, Old High German, Middle
English—Werbler, Werbelen) , meaning to whirl, run around, warble,
as a bird (Skeat). - In its special application to the species of Sylvia,
which we owe to Pennant (1773), it included the American warblers
(Mniotiltidee) which were later separated as a distinct family (Sylvi-,
colide) under the title of “wood warblers.” ‘“ Wood warbler,” how-
ever, has not prevailed, and “warbler” continues to be the current
vernacular for the various species of this characteristic American
family, though, as we are well aware, the name belies the insect-like
notes, drawling monotones, lispings, and wheezing performances of
the majority of the species. A few do really warble in the accepted
sense of the term (Geothlypis), but most speak in a tongue peculiarly
their own.
ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. 5138
Kalm (Travels, Eng. Trans., II, 151) speaks of “ whip-poor-will”
as the English name of Antrostomus vociferus. A confusion appears
in Bartram (Travels, 292), who has it “night hawk or whip-poor-
will.” Antrostomus carolinensis is called by Bartram (292) “the
great bat, or chuck wills widow.” “ Night hawk” is given by Wilson,
though this species (Chordeiles virginianus) appears to have been
described by Catesby under the name of “the goatsucker of Caro-
lina” (I, 8).
Colinus virginianus has long proclaimed his proper title of “ bob
white,” which has now become the accepted name of the species,
superseding the older and less distinctive terms of “quail” and
“ partridge.”
IV. NAMES SUGGESTED BY SOME PECULIAR HABIT OR HABITAT.
“Flycatcher” is a name of obvious application given to an Old
World group of birds. From the peculiar habits of certain Ameri-
can species the term “tyrant flycatchers” has become current. The
“kingbird ” is first so called by Bartram. Catesby figures the species
as “the tyrant,” whence the name of general application. Wilson
speaks of its name in Maryland as the “field martin,” and “ bee
martin ” is another name in certain localities.
“Gnatcatcher ” is a name that first appears in-Audubon, from the
Swainsonian genus Culicivora. The species (Polioptila cerulea)
was originally “the little bluish gray wren” of Bartram (Travels,
291), and later the “small blue gray flycatcher ” of Wilson (A. O.,
II, 164).”
Several species of warblers early received names indicative of
peculiar habits. The worm-eating warbler (Helmitheros vermi-
vorus) of Wilson and later authors was originally “ the worm-eater ”
(Edwards, Gleanings), from Bartram; also Latham and Pennant
from the same source. The pine-creeping warbler (Dendroica
wigorsi) of Wilson was the “pine creeper” of Catesby (I, 61). Ed-
wards (Gleanings, 92), quoting a letter from Bartram, says of Setu-
rus aurocapillus that it “builds its nest upon the ground, and always
chooses the south side of a hill; that it makes a hole in the leaves,
like a little oven, and lines it with dry grass,” etc. This is the first
reference I have found of the familiar vernacular ‘“ ovenbird,”
although Edwards calls the species “ golden-crowned thrush.” ‘ Wa-
ter thrush” and “ wagtail” were names early given to the other
species of the genus, and Pennant speaks of one as the “ New York
warbler” (Arct. Zoél., II, 308), whence its old specific name of
noveboracensis. The vernacular “myrtle bird ” first appears in Nut-
tall, hence probably “myrtle warbler” of authors, though early
accounts speak of the bird’s fondness for the berries of the wax
myrtle (Myrica). Catesby calls it “the yellowrump” (I, 58) and
514 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Edwards (Glean., VI, pl. 298) “the golden-crowned flycatcher.”
The magnolia warbler was found by Wilson “among the magnolias,
not far from Fort Adams, on the Mississippi.” He called it the
“black and yellow warbler, Sylvia Magnolia” (A. O., III, 68),
hence “magnolia warbler” of later authors. Dendroica palmarum,
the “ palm warbler ” of Latham (Synop., II, 491), is the “ yellow red
pole” of Edwards (Parus aureus vertice rubio of Bartram and the
“yellow red-poll warbler” of Wilson. Wilson called Dendroica
discolor the “ prairie warbler” from the open tracts of Kentucky
where he first found it.
Of the sparrows, several species have received names indicative of
habitat. The “little field sparrow” of Bartram became the “ field
sparrow ” of Wilson and later authors (“bush sparrow ” of Bur-
roughs). Wilson first bestowed the vernacular title of “swamp spar-
row” upon Melospiza georgiana, though it was known to Bartram as
“the reed sparrow.” In like manner the name “seaside finch” was
given by Wilson to Ammodramus maritimus from habitat (A. O.,
IV, 68). Junco hyemalis was called “snowbird” by the early set-
tlers, from the fact of its appearance in the late autumn and at the
onset of winter in the coastal plain region (Catesby, Kalm, Wilson,
and later authors). “Junco” is a comparatively late adoption in
order to avoid confusion with the snow bunting, Plectrophenax
nivalis.
The “house wren” is so called by Bartram (Travels, 291) and
the “ marsh wren” likewise (the latter most likely referring to the
long-billed species). Wilson, correcting earlier errors, gave the title
“winter wren” to 7. hiemalis.
“Chimney swallow” is an old name for the “chimney swift”
(Chetura pelagica) and is given as such by Kalm, Bartram, and
early writers.
“7. melodes, the wood thrush,” is so called by Bartram (Travels,
290). Wilson named the “hermit thrush” (7. solitaria, A. O., V.,
95) from its habitat and its retiring habits.
The Cowbird was“ the cow-pen bird” of Catesby (I, 34) and like-
wise of Audubon, and the “cow bunting” of Wilson. ‘“ Meadow
lark” first appears in Wilson. Bartram calls it “the great meadow
lark,” and Catesby “the large lark” (I, 33). Pennant, nearer the
truth, calls it the “ crescent stare” (Arct. Zodl., 192). Wilson also
speaks of “old field lark” as its common name in Virginia. The
“shore lark” is so called by Pennant. Catesby calls it “the lark ”
(I, 32), Bartram the “ skylark,” and Wilson the “ horned lark.”
Several of our American swallows received names indicative of
habit or habitat. “ Barn swallow” originated as a specific title with
Barton (horreorum, Fragments, 1799). It was the “ house swallow ”
of Bartram. The bank swallow is the “ bank martin” of Bartram.
ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. 515
“ Cliff” and “ eave” swallow are names of Petrochelidon lunifrons
according to the particular nesting site adopted by this species. I
have failed to find any early reference to the name “ tree swallow ”
for 7. bicolor, the “ white-bellied swallow” of earlier authors. It
appears to have come into use at a comparatively late period.
Bartram speaks of Ampelis cedrorum as “ crown bird” or cedar
bird ” (Travels, 290), the latter its current name.
VY. NAMES SUGGESTED BY COLOR OR OTHER EXTERNAL FEATURE.
A large number of our American bird names owe their origin to
color or to some conspicuous external feature. The “ great crested
flycatcher ” of Wilson is the “ great crested yellow-bellied flycatcher ”
of Bartram and “the crested flycatcher” of Catesby (I, 52). The
word “ great ” evidently originated with Bartram. “ Baltimore,” as
applied in the vernacular to /cterus galbula, was first used in orni-
thological literature by Catesby—“ The Baltimore bird” (I, 48)—
the name being derived from its color pattern, that of the livery of
the Calverts (Lord Baltimore). Bartram calls it “ Baltimore bird
or hang nest.” The specific appellation “ orchard” appears first to
have been bestowed by Wilson upon Jcterus spurius, which was the
“bastard Baltimore” of Catesby (I, 49). Wilson goes to some
length to set things right concerning this species. ‘“ Scarlet,” as
applied to the tanager (Piranga erythromelas) appears first in Ed-
wards (Gleanings, 343) as the “ scarlet sparrow.” Pennant calls this
species “ Canada tanager.” The “summer redbird” is so called and
figured by Catesby (I, 56). Bartram speaks of it as the “ sandhill
redbird of Carolina.” Among the sparrows and grosbeaks there are
a number of species, the names of which have a color origin. “ Red
poll,” given to a species of Acanthis, appears as the “lesser red-
headed linnet” and “ lesser redpole,” of Ray and Pennant. “ Lin-
net ” is an ancient name common in several European languages and
is in reference to the fondness of these birds for the seeds of the flax
(Linum). Bartram undoubtedly refers to this species (Acanthis
linaria) under the name of “hemp bird.” “ Purple,” as applied to
Carpodacus purpureus first appears in Catesby’s work (I, 41) as
“purple finch” and is a monumental witness of an inability to
properly discriminate either between two very different shades of
color or in the use of the right word. ‘“ White-throated sparrow ” is
so called by Edwards from a drawing of the species sent him by
Bartram, who speaks of it in his Travels as “The large brown
white-throat sparrow.” Zonotrichia leucophrys is the ‘“ white-
crowned bunting” of Pennant. The vernacular of Passerella iliaca
has been contracted from the earlier “ fox-colored ” (or “ colored ”)
to simple “ fox sparrow.” Bartram calls it “the red or fox-colored
516 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ground or hedge sparrow.” Barton, in his Fragments, speaks of this
species’ name in New York as “the shepherd” (Fragments, 15).
Our modern “ cardinal” is undoubtedly of French origin. Catesby
gives it its English title of “red bird” and also “Le Cardinal” (1,
38). It is “the red bird or Virginia nightingale” of Bartram and
other early writers. Catesby figures Guzraca cerulea as “the blew
grosbeak” (I, 39). “ Rose-breasted ” (Wilson) may be traced to
Le Rose Gorge of Buffon and “ red-breasted grosbeak ” of Pennant.
Passerina cyanea is “ the blew linnet ” of Catesby (I, 45), who further
alludes to it as the “indigo bird of Americans.” The “ painted
finch ” (P. ciris) is so called by Catesby, and Bartram likewise adds
its other title of “nonpariel.” “Lazuli” was bestowed upon P.
amena by Say (Long’s Exp., I, 47, 1823).
Pennant first uses the name “ black-throated bunting” for Spiza
americana, but Bartram mentions this species under the title “ Ca-
landra pratensis, the May bird” (Travels, 291). “ Dickcissel,” its
modern name, appears to have originated through Mr. Robert Ridg-
way from Middle West localities (Coues, Birds of the North West,
166). Wilson borrowed the term “ sharp-tailed ” for Ammodramus
caudacutus from Turton (Syst., 562). “ Lark,” as applied to two
species of Fringillide—Chondestes grammacus and Calamospiza
melanocorys—was bestowed upon these different birds, in the one
case by Say and in the other by Townsend, in view of their lark-like
appearance and habits.
Among the warblers we have a host of color names. “ Mourning
warbler ” we owe to its discoverer, Wilson. ‘The summer warbler or
“ yellow warbler ” (Dendroica aestiva) was “ the yellow titmouse ” of
Catesby (I, 63), “the summer yellow bird” of Bartram, the “ yel-
low poll” of Latham and Pennant and the “blue-eyed yellow
warbler ” of Wilson. Say first described the orange-crowned warbler
(Helminthophila celata) (Long’s Exp., 1823). M/niotilta varia was
the “black and white creeper” of Edwards (Glean., VI, received
from Bartram who gave it itsname). In his Travels Bartram calls it
the “blue and white.striped or pied creeper” (p. 289). Of the pro-
thonotary warbler Pennant (Arct. Zo6l., II, 30) says: “ Inhabits
Louisiana. Called there le Protonotaria; but the reason has not
reached us.” Probably in allusion to the vestures of that office.
Many species of warblers were earlier known by the various names of
“ flycatcher,” “titmouse,” and “ creeper,” according to their peculiar
habits, the specific vernacular being mainly in relation to color.
Dendroica cerulescens was the “ blue flycatcher ” of Edwards (Glean.,
pl. 252, received from Bartram); the “ black-throat ” of Pennant
(Arct. Zool., II, 285) ; the “ black-throated warbler ” of Latham, and
the “ black-throated blue warbler ” as first applied by Wilson. Wil-
son first named the “ caerulean warbler.” The “ black poll warbler ”
ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. aT
appears as such in Latham and Pennant, “ poll” or “ pole” being an
early name for “ head ” as in our “ poll tax.” The “ yellow-throated
warbler” (D. dominica) was “the yellow-throated creeper” of
Catesby (I, 61). The “ blue-winged yellow warbler” (Helmintho-
phila pinus) was formerly confused with the “ pine creeper” of
Catesby (D. vigorsii), hence pinus as applied to this species of Hel-
minthophila. Its vernacular is a clear translation by Wilson of Bar-
tram’s “ Parus aureus alis ceruleis, blue-winged yellow bird.” In
like manner ZZ. chrysoptera was the “ Parus alis awreus ” of Bartram,
the “ golden-winged flycatcher ” of Edwards (from Bartram), and
the “ golden-winged warbler ” of Wilson and later authors. Wilson
first bestowed the names “ bay-breasted ” and “ chestnut-sided ” upon
D. castanea and D. pensylvanica. The former was Bartram’s “ little
chocolate breast titmouse” (Travels, 292) and the latter his “ golden
crown flycatcher.” This last species, also, was the “ red-throated
flycatcher ” of Edwards and the “ bloody-side warbler ” of Turton
as a result of Edwards’s badly colored plate. D. virens was the
“oreen black-throated flycatcher” of Bartram and the “ black-
throated green flycatcher” of Edwards (Glean., VI, pl. 300, from
Bartram). The “hooded warbler” (Sylvania mitrata) is figured
by Catesby under the name of “ the hooded titmouse ” (I, 60).
“ Black-cap titmouse” is Bartram’s name for the species (Parus
atricapillus) and probably also its near relative P. carolinensis.
The “olive-backed thrush” was first so-called by Giraud (Birds of
Long Island, 1844, 92). 7. fuscescens was called “tawny thrush”
by Wilson. “ Bluebird” is an early name. ‘The species is figured
by Catesby (I, 47) as “the blew-bird.” Pennant called it the “ blue-
backed red-breast” (Arct. Zool., II, 91). Lantus ludovicianus was
called the “logger head shrike” or “loggerhead” by Wilson, as its
common name in the South.
Most of our species of woodpeckers early received their names
from color markings or other external feature, as “ red-headed,”
“ vellow-bellied,” “ golden-winged,” “ pileated,” “downy,” “hairy,”
“ ivory-billed,” ete. The word “ flicker,” as a vernacular of Colaptes
auratus, probably originated from the bird’s call notes. It is re-
ferred to by Wilson.
VI. NAMES SUGGESTED BY LOCALITY (PLACE-NAMES) OR IN HONOR OF
SOME PERSON.
A curious misapprehension as to the significance of the current
English name of Ammodramus sandwichensis savanna seems to
exist in ornithological literature as revealed by its orthography.
Wilson distinctly refers to the city of Savannah as the locality where
he states he first discovered the species (A. O., III, 55) and he so
spells its name in the English title. Its specific name, however,
518 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
he gives as “savanna.” In our current literature this last appears
as the method of spelling the bird’s name in English, which is clearly
misleading. In its general application “savanna” might be very
appropriate in view of the species’ habitat, but Wilson intended it
otherwise, and “Savannah sparrow” is the proper form of the
English name.
The term “evening” in the vernacular of Hesperiphona vesper-
tina as given to the species by Cooper (Annals N. Y. Lyceum Nat.
Hist., I, 220) conveys, as does the scientific name, the idea of the
west or the place of sunset.
Geothlypis trichas was called by Bartram “the olive colored
yellowthroated wren” (Travels, 292). Of the bird’s present English
name I find the following interesting reference in Edward’s Glean-
ings (V, 57): “J. Petiver, in his Gazophylacium, plate vi, has
given the figure of a bird, which I believe to be the same with this;
for which reason I continue the name he has given it * * #*
‘Avis Marylandica gutture luteo, the Maryland yellowthroat. This
the Rev. Mr. H. Jones sent me from Maryland.’” Edwards later
received the bird from Bartram with a drawing “very neatly and
exactly done, by Mr. William Bartram, of Pennsylvania, who hath
enabled me to give a further account of this bird, for he says it fre-
quents thickets and low bushes by runs (of water, I suppose, he
means) and low grounds; it leaves Pennsylvania at the approach of
winter, and is supposed to go to a warmer climate.”
To Wilson we owe the place names of five of our species of
warblers—the Kentucky, Connecticut, Tennessee, Nashville, and Cape
May—from the State or locality of the first capture by him of the
species in question. John Cassin named a species of Vireo “ Phila-
delphia” after the city in the neighborhood of which he obtained
his type specimen.
Thryothorus ludovicianus obtained its vernacular through Bar-
tram—(regulus magnus) the great wren of Carolina” (Travels,
291). This Wilson transposed into “ Great Carolina wren.”
The “ Blackburnian warbler” is so called by Pennant and Latham,
and was named in honor of Mrs. Hugh Blackburn, of London.
A number of our birds acquired their names in the first half of
the last century in honor of certain persons known to their describers,
as Lincoln’s, Henslow’s, LeConte’s, and Harris’s sparrows; Town-
send’s, Audubon’s, Swainson’s, and Bachman’s warblers; Lewis’s
woodpecker ; Clark’s nutcracker ; Steller’s and Woodhouse’s jays, and
many others of early and recent date.
“ Louisiana,” as applied to the species of tanager (Piranga ludo-
viciana), and the water thrush (Setwrus motacilla) refers to the
ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. 519
region embraced in the Louisiana Purchase, not to the present State
of that name. “Florida,” “Canada,” “ California,” “ Hudsonian,”
and other regional names have in like manner been applied to certain
‘species, as “ Florida jay,” “ Canada jay,” “ Canadian warbler,” “ Cali-
fornia woodpecker,” Hudsonian chickadee,” and so forth.
The matter as presented in the foregoing sketch does not pretend
to list all of the species and varieties of North American land birds.
It is only a sketch or outline of a most attractive subject and was
written partly for the purpose of gathering together what knowledge
we have of the history and origin of our more familiar bird names.
45745°—sm 1909——34
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Grant. PLATE 1.
GREAT BROWN BEAR OF THE ALASKAN PENINSULA (URSUS GYAS MERRIAM). NATIONAL
ZOOLOGICAL PARK, WASHINGTON, D. C. WEIGHT MARCH 21, 1908, 1,050 Pounps.
CONDITION OF WILD LIFE IN ALASKA.
[With 1 plate.]
By Mapison GRANT.
The opening of the twentieth century found the game in the old
territories of the United States well on the road toward the condi-
tions that precede extinction. The bison had been practically gone
for two decades. The mountain sheep had been exterminated
throughout a very large part of its original range, and the number
remaining 1n remote mountains was sadly reduced. The wapiti,
while still living in herds numbering many thousand, was rapidly
withdrawing to the vicinity of its last refuge, the Yellowstone Park.
The prong-horn of the plains was disappearing with increasing
rapidity, partly due to the increasing use of the barb-wire fences on
its former ranges.
This rapid diminution of the game animals of the United States
was, and is to-day, the inevitable consequence of the settlement and
occupation of the best grazing lands. While there remain mountains
where the game is relatively undisturbed, so far as the killing of
individuals is concerned, and while these ranges in summer appear
well adapted to sustain a large and varied fauna, their actual capacity
to sustain life is limited to such animals as can there find sustenance
during the heavy snows of winter.
Before the arrival of white men, the animals, which lived in the
mountains during the summer, sought refuge in the sheltered valleys
and foothills during the cold season. ‘These favored localities, how-
ever, were at once occupied by settlers, and the game was deprived
of its winter feeding grounds. In my opinion, this has done more
in recent years to exterminate the large animals of the West than the
actual shooting of individuals.
During the closing years of the nineteenth century the Ameri-
can people had obtained no little experience in game protection, and
had embodied it in Federal statutes and the game laws of the various
@ Reprinted by permission from the Twelfth Annual Report of the New York
Zoological Society, 1907. New York, January, 1908.
521
522 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
States. Of all the regulations established for the preservation of
wild life, the most practical and effective have been found to be, first,
the prohibition of hide and head hunting; second, the prohibition
of market hunting; third, and most important of all, the establish-
ment of sanctuaries where game could roam and breed absolutely
undisturbed. The most conspicuous example of such refuges is the
Yellowstone Park, the unquestioned success of which is admitted
on all sides.
At the end of the century, the gold discovered in the extreme
northwest of Canada and in Alaska brought these territories sud-
denly before the public eye. Here was a district of enormous ex-
tent, lying at the extreme limit of the continent, and populated
by a large and varied fauna, which was practically undisturbed.
During the last ten years thousands of prospectors and miners have
gone into Alaska, and in many places worked havoc with the game.
On the whole, however, the destruction of the game has not yet gone
far enough to permanently injure the fauna of the region, provided
the matter of protection is taken in hand scientifically and in the
immediate future.
We have in Alaska a gigantie preserve. In it there are not only
several species rich in the numbers of their individual members, but
also certain species which in point of size appear to be the very
culmination of their respective genera, as, for example, the giant
moose. The brown bear group of southern Alaska certainly contains
the largest bears in the world, not even excepting the great fish bear
of Kamchatka or the extinct cave bear of Europe. The largest
known wolves are found in northern Alaska, and a wolverine of ex-
ceptional size has been recently described. When this great game
region was first opened up immediate legislation was needed to pro-
tect the animals from the deliberate onslaught of hide hunters in
southeastern Alaska; of head hunters, who attacked the moose, sheep,
and caribou of the Kenai Peninsula, and of the market hunters gen-
erally throughout the coast regions. A game law, which certainly
proved effective in-making it difficult for sportsmen to hunt in
Alaska, was passed, and a revision of this statute is now before
Congress. It is not the intention to discuss in this paper the details
of the proposed legislation, beyond saying that the measure is pro-
posed by the friends of animal life in Alaska, and has the support
of the best interests in that Territory.
The general principles of game protection applicable to the situ-
ation in Alaska are simple. It should be clearly understood that the
game of Alaska, or of any other region, does not belong exclusively
to the human inhabitants of that particular region, and that neither
the white settlers nor the native inhabitants have any inherent right
to the game other than that conferred by law. The interest of the
WILD LIFE IN ALASKA—GRANT. 523
entire people of the United States, and to some extent that of the
civilized world, is centered in the continued existence of the forms of
animal life which have come down to us from an immense antiquity
through the slow process of evolution. It is no longer generally
conceded that the local inhabitants of any given district have a divine
commission to pollute the streams with sawdust, to destroy the
forests by axe or fire, or to slaughter every living thing within reach
of rifle, trap, or poisoned bait. This must be thoroughly understood
in advance. The game and the forests belong to the nation and not
to the individual, and the use of them by the individual citizen is
limited to such privileges as may be accorded him by law. The mere
fact that he has the power to destroy without interference by the law
does not in itself confer a right. The destruction of game is far
more often effected by local residents than it is by visiting sportsmen,
but the chief evil doer, and the public enemy of all classes is the
professional hunter, either Indian or white, who kills for the market.
Worse still, perhaps, is the professional dealer in heads and antlers,
who employs such hunters to provide game heads for the decoration
of the banquet halls of the growing class of would-be sportsmen, who
enjoy the suggestion of hunting prowess conferred by a selected col-
lection of purchased heads, mixed in with those of their own killing.
However efficient the game laws may be in limiting the killing to a
given number of individuals, and to certain seasons of the year, or,
better still, to the adult males of certain species, the only permanently
effective way to continue in abundance and in individual vigor any
species of game is to establish proper sanctuaries, as thoroughly con-
trolled as the Yellowstone Park, and these must contain both summer
and winter ranges. In such areas no hunting or trapping, nor per-
haps even dogs, should be allowed; and in them the game will then
retain its native habits and breed freely, while the overflow would
populate the adjoining districts. This principle has been applied in
East Africa with brilliant success, where a protected strip of land on
either side of the Uganda Railway is now absolutely swarming with
game.
Such preserves should be set aside in Alaska, while land is yet of
little value. Districts should be selected where there is but little, if
any, mineral wealth; and there are abundant areas of that descrip-
tion in Alaska. Certain islands should also be utilized, particularly
in southeastern Alaska. Beyond doubt such refuges will be ulti-
mately established, but it is to be hoped that it can be done before the
game has been decimated and the forests cut down or burned.
Another element in game protection is the relation of the Indian to
the wild game. This problem is not as serious in Alaska as it is in
parts of British Columbia and the Canadian Northwest, and is set-
tling itself by the rapid decline of the Indian population. Indians,
524 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
after they have been in contact with white men, certainly are extremely
destructive to animal life. An Indian with a gun will shoot at any-
thing he sees until his ammunition is gone. They seem to be entirely
devoid cf any idea of economy in slaughtering, even though they
know that they are certain to suffer from starvation as a result of
their indiscriminate waste of game. Any legislation, therefore, that
gives Indians privileges superior to the whites is not based on scien-
tific but on sentimental considerations.
To exempt Indians from the limitation of game laws in a district
partly inhabited by white men, simply puts the white hunter at a
disadvantage, and always results in a contempt for the law on the
part of the latter. If an Indian is allowed to hunt freely during the
closed season, he is usually employed by whites for market hunting.
The game he kills finds its way to the white man’s market rather
than to the teepees of the tribe, or is used as food by the Indian’s
dogs, with the ultimate result that the food supply of the entire tribe
is killed off for the benefit of a few hunters.
The Indians of Alaska have, in the abundance of salmon, a food
supply which is available throughout the most of the district, and are
consequently not entitled to any special privileges. Alaska is, and for
a long time should remain, the ward of the Federal Government—
however distasteful such a course may be to some of its inhabitants.
It is peculiarly the duty of the Federal Government to preserve and
control the wild game of this national domain, because the people of
the United States as a whole are the ones most interested in its preser-
vation. It is to Congress, rather than to the residents of Alaska, that
we must look for the enactment and enforcement of suitable laws,
and to avail of the last great opportunity to preserve our native fauna
on a large scale. We no doubt in the future shall restore game and
perhaps forests to many districts now stripped of both, but in Alaska
we have our last chance to preserve and protect rather than to restore.
The claim made by many western communities, that local state laws
are sufficient, is being daily disproved by the inability of several
States to control the small game supply left within their own borders.
Colorado is a notable example of the rapid diminution of game under
state control, where female deer and fawns are now being killed
under the laws of the State. In Canada, British Columbia prides
itself on the efficiency of its game laws, but the game is rapidly van-
ishing there, although in the eastern portion of that province it is
the Stoney Indians, rather than white hunters, who are the chief
destroyers.
From the point of view of game conditions, Alaska is divided into
two entirely distinct regions. First the coast region, from Portland
Canal along the base of the mountains northward and then westward
to and including the Aleutian Islands. The second region comprises
WILD LIFE IN ALASKA—GRANT. 525
the interior beyond the mountains, and is coextensive with the region
drained by the Yukon River and its various branches.
The conditions in these two regions differ widely, and practically
all the sportsmen who go to Alaska hunt in the coast region. Those
who cross into the interior are apt to confine their shooting to the
headwaters of the Yukon in Canadian territory.
The game on the coast between Portland Canal and Mount St.
Elias consists principally of bear and the small Sitka deer. There
is an abundance of goat on the mainland close enough to salt water
to be easily reached.
To reach moose, caribou, or sheep from the southeastern coast re-
quires a journey over the mountains into British Columbia, which
is seldom attempted, except from Fort Wrangell at the mouth of the
Stikeen River.
West of the St. Elias Alps and around Cook Inlet the principal
game animals are the giant moose and white sheep of the Kenai
Peninsula, the caribou and bear of the Alaska Peninsula, and the
bear of some of the large islands, notably Kodiak. It is in this dis-
trict that the game laws require close attention and rigid enforcement.
In the vast interior the strict enforcement of game laws is not
so important, because the entire region drained by the Yukon is
covered with heavy forests, and the population is largely confined
to the waterways.
Black bear, lynx, and moose are everywhere abundant, but seldom
seen along the Yukon River. Sheep are accessible from points on
the upper Yukon, notably at Eagle, and caribou occasionally cross
the river in herds.
The game laws for this district should aim principally at the
prevention of slaughter on a large scale for market purposes, and
of hide and head hunting. There are very few sportsmen, and the
miners and prospectors in the interior are difficult to control.
Wolves.—Wolves are abundant in Vancouver Island and through-
out the interior. In the north, around the region drained by the
Porcupine River, they assume very large dimensions, some skins
measuring nearly 6 feet from nose to tip of tail; and a large per-
centage of these wolves are black. Coyotes have pushed north from
the American boundary as far as White Horse, at the headwaters of
the Yukon River.
Foxes.—Red, cross, silver, and black foxes occur in the interior.
The two latter command enormous prices, in some cases as high
as $1,000 for one skin. These animals are being killed off-by the
use of poison in the hands of white men, and many more are de-
stroyed than are recovered. The natives are afraid to use poison,
owing to several tragedies which have occurred from its careless
handling.
526 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Along the Arctic and Bering Sea coast white foxes abound, and
blue foxes are found from the mouth of the Yukon River southward,
their center of abundance being Nelson Island, in Bering Sea, near
the mouth of the Kuskokwim River.
Bear.—Bear are extremely abundant in Alaska, especially on the
Pacific coast. Their great numbers are probably due to the fact
that they have an abundant food supply in the great schools of
salmon that ascend the rivers. Before the arrival of the salmon,
these bear, like the grizzhes of our own Rockies, fed on spermophiles
and grass. During the salmon season they are easily found and
killed by hunters, and as this occurs during the summer season, their
fur is of very little value. The period of the salmon run, in fact the
entire summer, should be made a closed season for bear throughout
this district. Owing to the recent decline in the price of bear skins
these splendid animals have been hunted rather less than formerly.
The black bear occur in Vancouver and Queen Charlotte islands,
‘but, as far as I know, do not occur in any of the large islands north.
They are, however, found along the mainland of the southeastern
coast, and found everywhere throughout the interior in the timbered
region. The blue or glacier bear is found rarely around the glaciers
of the Mount St. Elias region.
Grizzlies occur in considerable numbers along the mainland of the
coast as far north as Skagway, and are found in relatively small
numbers throughout the interior. There are very few grizzly bear
on the Seward Peninsula, and I was unable to get any skulls or to
obtain any definite data concerning them. This bear may prove an
interesting type if a sufficient series of specimens could be obtained.
There is a huge bear found on the large islands around Juneau and
Sitka which has been described as a separate species, and its numbers
are indicated by the fact that about 75 animals, the majority being
of this species, are killed annually around Juneau.
The brown bear group extends from this point westward along the
south coast of Alaska, out into the Alaska Peninsula. Several species
have been described; but they can all be safely grouped together under
the common designation of Alaska brown bear. They extend far up
the Copper River, but I could not obtain any definite record of the
occurrence of members of this group north of the mountain region
and in the area drained by the Yukon.
Polar bear occur quite abundantly north of Bering Straits. Occa-
sionally they are found on the Seward Peninsula, and occur as far
south as St. Matthew Island, in the middle of Bering Sea.
Caribou.—Caribou of several species are found more or less numer-
ously throughout Alaska, and occur in herds around the upper
Yukon, with localities of especial abundance, such as the head
of Forty Mile River. An examination of the antlers found at
é
WILD LIFE IN ALASKA—GRANT. 527
various points, from the upper Yukon River to the sea, would indi-
cate an almost complete transition of antler type from the wood-
land (Osborn) caribou, to the barren ground (Grant) caribou. A
further study of the caribou of this region will ultimately lead to a
merging of the various species. The work of Charles Sheldon, who
is now studying sheep in the Mount McKinley district, has broken
down the specific distinction of the sheep in Alaska in the same way.
That caribou were formerly very abundant on the Seward Penin-
sula is proved by the abundance of bleached skulls and cast antlers,
apparently about 20 or 25 years old. The cause of their disappear-
ance is as yet an unsolved problem. The possession of firearms by the
natives, first obtained from whalers, is by some considered as the cause,
and by others epidemic. The natives themselves claim that about a
generation ago the winter cold continued throughout an entire year,
and all the caribou perished in consequence. AI] these explanations
leave much to be desired, as there is an abundance of caribou in the
wooded district at the eastern end of the peninsula, and the explana-
tion of the fact that in the course of all these years the caribou have
not wandered back to their old feeding grounds remains a mystery.
A few scattered individuals at the very most are all that have been
seen since the founding of Nome, seven or eight years ago.
Domestic reindeer have been introduced into Alaska successfully,
and form a valuable resource for the natives. I, however, saw nothing
of them beyond the fact that their meat forms a part of the menu in
the various restaurants at Nome.
Moose-—Moose occur everywhere throughout Alaska within the
timbered region, but seldom leave the shelter of the woods. They
extend close to the Arctic Ocean in the north, and occasionally wander
far out on the Alaska Peninsula. The giant moose occurs on the
Kenai Peninsula, but it is probable that this animal is only an outly-
ing member of the type species, which in that districu, for some un-
known reason, produces antlers of extraordinary size and complexity.
A few instances of moose with antlers of great size are known in the
interior, but it is a matter of doubt whether or not in bodily size the
Kenai Peninsula moose excels that of his kin in the interior or in the
Yukon territory.
Mountain sheep.—Sheep occur everywhere in the mountain regions
throughout Alaska, being especially abundant in the country around
the upper Yukon and around Mount McKinley, extending thence as
far south and west as the Kenai Peninsula. They also occur on the
upper Porcupine River, but the great Yukon Valley in its lower
reaches is without sheep.
Mountain goat—Goat occur throughout the mainland from the
American boundary north, but are never found, as far as I know,
on any of the islands lying close along the coast in southeastern
528 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Alaska. In size and abundance the mountain goat appears to culmi-
nate in the region around the White Horse Pass, where they are
very abundant. They can still be seen within a half day’s march
of Skagway. They occur in abundance around the St. Elias Alps,
and extend as far west as the head of Cook Inlet. I only heard
of one doubtful case of Kennedy’s goat, the horns of which have
been described as lyrate.
Walrus and whales—Walrus are found every winter and spring
in the Bering Sea, and many are killed at that season by the natives
for the ivory, which sells at a dollar a pound. The walrus formerly
extended down to the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands, but
the rookeries there have been destroyed. This great mammal should
receive absolute protection in the entire Bering Sea region, except on
the Pribilof Islands, where only a few are annually killed by the
natives.
Whales and porpoises occur in great abundance along the inside
passage between Puget Sound and Lynn Canal and are interesting
and harmless. There are now two plants on Vancouver Island very
profitably engaged in killing whale of all sizes and converting them
into fertilizer. A new plant has just been established near Juneau,
where whales are especially abundant. It would be an easy matter
to protect these animals, especially with the cooperation of the
Canadian authorities, throughout the inland passages and ocean-
ward as far as the 3-mile limit. Protective legislation of this sort
should be urged.
Fossils —I any review of the present game conditions of the vast
territory comprised within the district of Alaska and the Canadian
territory of the Yukon, a few remarks on the former occurrence of
related forms are not without interest.
Bones of large extinct mammals, more or less fossilized, occur in
abundance throughout the entire valley drained by the Yukon River
from Dawson down, and in the valleys of the Colville and Porcupine
rivers, and in still greater abundance on the Seward Peninsula, that
projection of Alaska which reaches to within 60 miles of Siberia.
Throughout this enormous area remains of the mammoth and bison
occur in such numbers as to indicate former herds of great size. We
find also a smaller number of remains of horses, sheep, and at least
two species of musk ox, together with a deer closely related to our
wapiti. Teeth of mastodon, although very rare as compared with
those of the mammoth, indicate the former existence of that animal.
It is perfectly evident that in times comparatively recent, from a
geological point of view, perhaps from ten to twenty-five thousand
years ago, Alaska had a fauna of large mammals not altogether dis-
similar to existing animals of North America and northern Asia.
The mastododn and mammoth, of course, no longer exist on this con-
WILD LIFE IN ALASKA—GRANT. 529
tinent, but the latter is little more than a hairy relative of the Indian
elephant, thoroughly fitted to meet boreal conditions, and the horses
in Alaska were probably not unlike the wild Prjevalsky horses of
Asia to-day.
The ancient Alaskan deer were probably related to the wapiti,
which swarmed over our American plains within the memory of
living man, and the fossil remains of caribou and moose do not
indicate any great departure from the living forms of those animals.
Sheep still occur abundantly in Alaska, and the musk ox, while
no longer found in Alaska, inhabits the no less inhospitable regions
of the Barren Grounds of North America and the land masses lying
still farther north.
Bison skulls are quite common, and indicate an animal much
larger, but probably ancestral to our living buffalo. The history
of the American bison, which migrated in summer as far north
as the Saskatchewan and southward in winter to the Mexican border,
suggests that it is quite possible that these animals did not habitually
spend the winter in Alaska, but on the approach of the cold season
migrated southward to warmer climates, or crossed into Siberia on
the former land connection over what are now Bering Straits. If
this hypothesis be correct, the climate of Alaska during the Pleisto-
cene and recent periods may not have radically differed from the
climate of to-day.
The extension of placer mining in Alaska, when conducted in
a more systematic manner than at present, will undoubtedly bring
to light other forms of large mammals, most probably types related
to those already mentioned, together with the remains of carnivorous
types.
RECENT DISCOVERIES BEARING ON THE ANTIQUITY
OF MAN IN EUROPE.
[With 18 plates.]
By GreorcE GRANT MacCurpy, Yale University.
INTRODUCTION.
Every ten years our Government takes a census. This happens to
be the year in which it is done. It is also good policy for a science,
especially if it is a relatively new one, to take a periodical account of
stock. The science of prehistoric anthropology need have no fear of
the satisfactory outcome of such a test at this time. I have been
asked to be the census taker for the European field, and consider
myself fortunate, not only in the field, but also in the period to be
covered. Nowhere else has the prehistoric, the whole problem of
man’s antiquity, been studied with such thoroughness and with such
happy results. Of the nearly one hundred years since prehistoric
archeology began to take shape and to grow into what is now becom-
ing a real science, no decade has shown a more satisfactory record
than the one just closed. To its achievements the present paper is
devoted.
How are we to measure the growth of the decade in question? The
correct result requires a knowledge not only of what is now known
but also of what was known in 1900. The annual output in the way
of publications is one of the best gauges of activity, of the rate of
progress in a given subject. Ten years ago the prehistoric output
was well provided for in the journals dealing with anthropology in
general, in the proceedings of periodical congresses, the transactions
of local societies, and occasional special publications, These channels
continue to be utilized in increasing ratio, which ordinarily would
meet the requirements of a healthy, steady growth. But they have
not sufficed. New and more highly specialized journals have sprung
into existence, new prehistoric societies and congresses have been
organized, and special publications financed. At this moment I do
not recall a single purely prehistoric European journal of importance
5381
532 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
dating back to 1900. Of those founded since then, there should be
mentioned: L’Homme Préhistorique (Paris), a monthly founded in
1903; La Revue Préhistorique (Paris), a monthly founded in 1906;
Praehistorische Zeitschrift (Berlin), founded in 1909; Mannus,
Zeitschrift fiir Vorgeschichte, Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft fiir
Vorgeschichte (Wiirzburg), founded in 1909. In December, 1903,
the Société Préhistorique de France was founded. It publishes-a
monthly bulletin; also in 1906 a handbook appeared, Manuel de
Recherches Préhistoriques, and since 1905 has held a congress annu-
ally, each compte rendu of which forms a large volume of about a
thousand pages.
In addition to these new channels, there should be mentioned
certain special publications made possible through the generosity of
patrons of the science, either private individuals or learned societies.
One of these, the joint werk of de Villeneuve, Verneau, and Boule,
and entitled “ Les Grottes de Grimaldi*® (Baoussé-Roussé) ,” was due
to the initiative of Prince Albert I. of Monaco. ‘The latter is at
present promoting a new and important project, which might be
styled a paleolithic survey of northern Spain. The work is in
charge of a committee consisting of Hermilio Alcalde del Rio, P.
Lorenzo Sierra, Abbé Henri Breuil, Abbé Jean Bouyssonie, and Dr.
Hugo Obermaier. The report of last summer’s campaign ” is highly
gratifying.and gives assurance of another publication worthy to
rank with that on the caverns of Grimaldi. The Academie des In-
scriptions et Belles-Lettres has also become a patron of prehistoric
archeology, generously supporting from its funds the joint explora-
tions of French caverns by Cartailhac and Breuil.
This much increased literary output presupposes a corresponding
activity in the field, the museum, and the study. A record of the
explorations in the field alone would far surpass the limits of this
paper. The results have been so comprehensive, so cumulative in
their effect, that only the alert have been able to keep pace with the
progress. It has been a period of intensive study as well as of gen-
eralization. The careful scientific exploration of new stations has
led to a revision of old data and often the re-exploration of old
localities.
A list of the more notable achievements would include such items
as Rutot’s contributions to our knowledge of a pre-Chellean indus-
try; those of Penck relating to man and the glacial period; the dis-
covery of paleolithic human remains at Krapina,’? Mauer (near Hei-
@Two quarto volumes, Monaco, 1906.
6H. Obermaier. Der diluviale Mensch in der Provinz Santander (Spanien).
Praehistorische Zeitschrift, vol. 1, 183, 1909.
€ Station discovered in 1899, but not published comprehensively till 1906.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. Joo
delberg), Le Moustier, La Chapelle-aux-Saints, Combe-Capelle, Le
Pech de l’Azé, and La Ferrassie; the studies of Breuil, Cartailhac,
Capitan and others relating to paleolithic mural paintings and en-
gravings; Commont’s recent explorations at the classic station of
Saint-Acheul; those of Martin and Giraux at La Quina; the re-
searches of Szombathy, Hoernes, and Obermaier in Austria-Hun-
gary, those of R. R. Schmidt and of Wiegers in Germany, and of
Bachler in Switzerland. Mention has already been made of the
work done in the caverns of Grimaldi and that begun in northern
Spain, both under the generous patronage of the Prince of Monaco.
To enumerate ali the important stations recently discovered, even
of the paleolithic period alone, would require more space than is at
my disposal here. There is therefore need of limiting this study
chronologically as well as geographically. Excepting the bare men-
tion of quite recent paleolithic discoveries by S. J. Czarnowski? in
the caverns of Russian Poland, the countries to be included are
France and Belgium in the center, with Switzerland and parts of
Germany and Austria-Hungary on the east, and Spain to the south.
We shall not even cross the channel, as we might well do, for paleo-
lithically England has much in common with France and Belgium,
and English students of the period in question have by no means
been idle of late.
The time element must also be reduced. The original table of
relative chronology provided for an age of stone, of bronze, and of
iron. For the present let us ignore the last two. This leaves the
stone age, at first applied to the neolithic only, then divided into
paleolithic and neolithic, and finally into eolithic, paleolithic, and
neolithic. It is a case of the first being last and the last first in
more senses than one, for during the past decade there have developed
what may well be styled an eolithic school as well as a paleolithic
school. Students of the neolithic on the other hand, while particu-
larly active, must still await a more favorable moment for correlation,
for crystallization of data. By common consent, then, we shall elim-
inate the neolithic from the present discussion, with only a passing
reference to its place and divisions in the table of relative chronology.
As for the eolithic school, I endeavored five years ago to sum up
its work in a paper entitled “The Eolithic Problem.”¢ Since then
investigations have been carried on almost continuously. Attempts
were made to explain away the origin of eoliths by the invocation
of flint mills as factories for their wholesale production, but such
a. von Koken and R. R. Schmidt have in preparation a large work to be
ealled *“‘ Die paliolithischen Kulturstiitten Deutschlands.”
5 Paleolit na zboezu Gory smardzewskiej. Kosmos, vol. 31, Lemberg, 1906.
¢ American Anthropologist, n. s., vol. 7, 425-479, 1905.
534 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
attempts seem to have ended in failure. This subject was discussed
in my vice-presidential address“ before section H of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science at the New York meeting
in 1906. The recent discoveries of eoliths on the plateau of Hautes-
Fagnes and at Boncelles, near Liege, by de Munck and Rutot, have
an important bearing on this whole subject. At Boncelles eoliths
are said to be found in undisturbed middle Oligocene deposits, which
is the lowest horizon yet recorded for them.
The fact that the Tasmanians when they became extinct in 1876
were still in a culture stage corresponding to the eolithic has done
much to strengthen the thesis of that school. In this connection
should be mentioned the discovery by Franz de Zeltner in Haute
Senegal of a quite recent industry with eolithic facies. Rutot also
finds in Belgium that a neolithic epoch, to which he has given the
name “ Flénusian,” is characterized by a similar industry.
But eoliths were introduced here only to be retired from the stage
in order that more space might be given to the doings of the paleo-
lithic school. I can not dismiss them, however, without first referring
to Verworn’s? rule of the one-sided marginal working of a flake
or chip. No single character is a sufficient basis for declaring that a
given stone object is or is not an artifact. Each specimen should be
subjected to a systematic diagnosis, as is a case of fever, for example,
by a physician, says Verworn. In observing a number of paleo-
lithic or neolithic scrapers that are made from flakes which are
retouched on one side only, one finds that the direction from which
the retouching took place is almost always oriented in the same
manner with respect to the sides of the flake. If one calls the under
or bulb side of the flake the front and the outer side the back, one
sees that the blows or the pressure which produced the marginal
working was executed almost always from the front toward the back,
that the tiny scars left by the chipping begin at the margin and
extend over the back. The chipping is therefore visible only from the
back; only in rare cases does one find the opposite orientation of the
chipping.
What is the meaning of this? There is too much method in it to
be the result of chance. There is even more than mere method. By
following the rule as expressed in figure 1 a—c, we arrive at a tool
that is utilizable. The edge produced by the chipping is straight, as
seen in figure 1¢. On the other hand, if the opposite method of chip-
ping is followed we arrive at a meandering irregular edge-line that is
good for nothing from a practical standpoint (fig. 2 ¢). In rare
instances the back of the flake may be more regular than the front.
“Some phases of prehistoric archeology. Proc. Am. Ass. Ady. Sci., vol. 56,
1907.
6’Max Verworn. Ein Objectives Kriterium fiir die Beurteilung der Manufakt-
natur geschlagener Feuersteine. Zeit. fiir Ethnol., vol. 40, 548, 1908.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. aby
In that case the chipping is done from the back toward the front, as
one might expect; a fact which strengthens the theory that the chip-
ping is intentional and not accidental.
a
Fic. 1.—Flint flake with one-sided marginal chipping that follows the rule, viz, done
from the front toward the back, thus securing an edge every point of which is in the
same plane; (a) front, (b) back, (c) looking toward the edge.
Professor Verworn made a tabulation to show the percentage of
specimens that follow the rule and of those that do not. He chose
a c b
Fic. 2.—Flint flake with one-sided marginal chipping opposed to the rule, viz, done from
the back toward the front, thus producing an irregular edge that is practically use-
less; (a) front, (b) back, (c) looking toward the edge. After Verworn, Zeit f. eth.,
Vol. 40, p. 550, 1908.
two series universally recognized as artifacts, comparing them with
each other, and later with a series of eoliths from Puy-de-Boudieu
(Cantal). His results follow:
Total number | Number Number
Locality. of pieces ex- | thatfollow | opposed to
amined. the rule. the rule.
Per cent. Per cent.
Weézerew alleys (Dordogne) atari. cscs ccs ccc - idace leeaises se easeee 686 | 654=95.3 32=4.7
ADSI Sool aV Ne SA OE se oii Leno my Se UR pee Oe fr 92 88=95. 7 4=4.3
Puy-de=Boudiew (Carita pees ees tooo enrat siosiceeeine Semmens 1219) 1595 6=5
45745°-—sM 1909
35
536 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
This table is as eloquent as figures alone can be. We are forced to
the conclusion that the general rule of one-sided marginal chipping,
beginning at the edge and extending over the back, is the expression
of a distinct definite purpose. We know the reason for it, namely,
utility. Natural agencies are not moved by any such definite pur-
pose. Thus, when we find flint flakes, no matter where, that possess
a bulb of percussion; when, further, these flakes show series of chip-
pings all on one side, and when 95 per cent of the specimens are
chipped according to the rule laid down, we can not then escape the
conclusion that the pieces in question are artifacts. Among the
eolithic industries at present known, there are only two where the
bulb of percussion is at all common. The first is the Cantalian of
upper Miocene age, the second is at the top of the eolithic series, the
so-called Mesvinian at the summit of the lower Quaternary.
Before definitely lopping off the first and third divisions of the
stone age, it would be well to note their position and relative weight in
-the chronological scale. A table of classification in harmony with the
teachings of both Rutot and Penck is reproduced in plate 1. It will
be seen that the eolithic probably begins with the middle Oligocene,
reappears in the Miocene and Pliocene, and is carried up through the
lower Quaternary. The paleolithic, once considered as commensurate
with the whole of the Quaternary, is now limited to its middle and
upper horizons. The neolithic is confined to post-Quaternary times.
The contributions to our knowledge of the paleolithic during the
decade in question may for convenience be grouped under three
heads: (1) Those relating to finds in valley deposits; (2) cavern
explorations, and (3) the discoveries of human skeletal remains. As
examples of the first group, I have chosen the researches of Commont
at Saint-Acheul (France) and of Szombathy, Hoernes, and Ober-
maier at Willendorf (Austria-Hungary).
VALLEY DEPOSITS.
The housing and transporting required by modern civilization
have led to the discovery of the culture levels attained by our
paleolithic forebears. At Saint-Acheul the deposits of the Somme
Valley have been exploited since 1771 at least. They yield not only
material for building purposes, but also sand for foundries and flint
for road metal. The first discovery of a paleolithic industry at
Saint-Acheul was made by Doctor Rigollot in 1854, following on and
inspired by Boucher de Perthes’s discoveries at Abbeville. Then came
Gaudry, Prestwich, and Evans, all now dead. Explorations at Saint-
Acheul have been carried on for the past twenty-five years by d’Acy.
The most active investigator on the ground at present is V. Commont,
whose systematic work there covers a period of nearly ten years.
“The writer spent a day at Boncelles but failed to find an eolith.
Smithsonian Report, |
Geologica
Rece
: Flandri)
J
o
2
2
Pp
Braban
is
g Hesbayi
Ses
3 cs)
=I =
ez Ss | Campin
vium
g Mosean
3 vium
=
|
Upper
©
|
o
[>]
= Hae,
AY
Lower
& Upper
a os
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2 8 Middle}
a
Lower.
eee ee a |
|
| Upper. |
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8 :
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Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy.
PLATE 1.
Geological periods.
Glacial and inter-
glacial epochs.
Recent. Postglacial.
Daun Stage.
3 Flandrian (loess). oie
3
a
Bb Wiirm glacial (Wis-
Brabantian (loess). consin).
B Riss-Wiirm intergla-
a Hesbayan (Sand loess).| cial.
©
: 3 Ri ial = (Mili
&@ | & | Campinian (1d Ditu- | P18... ,88clat (TE
| vium). .
Mindel-Riss intergla-
. cial.
i=)
© | Mosean (Old Dilu- |-
5 vium)
3 : Mindel glacial (Kan-
san).
__ | Upper. Gine Blade] intergla-
FI
3
= | Middle. Giinz glacial (Pre-
Py Kansan).
Lower.
E Upper.
o
= ce d
& 3 Middle.
|
Lower.
!
_ | Upper.
o
aa
& Middle.
fo)
Lower.
Fauna. Human remains.
Existing fauna. Neolithic races.
Ofnet.
Reindeer. Cro-Magnon, Grimaldi.
Bison. Placard.
Grimaldi (Negroid).
Equus caballus. Combe-Capelle, La Cha-
pelle-aux-Saints, Kra-
pine) Spy, Neandertal,
a Ferrassie, Homo
Ursus spelaeus. mousteriensis.
Elephas primigenius.
Bury Saint-Edmunds.
Rhinoceros tichorhi-
nus.
Rhinoceros merckii.
Elephas antiquus.
Homo heidelbergensis.
Elephas meridionalis.
Hipparion, Dinothe-
rium.
Cultural epochs.
Type stations.
Omalian.
Robenhausian.
Campignian.
Flénusian.
Tardenoisian.
Asylian (transition).
Upper Magdalenian.
Middle Magdalenian.
Lower Magdalenian.
Upper Solutréan. .
Lower Solutréan.
Na Aurignacian.
Middle Aurignacian.
Lower Aurignacian.
a Mousterian.
Middle Mousterian.
Lower Mousterian.
Upper Acheulian.
Lower Acheulian.
Chellean.
Strépyan.
Omal, Belgium.
Switzerland.
Mesvinian.
Maffiean.
Reutelian.
Saint-Prestian.
Kentian.
Cantalian.
Fagnian (doubtful).
Robenhausen, a)
Le Campigny (Seine-Infé-| 3
rieure). =
Fiénu, Belgium. 8
Fére-en-Tardenois (Aisne). va
Mas d’ Azil (Ariége).
La Madeleine (Dordogne). g
Solutré (Saéne-et-Loire). b=
a
Aurignac (Haute-Garonne). | *
=
Le Moustier (Dordogne). 5
Saint-Acheul (Somme). - g
os
Chelles (Seine-et-Marne). z =
| 8s
Strépy, Belgium. =~ S
Mesvin, Belgium.
Maffle, Belgium.
Reutel, Belgium.
Saint-Prest (Eure-et-Loir).
Kent, England. S
=
=~
Puy-Courny (Cantal).
Hautes-Fagnes. Belgium.
RELATIVE CHRONOLOGY OF THE STONE AGE.
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ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 537
Commont has recently made two important discoveries: (1) A
very productive station at rue Cagny, and (2) an ancient paleolithic
workshop at the base of the Tellier gravel-pit. In 1906 an excava-
tion for a factory site was made near the first pits that produced so
many Chellean and Acheulian implements for the early explorers.
It covered an area of 30 by 55 meters. Here Commont found in
three months’ time 540 implements of the Chellean and Acheulian
types and 500 various objects, such as flakes, nuclei, and small imple-
ments, made from chips. It is indeed rare that so many specimens
have been found in valley deposits covering such a small area.
In the workshop near the base of the Tellier gravel-pit, Commont
found (1) many flint nodules prepared for chipping (débitage) and
showing traces of the beginning of chipping, (2) a quantity of
flint cores (nuclei) of all dimensions, (3) hammerstones of various
forms, for the most part only slightly used, (4) 5,000 flint chips,
(5) large flakes prepared for the production of special types of
implements, (6) small implements derived from the large flakes,
and (7) large implements of various forms, some only partly finished
or broken in the process of manufacture. The patina of the flints
of this workshop is a white mat, different from that of the Acheulian
above. At the top of the same deposit that covered the workshop,
Commont found a series of implements without patina, made of
black (flint) or grey flint, that looked as fresh as if they had been
made yesterday. The fauna of this deposit includes Hlephas antiquus,
large horse, Bos.
Section of the Tellier quarry: (1) Lower sands and gravels, rude
industry, eolithic and Strépyan facies; (2) red sands, paleolithic
workshop showing transition from Chellean to Acheulian I; (3)
upper part of limon rouge (red clay), Acheulian II with white patina ;
(4) thin layer of white sands (base of ergeron) replacing the usual
flinty layer (cailloutis), Mousterian industry, and small Acheulian
implements with bluish patina; (5) lower part of brick earth, Mag-
dalenian industry; (6) at the top of the brick earth, neolithic.
The deposits of the Tellier pit are 10 meters thick, their base
being about 44 meters above sea level. The section is the most
complete and instructive one at Saint-Acheul, especially in respect
to the upper layers, in these even surpassing the famous section at
the exploitation Helin, near Spiennes, Belgium. In fact, each sec-
tion not only confirms, but also supplements the story told by the
other. In each, all the Quaternary epochs except the Brabantian are
represented. A section of one will suffice therefore for both. I have
chosen for illustration (fig. 3) the exploitation Helin explored by
Rutot in 1902. In the Helin section the lower Quaternary is repre-
sented by two distinct eolithic horizons—the Mafflean and Mesvinian.
Above these come the paleolithic horizons in regular order—
5388 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Strépyan, Chellean, and Achuelian I. But the deposits in which
one might expect to find the Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutréan,
and Magdalenian are either sterile or absent. In the Tellier section
at Saint-Achuel, we find not only the eolithic, Strépyan, Chellean,
and Acheulian I industries in regular section, but also Acheulian IT,
Mousterian, and Magdalenian in stratigraphic position, the only
industries absent being the Aurignacian and Solutréan.
Fortunately for the science, other valley deposits supply the in-
dustries that are missing from Helin and Saint-Acheul. Among the
paleolithic stations of lower Austria, those situated in the loess at
Willendorf, left bank of the Danube, about 20 kilometers above
Krems, are exceedingly productive. Until 1908 only two stations
Flinty layer (cailloutis) with Neolithic in-
in|,
ee
‘FLANDRIANY = 52 a
——S— Ro
————_——
=——,— = —
SS
Z ——
Yy ty “yf, = a
UA Slits fp fy — .
HESBAYAN- Lee BGG “Yyyy Flinty layer without industry.
YLi2, SA Aff, Yy
Flinty layer with lower Acheulian industry.
Flinty layer with Chellean industry.
=—FLUVIAL SANDS. ~
ms SSS
CAMPINIAN- Flinty layer with transition from EHolithie
SSS : ——— to Paleolithic (Strépyan industry).
=== FLUVIAL SANDS =——————
= = Flinty layer with Mesvinian industry
MOSEAN---
= CRETACEOUS >= Flinty layer with Mafflean industry.
Fic. 3.—Section of the Exploitation Helin, near Spiennes, showing the superposition of
the Quaternary deposits and industrial horizons; lower terrace of the valley of the
Trouille (after Rutot).
were known, the Grossenstein brick works to the south and the Ebner
brick works north of the village. Recently the opening of a railroad
from Krems to Grein uncovered seven more stations in the vicinity
of Willendorf. One of these is near the Grossenstein brick works; a
second, explored in 1908 by Drs. H. Obermaier and J. Bayer, seems
to be the continuation of the Ebner station. This second station is at
present the most important of all. Here nine superimposed culture
layers were determined. The loess deposits at this station are about
18 to 20 meters thick.
The culture horizons are situated from 2 to 8 meters below the
surface. They are recognized by a brownish color and the presence
of charcoal as opposed to the light yellow color of the rest of the loess.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 539
Each layer varies in thickness from 10 centimeters to 30 or 40 centi-
meters. In section the thicker parts appear like nests and are marked
by the presence of hearths. About these hearths are found bones and
stone implements in large numbers. ‘These artifacts and bones are not
confined to the culture layers only, but here and there occur in the
alternating layers. Seven meters below the lowest culture layer, and
about 3 meters above loess bottom, there were found a hornstone
chip with traces of utilization (possibly an eolith) and a fragment of
bone.
The lowest (first) culture-bearing layer is characterized by a very
crude industry made of materials not utilized in the upper layers.
Charcoal and a few bone fragments also occur. Fauna: Reindeer and
bison.
Second layer: Varieties of quartz and jasper; also Danube River
stone used as hammer-stones, a poor quality of flint, and incomplete
examples of the lower Aurignacian type. Fauna: Reindeer, bison,
wolf.
Third layer: Industry similar to that of second layer in respect to
forms as well as the kinds of materials used, and characterized by the
appearance of the keel-shaped scraper.
Fourth layer: Abundance of small keel-shaped scrapers, whitish-
gray patinated hornstone; bone points, both blunt and sharp; a stag
antler with end hollowed out for insertion of a stone implement.
Fauna: Mammoth, reindeer, stag.
Fifth layer: Rich in well-fashioned hornstone implements. Es-
pecially noteworthy are the hornstone points (& tranchant rabattu).
Fauna: Mammoth, reindeer, stag.
Sixth, seventh, and eighth layers: Hornstone points (4 tranchant
rabattu). In the seventh layer an Aurignacian bone point with cleft
base. Appearance of the forerunners of the Solutréan laurel-leaf
point, pieces of reindeer horn that served as haftings for stone imple-
ments. Fauna: Mammoth, horse, reindeer, cave lion, wolf.
Ninth layer: Rich and beautiful stone industry of the upper
Aurignacian types. Points with lateral notch at the base. The most
important piece of all was a female statuette of stone—the so-called
Venus of Willendorf (pl. 2, fig. a). The piece was found in the
yellow loess 25 centimeters below a charcoal stratum belonging to the
ninth layer and near a hearth of this layer. Szombathy, Bayer, and
Obermaier were all present when the discovery was made. The
figure is 11 centimeters high and complete in every respect. It is
carved from fine porous odlitic limestone. Some of the red color with
which it was painted still adheres to it. It represents a fat pregnant
woman with large pendent mamme and large hips, but no real
steatopygy. It corresponds closely in form to the Venus of Bras-
sempouy, an ivory figurine of Aurignacian age from the grotte du
540 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Pape (Landes). The hair is kinky (negroid), the face left un-
chiseled. The arms are much reduced, the lower arms and hands
being represented only in slight relief. The knees are well formed,
but below the knees the legs are much shortened, although provided
with calves. The entire figurine is proof that the artist was a master
at representing the human form and that here he intended to empha-
size those parts most closely associated with fecundity. The only
suggestion of apparel or ornament is a bracelet on each wrist. The
fauna of this horizon includes the mammoth, horse, reindeer, stag,
and fox. All nine layers are Aurignacian, with a transition to Solu-
tréan at the top. It was my good fortune to be in Vienna the week
the Venus of Willendorf arrived, and, after the museum staff, to be
the first archeologist to examine the specimen.
In addition to the Venus of Brassempouy (pl. 2, fig. 6), the Piette
collection includes other female figurines in the same style and from
a corresponding horizon. One of these, also from the grotte du Pape,
is said to have served as a poinard handle (pl. 3, fig. a). The
blade formed by the prolongation of the back is broken. Presumably
the figure never had been supphed with head and arms. Another
example, found in the cavern of Mas-d’Azil (Ariége), is a female
bust carved from the incisor of a horse (pl. 3, fig. b). This piece
is of special importance because of the chiseling of the features, which
were lacking in the headless specimens from Brassempouy and also
are not differentiated in the Venus of Willendorf. Piette would place
in this or an intermediate group the bas relief from Laugerie-Basse,
carved on a reindeer palm and representing a human female near the
feet of a reindeer (pl. 2, fig. ¢). The skin being almost completely
hidden beneath a hairy coating indicated by incised lines, there was
no need of apparel. Ornaments, however, are not lacking. Besides
bracelets recalling those worn by the Venus of Willendorf, there is a
necklace. Curiously enough, in the same Aurignacian layer at Bras-
sempouy that furnished the adipose type with pendent breasts were
found figurines belonging to a distinetly different class, representing
a slender, probably superior race. The best single example of this
class is the femme & la capuche (pl. 4). The long slender neck calls
for a body and legs to match, and these are seen in other figures from
the same horizon.
The discovery by Prof. Otto Schoetensack of a human lower jaw in
the lower Quaternary sands at Mauer, near Heidelberg, rightly comes
in the category of valley deposit finds. We have chosen, however, to
reserve it for the general discussion of human remains.
A combination of the three stations—Helin, Saint-Acheul and
Willendorf—not only gives us every paleolithic horizon, the transi-
tional Tourassian or Asylian alone excepted, in stratigraphic position,
but also determines their position with respect to the eolithic below
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy.
PLATE 2.
Fic. a, VENUS OF WILLENDORF. 3. AFTER SZOMBATHY, Korresp.-BL., 40, P. 87, 1909.
Fic. b. VENUS OF BRASSEMPOUY. {. AFTER PIETTE, L’ANTHR., 6, PL. 1, 1895.
Fic. c. WOMAN AND REINDEER FROM LAUGERIE-BASSE, L’ANTHR., 6, PL. 5, 1895.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy,
IPLne, 8,
Fic. a. FEMALE Torso, FROM BRASSEMPOUY. +
Te
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ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 541
and the neolithic above. This is the sort of evidence on which the
science of prehistoric European archeology rests.
CAVERNS AND ROCK-SHELTERS.
Turning to the paleolithic caverns and rock-shelters, we find con-
_firmatory evidence, although there is no direct stratigraphic rela-
tion between the superimposed cavern deposits and those of the
river valleys. The chasm, we believe, is safely bridged, however,
by the combined evidence of faunal and industrial remains. The
results accumulated in the past decade of cavern exploration have
been even more remarkable than those due to the investigation of
valley sites. Like the researches of Commont at Saint-Acheul, much
time has been given by cavern explorers to regions and even stations
already well known. As examples there may be cited the caverns of
Grimaldi, Le Moustier (Dordogne), and Altamira, Spain.
Rock-shelters and caves seem to have been employed as habitations
before the close of the Acheulian epoch and continued to be so used
thereafter throughout the paleolithic. A study of their floor de-
posits reveals a succession of culture levels corresponding to those
found in valley deposits and classed as upper paleolithic.
The rock-shelter of La Quina (Charente), already mentioned,
deserves more than a passing notice. Known since 1872 and often
visited by archeologists bent on increasing their collections, La Quina
came into the possession of Dr. Henri Martin in 1905, since which
time he, with the help of friends, including M. Louis Giraux,* has
carried on excavations that have led to important results.
Beginning at the bottom the section is composed of the following:
(1) Alluvial sands deposited by the Voultron, a tributary of the
Gironde, at the summit of which are found certain elements of an in-
dustry with Acheulian facies; (2) two clay deposits, the lower sandy
and of a greenish tint, the upper dark. The contact between these
is the so-called couche 4 ossements utilisés, which is also rich in a
pure Mousterian stone industry; (3) a barren layer formed by débris
from the one-time overhanging cliff; (4) vegetal earth.
Particular attention is called to the utilized bones, a subject treated
in part 1 of a quarto memoir in preparation by Doctor Martin.®
The traces of utilization are bunched incisions usually nearly trans-
verse to the long axis of the bone. The bones and parts of bone thus
marked belong to five categories: (1) The lower extremity of the
humerus of the horse and certain bovide; (2) the first phalanx of
“The Yale University Museum is indebted to M. Giraux for a gift collection
from La Quina, comprising stone industry as well as utilized bones.
’ Recherches sur l’évolution du Moustérien dans le gisement de La Quina
(Charente). 1° fase.: Ossements utilisés. In 4°, Schleicher Fréres, 1907.
549 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the horse; (3) first phalanges of the bison and other ruminants;
(4) metacarpals and metatarsals of the horse and reindeer; (5)
fragments of the shafts of long bones. In some cases the bone re-
sembles a veritable miniature chopping block. In every instance it
would offer a solid support for an object to be cut, scraped, or
chipped, as the case might be.
Similar incisions could have been produced by pressing a flint
chip or flake against a fresh bone at the proper angle to produce the
marginal chipping so characteristic of the stone industry at the sta-
tion in question, as has been noted by M. A. de Mortillet. Since Mar-
tin’s discovery at La Quina, bones utilized in similar fashion have
been found by Favraud at Petit-Puymoyen, and Pont-Neuf (Cha-
Fic. 4.—Flint implements, from the Aurignacian horizon in the cavern of Les Cottés
(Vienne). 3%. After Breuil, Rey. de l’Ecole d’anthr. de Paris, Vol. 16, p. 56, 1906.
R. de Rochebrune collection.
rente), also by Dr. Eugéne Pittard at the Mousterian station of
Rebiéres (Dordogne). Petit-Puymoyen is of Mousterian age, while
Pont-Neuf is Aurignacian.
The rehabilitation of the Aurignacian epoch and the determina-
tion of its stratigraphic position between the Mousterian and Solu-
tréan instead of between the Solutréan and Magdalenian, where it
had been placed for a brief period by G. de Mortillet,¢ is one of the
special recent contributions to the credit of cavern explorers, Car-
tailhac and Breuil suggesting that the old name be revived. Once
and for a long period rejected by the builders it has suddenly become
one of the chief corner stones in the temple of classification. Its
“ Compte-rendu, Acad. des Sci., Paris, vol. 68, March 1, 1869.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 543
presence is reported from many localities both in loess deposits and
in caverns.
Aurignacian industry is characterized by blade-like flint flakes
with one end chipped obliquely and the back worked down (rabattu)
for its entire length; flakes chipped along both margins and produc-
ing in some instances hour-glass forms; the appearance of two types
of bone implements, (1) scrapers terminating in an oblique edge and
(2) points with cleft base; the beginnings of sculpture, engraving,
and painting, and, according to Rutot at least, the dawn of ceramic
art. In respect to fauna, this is the epoch in which the reindeer
first becomes prominent. The cave bear, horse (abundant), hyena,
and mammoth are also well represented. The direct superposition
=
ic. 5.—Points with cleft base, from the Aurignacian horizon, cavern of Les Cottés
(Vienne). 3%. Material, ivory and reindeer horn. After Breuil, Rev. de Il’Heole
d’anthr. de Paris, Vol. 16, p. 54, 1906. R. de Rochebrune collection.
of the Aurignacian on the Mousterian is seen to good advantage in
the caverns of Grimaldi, at Pair-non-Pair (Gironde), Spy (Bel-
gium), Chatelperron (Allier), La Quina (Charente), and Les Cottés
(Vienne). On the other hand, the superposition of the Solutréan
on the Aurignacian has been noted at a number of stations including:
Cro-Magnon, Combe-Capelle, Le Ruth and Laussel (Dordogne),
Solutré (Sadne-et-Loire), Lacoste II near Brive (Corréze), grotte
du roc, commune of Sers (Charente), Sirgenstein (Wiirttemberg),
Ofnet (Bavaria), and Carmago and Hornos de la Pefia, both in the
Province of Santander, Spain.
By reason of its bearing on the relation between cavern culture and
the glacial period, one of the most important paleolithic discoveries
544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
in recent years is that made by Herr Emil Bichler, director of the
Natural History Museum in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Alpine
region had not been considered seriously as a field for paleolithic re-
search, since the latter period closed before the retreat of the glaciers
to anything like their present extent. It is true, man might have
penetrated into the Alps during an interglacial period, but the evi-
dences of his presence would have been destroyed by the succeeding
glaciation. Two stations in Switzerland of the Magdalenian epoch
have been known for years, viz., Schweizersbild and Kessierloch, but
these are north of the Rhine in Canton Schaffhausen.
It remained for Herr Bichler to make the discovery, some four
years ago, of a station of late Mousterian age; not in a valley, or even
the foot-hills, but in the Santis Mountains, which lie between the
lakes of Constance and Ziirich.
The station in question is on the Ebenalp (above Appenzell) at a
height of 1,477 to 1,500 meters. It consists of two caverns, with
southeastern exposure, that enter the precipitous face of the rock,
and one of which penetrates backward and upward, giving access to
the top of the mountain as well as to the Weissbach valley lying to
the northwest. The caverns are reached by foot-path from Weissbad,
the most frequented one being by way of the gap that separates the
Bommenalp from the Ebenalp. This gap was produced by faulting
which left the Ebenalp standing about 300 meters above its neighbor.
The last part of the way is very steep but protected by a railing.
It would, in fact, be absolutely broken at one point were it not for a
wooden bridge anchored to the vertical face of the rock. This is at
a point just below the first or lower cavern. It is probable, therefore,
that paleolithic man did not reach the caverns from this side, but
rather from the back of the mountain and by way of the upper cavern.
The communication between the two is by means of a narrow ledge.
(See pl. 8, fig. a.)
These caverns have been known since 1621, and there is a legend
to the effect that at a much earlier date they were inhabited by wild
men. The little pilgrimage chapel of Wildkirchli that gives its
name to the place was founded by Dr. Paulus Ulmann (1613-1680),
priest at Appenzell. The chapel is in the lower cavern, and in the
upper cavern where the hermit house once stood there is now the
Wildkirchli Inn. The last hermit died in 1851, since which time
Wildkirchli has been rather a belvedere for mountain climbers than
a place of religious pilgrimage. The views are certainly superb and
well repay the toilsome ascent. A place so full of the spirit of the
past and of natural charms could not well escape the romancer, as
witness the last chapters of the historical novel, Ekkehard, by the
celebrated German writer, Viktor von Scheffel.
’ ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 545
As early as 1861 Riitimeyer announced the presence of bones of
Ursus speleus and Capra (ibexw and rupicapra) in the floor deposits
of Wildkirchli. Before that date the hermits used to pick up bones
of the cave bear and sell them to the pilgrims. Bichler began his re-
searches which led to the discovery of a pure Mousterian industry
during the winter of 1903-4, and continued them during the two fol-
lowing winters. Winter is the best time to work, as the caverns are
then dry, relatively warm, and free from visitors.
The deposits are about 5 meters thick and cover an area of
several hundred square meters, so that the amount still to be exca-
vated is much greater than that already done. About 99 per cent
of the bones found are of the cave bear, the number of individuals
represented by the finds to date being approximately 200. These
remains have been found practically at all levels save in the layer
at the top, which has a thickness of one-half meter. Mousterian
implements are found in the same horizons as the faunal remains.
They are made of quartzite and flint; also of cave-bear bone. The
quartzites were picked up in the Weissbach Valley several hundred
meters below and carried to the caverns, there to be worked into
tools. Some of the better-formed implements are made of a green-
ish flint that must have been brought a long distance by paleolithic
man. Both stone and bone implements are of crude workmanship.
In company with Herr Bichler I spent some hours studying the
sections and searching for animal remains and artifacts. We were
successful in finding two bone implements and one chipped quartzite.
Teeth and fragments of bones were counted by the dozen. These
were chiefly of the cave bear. Remains of the cave lion, the cave
panther, badger, marten (d/ustela martes), ibex, chamois, stag,
marmot, otter, and hermit crow have been noted.
The deposits are not indurated and may be worked with as much
rapidity as is consistent with careful observation. They consist
of materials that have fallen from the ceilings. They can not be
called stratified, and yet more or less definite horizons may be dis-
tinguished on account of the relative fineness of the deposits and the
variations in color.
What is the age of the industry-bearing deposits of Wildkirchli?
In order to arrive at a just estimate one must have a knowledge not
only of prehistoric times, but also of the ice age. According to
Penck*? there were four glacial epochs (with alternating interglacial
epochs). These have been named after four streams of southern
Germany in the foothills of the Alps—Giinz, Mindel, Riss, and
Wiirm glacial epochs, respectively, beginning with the oldest. Penck
4 See table of relative chronology (pl. 1).
546 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
has gone even further and determined three well-defined stages in
the final retreat of the Wiirm glaciation. The stages correspond to
temporary advances during the period of retreat. Such stages have
left their traces so distinctly in the region about Innsbruck that local
names have been applied to them—Biihl, from Kirchbiihl, at an ele-
vation of 500 meters; Gschnitz at 1,200 meters; and Daun at 1,600
meters, the latter, of course, being the most recent.
The barbaric races with which the Romans had to contend had a
knowledge of iron. It is estimated that the bronze age had its
beginning some 3,500 years ago. The Alps were then either in-
habited or visited throughout their extent by man. We find, for
example, bronze weapons in the Fliiela pass of the upper Engadine.
The Fliiela pass was invaded by ice of the Daun stage. The latter,
therefore, antedates the bronze age. Prehistoric copper mines have
been discovered at two localities in the Austrian Alps. One of these
lies at the southern foot of the Ubergossene Alp, near Salzburg, at a
height of 1,500 meters. Neolithic implements were found in the old
shafts. Now this locality (Mitterberg) is near the timber line, and a
shght depression of this would render it difficult to establish smelters
there. The other copper mine is southeast of Kitzbiihel in the Tyrol,
at a height of 1,900 meters. This mine also must have been occu-
pied later than the Daun stage, at which time the region lay very
near the snow line and was uninhabitable.
Even the whole neolithic period in Switzerland is younger than
the Daun stage, whose snow-line lay 300 meters lower than to-day.
The minimum time, therefore, that separates us from the Daun
stage must be at least 7,000 years.
A very long interval of time separates us from the closing epoch
(Magdalenian) of the paleolithic period. For we find on the borders
of Lakes Constance and Geneva animal remains of the Magdalenian
epoch in terraces that are 20 to 30 meters above the present level of
these lakes. Magdalenian industry is found in Switzerland well
within the area covered by the Wiirm glaciation. But such stations
have not yet been found within that covered by the Biihl stage. It
may be taken for granted, therefore, that the Magdalenian industry
is not older than, but may be contemporaneous with, the Biihl stage,
which corresponds, by the way, to the Champlain stage in North
America. .
The rock-shelter of Schweizersbild was occupied by paleolithie man
after the Wiirm glaciation had retreated across the Rhine from Can-
ton Schaffhausen. Here 25,000 stone implements have been found
by Niiesch; also many bone implements and some engravings, one
being of the mammoth. The paleolithic layers were covered in turn
by successive deposits belonging to the neolithic bronze and Roman
periods. Taking the thickness of the deposit left since Roman times
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—-MACCURDY. 547
as representing 2,000 years, the time required for the whole series
of deposits is estimated at 24,000 years. The total time elapsed
since the maximum advance of the Wiirm glaciation is still longer,
30,000 years being none too high an estimate for it.
When could Wildkirchli have been inhabited? It hes within the
region of glaciation. It could not have been occupied during the
Wiirm glacial period, because it is at a height of 1,500 meters, while
the snow line of the Wiirm glaciation was only 1,200 meters. It is
self-evident that man could not have taken up his abode above the
snow line. Even during the Biihl stage of the glacial retreat the
snow line was still as low as 1,500 meters. Man could have come
there only after the Biihl stage. But after the Biihl stage we have a
different fauna and flora; so that man must have inhabited Wild-
kirchli before the last (Wiirm) glacial epoch, that is to say during
an interglacial (Riss-Wiirm) epoch with climatic conditions simi-
lar to those of the present day.
During the last glacial epoch the Wildkirchli caverns were filled
with ice or snow, and hence no deposits of any kind were formed.
The sterile layer one-half meter thick at the top of the floor deposits
represents the accumulation since the close of the glacial period.
Tf we allow 30,000 years for post-Wiirmian times we must allow as
much more for the last glacial epoch. Thus to reach the Riss-Wiirm
interglacial period and man’s occupancy of Wildkirchli caverns
would mean going back about 100,000 years. We have here an atypic
late Mousterian, or perhaps lower Aurignacian, industry.
An interesting feature in the development of our knowledge of
cavern life is that pertaining to paleolithic mural decorations.
These were first discovered in the cavern of Altamira, province of
Santander, Spain, explored in 1879 by Sautuola. They were, how-
ever, not accepted as authentic. About ten years later Léopold
Chiron reported mural decorations in the cavern of Chabot (Gard),
but the discovery was received with the same skepticism as that which
befell the earlier announcement of Sautuola. With the discovery by
Emile Riviére, in 1895, of wall engravings in the cavern of La
Mouthe (Dordogne), the tide was finally turned in favor of their
authenticity. Thereupon, other caverns were searched and revealed
similar phenomena. In 1906 Francois Daleau announced the dis-
covery of wall engravings at Pair-non-Pair (Gironde), and the fol-
lowing year Félix Regnault found frescoes on the cavern walls of
Marsoulas (Haute-Garonne). Since 1900 discoveries of this class
are to be numbered by the dozen, and the literature has been en-
riched by more detailed accounts of the cavern decorations discovered
prior to the date in question.
The cavern of Altamira, situated near Santillana, is a series of
grand halls united by corridors. The entry is modern, being formed
548 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
in consequence of a cave-in. The vestibule leads to a very large hall
divided into two chambers by a mass of fallen rock. The chamber
to the left is 40 by 10 meters. The one on the right leads to the
series of halls and corridors. At the close of the Quaternary a
cave-in at the entrance had effectually sealed the cavern. The fauna
is that of the cave bear.
The paintings and engravings are found in all parts of the cavern,
especially in the first chamber to the left after entering. The beauty,
size, and degree of preservation of these works of art are admirable.
Some of the engravings are deeply cut; others are gently incised by
the aid of a sharp point. The greater part of these decorations, how-
ever, were executed in color, either black or red or both. The most
remarkable are those in polychrome of the left chamber near the
entrance. While some of the decorations represent animal figures,
others are incomprehensible signs and symbols. They do not all date
from the same epoch. The deeply-cut figures of the left chamber
recall those of Chabot, Pair-non-Pair, and La Gréze. Mural art at
‘Altamira admits of grouping under four categories: (1) Deeply in-
cised engravings and line drawings (dessins au trait) in black; (2)
black or red figures; (3) fine engravings, and (4) polychrome frescoes.
Line-drawings and figures in black are abundant along the corri-
dors. The ceiling of the left chamber has many traces of black line-
drawings (pl. 5, fig. @) generally in bad state of preservation. Some
of the figures in black are shaded in (modelés), and in this respect are
quite equal to the polychrome figures.
The second layer of paintings includes the black or red frescoes
which are seldom combined in the same figure with engravings.
Fine engravings are numerous and often made over the black line-
drawings, that is to say, were more recently executed.
The polychrome frescoes are remarkable for vigor, exactitude and
the command of colors—red, brown, black, and yellow—which mix
and grade into numerous tints. A group of twenty-five of these is
seen on the ceiling of the left chamber. Some are older than others.
In the later figures, black contours and engravings combined play
an important role. The surface to be included in the field of the
projected figure was washed and scraped. A black line was
traced fixing the contours. The necessary colors were then added.
In many cases, one sees divers touches of the brush, each marking a
tuft of the mane or the dewlap (pl. 5, fig. 6), while the large colored
surfaces were covered with a thinner mixture of color, graduated by
washing or gouache. This work accomplished, the artist often re-
touched the figure, washing or scraping, removing the color in places
to secure the hghter effects or to detach the limbs folded on the
body. Spots for decoration were often chosen that give, without
much extra effort, the effect of a colored bas relief. The frescoes
Smithsonian Report, 1909 —MacCurdy PLATE 5,
FIG. a. HEAD OF A Horse, DRAWN WITH A BLACK CRAYON. CAVERN OF
ALTAMIRA (SPAIN). FIRST PHASE. +. AFTER BREUIL.
Fic. b. BISON FROM THE CAVERN OF ALTAMIRA (SPAIN), PAINTED IN POLYCHROME.
FOURTH PHASE, AFTER BREUIL, C. R., CONGR. INTERN. D’ANTHR. ET D’ARCH.
PREHS., 1, P. 384, MONaco, 1906.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 549
vary in size from 1.50 to 2.50 meters and represent the bison, wild
boar, deer, horse, etc. Since Altamira,a dozen other caverns with dec-
orated walls have been found in the Province of Santander: El Haza
and Covalanas near Rameles, region of Rio Asén (paintings) ; Sotar-
riza, Cueva negra (paintings) and Venta de la Perra (engravings),
all three at Molinar de Caranza, Rio Asé6n; Salitre at Ajanedo,
environs of Santander with Aurignacian and Magdalenian paint-
ings; Castillo, at Puente-Viesgo (paintings and engravings), El
Pendo, near Escobedo (engravings) and Santien, at Puente-Arce
(paintings), all in the region of Rio Pas; Hornos de la Pefia, at
San Felices de Buelna (paintings and engravings), Clotilde, at
Santa Isabel (engravings) and Meaza, at Comillas (paintings), in
the environs of Torrelavega. In addition to these, the able com-
mittee so generously supported by the Prince of Monaco located
some fifteen caverns, in which no frescoes and wall engravings were
found, and four paleolithic stations other than caverns.
In 1903, Juan Cabré noticed for the first time animal figures
painted on walls of a rock-shelter at Cretas, south of Calaceite,
called Roca del Moro. In, 1906, after having heard of the publica-
tion of Alcalde del Rio on the caverns of Santander, he called the
attention of archeologists to the figures he had seen three years
previously. Breuil® heard of the place through a publication of
Santiago Vidiella,’ and visited it in 1908 for the purpose of study.
The grotto is 10 meters long by 2.5 meters wide. The floor deposits
are barren, but on the slope there are flint flakes of the Magdalenian
type and no trace of the neolithic. On the protected wall of the rock
shelter were found the handsome frescoes which have been removed to
prevent their being destroyed by curious visitors. The removal was
successfully made in spite of the hardness of the rock.
The painted frieze comprised three deer, a bull, and a small crea-
ture undetermined. All are in dark red, the color having penetrated
well into the rock. The figures of the deer were outlined by delicate
engraving. One of these is represented as in the act of rising (se
levant de son gite), the attitude being full of grace and natural ele-
gance (pl. 6, fig. a). In this figure and all those of the deer at Cretas
there is a curious disposition of the antlers. The upper parts are
represented as seen from the front, while the lower parts are im pro-
file. This is also true of figures of the deer at Cogul, Lérida (Cata-
lonia), and in France among the drawings of the reindeer in the
cavern of Portel /Ariége).
¢V/Abbé H. Breuil et Juan Cabré Aguila. Les peintures rupestres du bassin
inférieur de ’Ebre. L’anthr., vol. 20, 1, 1909. I. Les rochers peints de Cala-
pata a Cretas (Bas Aragon).
® Boletin de hist. y geogr, del Bajo Aragon, mars-avril, 1907.
550 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
On leaving the Roca del Moro at a distance of 200 meters, Breuil
chanced to see in another rock shelter a figure painted red. He
leaped from his horse and clambered up to the spot to find a com-
panion figure in black and near these, two deer in red and black
and three other smaller figures (wild goat) in black. This discovery
caused the explorers to change their plans so as to include a recon-
naissance tour of the whole province. After three months, Cabré
reported that he had found nine other localities with paintings or
engravings in open shelters® (a Vair libre). A tenth situated to the
south of the province has been discovered and it looks, says Breuil, as
if we might have the satisfaction of seeing Quaternary art clasp
hands by the way of Gibraltar with the rock paintings and engray-
ings of northern Africa.
A Catalonian rock-shelter near Cogul, south of Lérida in the prov-
ince of the same name, is adorned with frescoes that furnish interest-
ing additional data concerning paleolithic art. These frescoes known
for ages were formerly attributed to the Moors. The researches of
Breuil prove them to be of Magdalenian age. They form five groups,
two of which are shown in plate 6, figure 6. Both of these are hunt-
ing scenes. Above and to the left is a hunter in the act of striking
down a stag after having already killed one. The drawing is highly
stylistic without obscuring the real meaning of the ensemble. The
dead stag lies on his back with all four feet in the air. The group at
the right is a combination of stylistic and realistic art, the figure of
the bison being similar to figures of that animal in a number of
French and Spanish caverns. But the bison emigrated from south-
western Europe before the close of the Quaternary ; the Cogul frescoes
are therefore Magdelenian. Another remarkable group in this rock
shelter represents nine women surrounding one man. The latter is
executed in the style of the hunters reproduced in figure 6. The
female figures are somewhat more realistic and are readily distin-
guished by skirts reaching to the knees and by pendent. breasts.
While the presence of feminine skirts gives to the scene a modern air,
the art as a whole is more closely related to the paleolithic than to
that of any succeeding epoch.
The explorations of French caverns have more than kept pace with
those in Spain. Confining ourselves chiefly to caverns with mural
decorations those of the Dordogne are perhaps the most important,
the largest group being in the Vézére Valley. The calcareous forma-
tion, cleft by the Vézére and its tributaries, is composed of Cretaceous
beds approximately horizontal and of varying degrees of hardness
(pl. 7); so that overhanging rocks often shelter horizontal galleries
and niches. Again subterranean streams have left meandering cav-
erns, some of them several hundred meters in length. These as well
«This province has a very dry climate.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy PLATE 6.
Fic. a. RED FRESCO REPRESENTING A STAG IN THE ACT OF RISING (THE COLOR
HAS DISAPPEARED FROM THE DOTTED PoRTIONS). ROCK SHELTER OF CALAPATA
AT CRETAS (LOWER ARAGON). AFTER BREUIL AND CABRE AGUILA, L’ANTHR.,
20, 1909.
Fic. 6. RED FRESCOES REPRESENTING TWO HUNTING SCENES. ROCK SHELTER
NEAR COGUL, SOUTH OF LERIDA (CATALONIA). AFTER BREUIL AND CABRE
AGUILA, L’ANTHR., 20, 1909
Sm thsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PLATE 7.
Les EyZIES IN THE BACKGROUND; THE VEZERE RIVER ON THE LEFT (DORDOGNE).
(Photograph by G. G. MacCurdy.)
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. Hye
as the rock-shelters and open shallow caves, formed through atmos-
pheric agencies, were inhabited by early man. Some were enlarged
or modified and occupied during the middle ages. At a safe height
in the roc de Tayac, one such that withstood successive sieges in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is at present used as a restaurant
and appropriately named “au Paradis.”
The earlier explorations at Les Eyzies, Cro-Magnon, Gorge-d’En-
fer, Laugerie-Basse, Laugerie-Haute, La Madeleine, and Le Moustier
are so well known that they are mentioned only in passing. After
so long a series of important discoveries, it might well be supposed
that the archeological possibilities of the region had been exhausted,
yet some of the most important treasures still remained locked in the
recesses of the less easily accessible and little known subterranean
caverns which penetrate the hills to great depths. The entrances to
these caverns are small and invisible from the valley below. Some
indeed were completely stopped by hillside débris, leaving no outer
trace of their existence. It is not strange that they escaped immedi-
ate notice. They were neglected until the early nineties, when Riviére
removed some of the floor deposits in the cavern of Les Combarelles
that yielded many flint implements, and especially fine bone needles.
In 1895, he began work in similar deposits in the cavern of La
Mouthe. One day, after penetrating to a considerable depth, he and
his companion, the son of Berthoumeyrou, the innkeeper, sat down to
rest. In lighting a cigar, the extra light of the match added to the
feeble candle light and placed at the proper angle revealed to one of
them what had not been observed before—an engraving on the wall.
The discovery was duly announced and marked the beginning of a
new epoch in cavern explorations.
The mural decorations at La Mouthe occur in four groups or panels.
The first panel is about 93 meters from the entrance. The second, 4
meters farther on, is called the “ Hall of the Bison.” Seven animals
are represented on an area 5.02 meters by 2.6 meters. The third and
fourth panels are 113 and 130 meters, respectively, from the entrance.
r Jn 1899, Riviére was so fortunate as to find a stone lamp in the floor
deposits of this cavern at a point about 17 meters from the entrance.
The pick of the workman broke the lamp into four pieces, of which
three were immediately recovered. Riviere and two of his men
searched for the missing fragment an entire day, but without success.
The shallow bowl contained some carbonized matter, an analysis of
which led M. Berthelot, the chemist, to conclude that lard was used
for lighting purposes. On the base there is an engraving of a wild
goat’s head and horns. A figure exactly like this was found on the
third mural panel already mentioned. This was the fourth lamp to
be found in French caverns. The first and second were from the
cavern of Monthier (Charente), and the third from the cavern of
45745°—sm 1909-36
552 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Coual (Lot). The necessities of men dwelling in dark caverns would
be likely to lead to the invention of artificial light, which ight made
it possible for them to depict the frescoes and engravings on the walls
of their abodes.
The past ten years have witnessed a succession of remarkable dis-
coveries by Messieurs Capitan, Breuil, Bourrinet, Ampoulange, and
Peyrony, in the caverns of Les Combarelles, Font-de-Gaume, Bernifal,
Teyjat, La Gréze, and La Calévie.
The Combarelles cavern has a total length of 234 meters, is from
1 to 2 meters wide, and high enough to admit of walking upright for
most of the way. The engravings begin at a point about 118 meters
from the entrance, and occupy both walls for a distance of 100 meters.
G co
lic. 6.—Engraving of a mammoth. Cavern of Les Combarelles (Dordogne). Second
phase. 3. After Capitan and Breuil.
Some of the figures are deeply incised, others are mere scratches. In
some, the effect is heightened by the application of a dark coloring
matter (oxide of manganese). Portions of the walls are covered by
a coating of stalactite thick enough in places completely to hide
engravings, while in others the more deeply incised figures are still
visible. On areas devoid of incrustations, the figures are fresh and
distinct. The artist sometimes had recourse to champlevé; sometimes
natural prominences were utilized to add relief to the figures. Of
the 109 engravings of various animals on the walls at Les Combarelles
there are some forty equine figures, occurring either singly or in
groups, and fourteen of the mammoth. One of the latter is repro-
duced in figure 6. The mural engravings belong precisely to the
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 5538
same school of art as the relief and incised figures from the floor
deposits of the shallow caves and rock-shelters, so well known through
the works of the earlier investigators. This statement applies equally
to all the caverns thus far explored.
The cavern of Bernifal was first explored in 1903. It was dis-
covered by accident. The original entrance near the base of an
escarpment is completely obstructed by earth and stones. The pres-
ent artificial entrance is at a point where the ceiling of the cavern
comes close to the surface of the wooded sloping upland. The de-
scent into the cavern is almost vertical, and made by means of an
iron ladder about 3 meters long. There is a joint in the ladder, the
upper portion of which may be inclined and locked so as to secure
the interior against vandalism. Within are three large chambers
united by rather narrow corridors. The first is 22 meters long, with
high ceiling and a maximum breadth of 8 meters. The others are not
quite so large. The beautiful stalactites overhead have been left
undisturbed. Most of the engravings are to be found in the second
chamber. They are cut rather deeply into the calcareous walls, and
generally coated over with a thin, hard layer of stalactite. Twelve
groups, numbering in all 26 figures, have been recognized. These
include geometric triangular signs in addition to various animal
figures—reindeer, mammoth, horse, bison, and antelope. Some are
simply engraved, others are painted with red ocher and manganese.
Many are probably wholly hidden beneath thick mural incrustations.
Tectiform signs, the significance of which is unknown, were also met
with at Les Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume.
The Font-de-Gaume frescoes and engravings were discovered in
1901 by Capitan and Breuil with the assistance of M. Peyrony, the
school principal of Les Eyzies. The entrance is some 20 meters above
the valley and near the top of the escarpment (pl. 8, fig. b).
A passage about 65 meters long, and much restricted in places,
leads to an ample gallery 40 meters in length, 2 to 3 in breadth, and
5 to 6 in height. A majority of the paintings—and Font-de-Gaume
is especially rich in paintings—occur on the walls of this gallery and
in a little side chamber farther on (fig. 7, no. 16). The latter con-
tains 13 remarkable figures, in color, of the bison and a group of
reindeer (pl. 9). The coloring matter was red ocher and manganese,
either mixed so as to give various intermediate shades or used sepa-
rately. Both these materials are found on top of the neighboring
plateaus. The dimensions of the figures vary from 2.70 meters down
to 0.20 meter. Some are on regular surfaces, while others include
natural prominences in such a way as to give the effect of relief.
They are veritable frescoes, the whole figure often being covered with
“Most of the prehistoric monuments of France are now the property of the
Government and are protected by the enactment and enforcement of wise laws.
554 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
paint. Hngraving and fresco are usually associated in the same
figure. The coloring matter was, in some cases, applied after the
engraving; while in others the process was reversed. Again some
figures are a piecework of engraving and fresco. Some are engraved
Entranee
Fic. 7.—Fioor plan of the cavern of Font-de-Gaume (Dordogne). The numbers indicate
the position of the engravings and paintings on the walls.
only. In certain cases the outlines of the animal are simply traced
by a single stroke of the brush or pencil, usually in black. Where
the contours are filled in, various tints from black to red are usually
employed. The outlines are seldom marred by blotches or evidences
of an uncertain stroke.
Fig. 8.—Engraving of a lion or panther, from Font-de-Gaume. After Capitan and Breuil.
C. r., Congr. intern, d’anthr. et d’arch. préhs., vol. 1, p. 388, Monaco, 1906.
Of the more than eighty figures described already from Font-de-
Gaume, forty-nine represent the bison, four the reindeer, four the
horse, three the antelope, two the mammoth, one the stag, one Felis
deo, one the wolf (see pl. 10), one Rhinoceros tichorhinus (see pl. 10),
six various signs. A number have not yet been determined.
(‘Apangoryy “5 “5 Aq ydvisojoud) (‘Apangoryy “5 °5 Aq ydvasojoyd)
‘SHSLSIN ZZb‘L 40 LHDISH
V LV 3D5V NVINSLSNOW 4O NOILVLS Vv ‘I1SZNaddY NOLNVO
*(ANDO0GHOq) SWNV5-30-LNO4 3O NYSAVD SH1 OL SONVYLNA “@ ‘DIS ‘THOYINGTIMA JO NYSAVD YSMO7] SHL OL SONVYLNG “D ‘OI
*8 a1V1d “Kpingoew— 6061 ‘Hodey ueiuosyyiWs
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PLATE 9.
Fia a. UNFINISHED POLYCHROME PAINTING OF TWO REINDEER, SHOWING HOW PAINT-
ING WAS COMBINED WITH ENGRAVING. CAVERN OF FONT-DE-GAUME (DORDOGNE).
FOURTH PHASE. 2. AFTER CAPITAN AND BREUIL.
Fic. b. POLYCHROME PAINTING OF A BISON. CAVERN OF FONT-DE-GAUME (DORDOGNE).
FOURTH PHASE. is. AFTER CAPITAN AND BREUIL.
COL LM:
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PLATE 10.
Fic. a. POLYCHROME FRESCO OF A WOLF, FROM FONT-DE-GAUME. AFTER CAPITAN
AND BREUIL, C. R., CONGR. INTERN. D’ANTHR. ET D’ARCH. PREHS., 1, P. 390,
MoNnAco, 1906.
Fic. 6. RED DRAWING OF RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, FROM FONT-DE-GAUME. AFTER
CAPITAN AND BREUIL, C. R. CONGR. INTERN. D’ANTHR. ET D’ARCH. PREHS., 1, P. 392,
MONACO, 1906.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. joo
In their various explorations Messieurs Capitan, Breuil, and
Peyrony have collected about a hundred drawings of the mammoth.
Those of the bison, horse, and reindeer are also numerous. On the
other hand representations of Ursus, Felis, and Rhinoceros are rare.
The engraving of Ursus spelewus on a piece of schist found in the floor
deposits of the cavern of Massat (Ariége) has been known since 1867.
A similar figure is to be seen on the cavern walls of Les Combarelles,
and other fine examples occur on the walls of the cavern at Teyjat
(see fig. 12). An engraving of Felis on a pebble from the cavern
of Gourdan (Haute-Garonne) was recently published by Piette.
Two mural engravings of Yelis are known; one at Les Combarelles
and the other at Font-de-Gaume, at the end of the cavern. In the
latter the entire animal is represented, being characterized by the
form of the head, the general aspect of the body, the long, lifted
tail and short paws. The animal is probably Felis leo, var. spelea,
since it is figured somewhat larger than are the four horses forming
part of the same group or picture (fig. 8).
One of the most interesting animal representations on the cavern
walls of Dordogne is a drawing in red of Rhinoceros tichorhinus
(pl. 10 6), found at Font-de-Gaume near the group that included an
engraving of the cave lion, 1. e., at the end of the cavern. The figure
is not only complete but also exact. The two horns are faithfully
indicated, the anterior notably longer and larger than the posterior.
The only other representations of the woolly rhinoceros are an indif-
ferent engraving on a piece of stone found in the cavern of Gourdan
and recently published by Piette, and one likewise on stone from the
grotte du Trilobite at Arcy. The coating of long hair is equally well
characterized. The technique points to an archaic phase in the de-
velopment of Quaternary art. Near this figure is the head of another
rhinoceros, also traced with an ochre crayon.
The cavern of Font-de-Gaume opens on a narrow valley tributary
to that of the Beune and near their junction. The well-known
rock-shelter of Les Eyzies lies across the valley of the Beune. It is
visible from Font-de-Gaume, appearing like a black spot on the face
of the great escarpment, and only 800 meters distant. M. Peyrony ¢
suggests that the two prehistoric communities may have been closely
united. His recent researches at Les Eyzies tend to confirm this view.
The shallow cave of Les Eyzies, overlooking the Beune near its
junction with the Vézére, opens on a sort of natural platform about
35 meters above the bed of the stream. The opening of the cave is
wide and high enough to admit the light to its greatest depth, which
is 12 meters. The greatest width is 16 meters. It has a southern
“Te Dr. Capitan, !Abbé Breuil et Peyrony. Nouvelles observations sur la
grotte des Eyzies et ses relations avec celles de Font-de-Gaume. Compte rendu,
Congrés préh. de France, 1905, p. 187.
556 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
exposure, 1s dry and habitable. Font-de-Gaume was never a place
of residence, as is indicated by the absence of floor deposits. About
the only objects found there are a few broken gravers with edges
dulled in executing the wall engravings, a few pieces of ochre and
manganese and one handsome ochre pencil. Why should the artists
make residence of a dark subterranean cavern, when by going a short
distance they could have an ample shallow cave or rock-shelter fac-
ing the south and warmed and lighted by the sun? Such a shelter
is Les Eyzies, and the enormous quantities of refuse taken from its
floor at various periods testify to its use as a place of habitation by
generation after generation.
The rock-shelter of Les Kyzies has furnished unusually large
quantities of ochre of various tints. Most of the pieces have been
scraped to produce a colored powder which was mixed with grease
or some liquid, thus forming a paint. In order to pulverize and
thoroughly mix the coloring matter, mortars were used. An inter-
esting series of these mortars from Les Eyzies forms a part of the
famous Christy collection in the British Museum. Very few mortars
have been found in neighboring stations. Besides, ochre pencils ex-
actly like the one from Font-de-Gaume have been found in the rock-
shelter of Les Eyzies. Sometimes a flat piece of ochre is cut in the
form of a triangle, each angle serving in turn as a pencil point.
Some of these pencils are perforated to be suspended, and might
well be supposed to form a part of the outfit of the artists who drew
in color figures such as that of the two-horned rhinoceros previously
mentioned.
It may be that the artists who made their home at Les Eyzies
decorated its walls also. Exposure would have obliterated these
decorations long ago, as it did those at La Gréze, which were not pro-
tected by the floor deposits. Lucky it was for present-day lovers
of art and archeology that their troglodyte forebears had the good
sense to seek at Font-de-Gaume a more permanent gallery for their
masterpieces.
The cavern of La Calévie belongs in the Vézére group and is situ-
ated on the left side of the Petite Beune, some 500 meters below
Bernifal. The cavern, which has two entrances, is 15 meters wide by
7 or 8 meters deep. Near the entrance are two engraved figures of
the horse, one of them recalling the work at Les Combarelles. As
the latter is Magdalenian, this is probably Magdalenian also. The
other is in the style of Pair-non-Pair, which is well dated, because
there the upper Aurignacian floor deposits cover the mural figures.
The rock shelter of La Gréze is only 6 kilometers above Les Eyzies,
on the right bank of the main fork of the Beune. Fortunately some
of its wall engravings have been protected by the floor deposits. As
the latter contain an industry of Solutréan age, both the authenticity
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. ai.
and the age of the engravings are established in the same manner as
at Pair-non-Pair. An engraving from La Gréze representing the
first phase in the development of parietal decoration is reproduced
in figure 9.
Before leaving the caverns of the Vézére Valley it should be
noted that recent discoveries there have not been confined to mural
art alone. The classic station of Les Eyzies is only one of many
rock-shelters in the same cliff. To the east of it only a few rods and
at the same level is the station of Peyrille, yielding an industry with
lower Magdalenian facies. A short distance to the west of the Grotte
Fig. 9.—Engraving of a bison. Cavern of La Gréze (Dordogne). First phase. #4. After
Breuil.
des Eyzies and at a slightly higher (2.50 meters) level is the rock-
shelter of Escalifer, with lower Mousterian industry. A few meters
still farther to the west and on the same level as Escalifer is the
rock-shelter of Audi, with a superposition of Aurignacian on Mouste-
rian. Some 5 or 6 miles to the east of this group of stations is the
rock-shelter of Laussel near a chateau of the same name and also near
the rock-shelter of La Gréze. Explored originally by E. Riviére in
1894, new excavations were made by Doctor Lalanne in 1908. The
Laussel section revealed in stratigraphic position a succession of lay-
ers, including Acheulian, Mousterian, Aurignacian in two separate
horizons, and Solutréan.
558 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The station of La Micoque, some 2 kilometers to the northwest. of
Les Eyzies, although discovered in 1895, should be mentioned in this
connection because of recent excavations by Hauser and others.
Cartailhac and Hauser believe it to have been protected originally by
an overhanging rock. According to Rutot it was always, as it now
appears to be, a station in the open. The industry is Mousterian,
with traces of a ruder paleolithic facies at the bottom and Aurig-
nacian at the top.
“One of the latest additions to the long list is the rock-shelter of Le
Rut, about half a mile below the celebrated station of Le Moustier
and on the same side of the Vézére River, excavated in 1907 by D.
Fic. 10.—Engraving of Ursus spelaeus, from the cavern of La Mairie, Teyjat. After
Capitan and Breuil, C. r., Congr. intern. d’anthr. et d’arch. préhs., vol. 1, p. 391,
Monaco, 1906.
Peyrony. The section at Le Rut overlaps and supplements that of
Laussel. It begins with the middle and upper Aurignacian, above
which are added three Solutréan horizons and one Magdalenian.
Other regions of the Dordogne have not been neglected. The
cavern of La Mairie and the rock-shelter of Meége, both at Teyjat,
are near Javerlhac, a railway station on the line between Nontron and
Angouléme. Some twenty years ago M. Perrier du Carne found in
La Mairie cavern Magdalenian implements and five remarkable en-
gravings on stone representing the horse and the bison. In 1903
three groups of engravings (fig. 10) were discovered on the walls
of the cavern, and during the same year the rock-shelter of Mége in
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 559
the immediate neighborhood was first explored. Here there is only
one archeological horizon—middle Magdalenian, corresponding to
the lower culture level at La Mairie. It is rich, however, both in
fauna and industrial remains. The latter is characterized by the
harpoon with a single lateral row of barbs, the type that was abun-
dant at Gourdan, Raymunden, and Bruniquel (Plantade). In 1908
M. Bourrinet found at Mége a so-called baton de commandement of
stag horn (pl. 11), covered with engraved animal and semi-human
figures. ‘The piece is the large basal prong of Cervus elaphus, about
one-third of a meter in length. Of the two perforations, one is
nearly round and the other, which is near the point, is elliptic. Prac-
tically the entire surface was scraped and engraved with figures, in-
cluding the head of a doe, serpents, swans, semi-human forms, a horse,
and a colt. The engraving of the horse is among the most pains-
taking and complete paleolithic representations of that animal (fig.
11). The elliptic hole in the baton cuts the left hip of the horse on
one side and its right hind foot on the other, as indicated by the
dotted lines. The short erect mane projecting forward beyond the
ears is characteristic and the anatomy of the head, neck, and shoul-
ders is faithfully rendered, even to the fossa above the eye. The
heavy line back of and below the eye is the zygomatic arch; the two
parallel lines below it, reaching nearly to the corner of the mouth,
mark the position of subcutaneous organs and do not represent a
bridle. According to both Cartailhac and Breuil, there is no evi-
dence that the horse was domesticated in paleolithic times. Marcel
Baudouin notes a striking similarity between paleolithic repre-
sentations of the Quaternary horse and a race of small horses still
living on the [le d’Yeu (Vendée). This race by reason of its isola-
tion? has perpetuated its primitive type: Large pendent belly, short
head and neck, and erect mane.
The cavern de La Mairie has furnished some interesting bits of
evidence bearing on the authenticity of parietal decorations. In
the floor deposits are two Magdalenian horizons with a sterile layer
between. Wall engravings were left by the first occupants. In the
course of time, with the loosening of plaques of stalagmite, some of
these engravings were removed. A small fragment of this sort bear-
ing the tail and hip of a bison was found in the lower layer. Later
a larger fragment with the rest of the bison was found in the sterile
deposit that covers the lower archeological horizon (middle Magda-
lenian). The two pieces united are seen in figure 12. Other blocks
of stalagmite were found to enclose engravings and when properly
split disclosed their negative imprints. The feet of a horse that are
@The ile d’Yeu was a part of the mainland until near the close of the
Quaternary.
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
560
missing from one wall engraving were found in the upper Magda-
lenian floor deposit, proving that the drawing in question was at
‘[InoIg 101 VW
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4elsSoy, 18 punoy (TT “1d ves) Suoad
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Wp
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lip WEEE
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‘gsioy B JO Suraeisuq—{T ‘ply
least as old as the deposit enclosing it, and may have dated from the
first occupation of the cavern.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PLATE 11.
be
BASAL PRONG OF STAG HORN, PERFORATED AND COVERED WITH ENGRAVINGS,
ONE OF WHICH REPRESENTS THE HORSE (SEE FIG. Il) FROM THE ROCK
SHELTER OF MEGE AT TEYJAT. AFTER CAPITAN, BREUIL, BOURRINET, AND
PEYRONY, REV. DE L'ECOLE D’ANTHR. DE Paris, 19, 1909.
CT CR ieee | eee
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 561
If further evidence were needed to establish the authenticity of
paleolithic mural decorations, one need only cite the cavern of Pair-
non-Pair where rude deeply incised engravings were revealed on
the walls only after the floor deposits of upper Aurignacian age that
covered them had been removed. ‘The engravings, therefore, are not
only authentic, but dated as well. The same sort of evidence was
furnished at La Gréze. There the parietal engravings were covered
by floor deposits of Solutréan age.
The excellent preservation of these parietal works of art is due
in many cases to the accidental sealing up of the caverns toward the
close of the Quaternary. This was the case not only at Altamira,
Fic. 12.—Bison engraved on two fragments of stalagmite that were found some distance
apart in the lower layer of the floor deposits at the cavern of La Mairie, Teyjat. After
Breuil, Rev. de l’Ecole d’anthr, de Paris, vol. 18, p. 172, 1908.
but also at Marsoulas (Haute-Garonne) and Teyjat. That frescoes
and engravings are not found on the walls near entrances that were
never sealed, but do occur at safe distances from the cavern mouths,
is at least negative proof of their antiquity. For the first 60 meters
at Font-de-Gaume, one finds no mural art (see fig. 7), and the
anterior barren stretch is still greater at Les Combarelles, La
Mouthe, and Niaux.
Judged by its parietal art, the cavern of Marsoulas (Haute-Ga-
ronne) is a connecting link between Altamira and the Périgord,
Gironde, and Gard group of caverns. Marsoulas had been explored
from 1880 to 1884 by the Abbé Cau-Durban, who discovered Solu-
tréan and Magdalenian hearths in its floor deposits. At that time
he saw certain red outlines on the walls, but supposing they could
not date from paleolithic times he did not mention them. The dis-
562 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
coveries at La Mouthe led to Félix Regnault’s successful search in
1897 for mural art at Marsoulas. In 1902, through a subvention of
the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Cartailhac and
Breuil began their study of the cavern which opens on an affluent
of the Salat. About the close of the Magdalenian epoch, the ante-
rior part of the Marsoulas cavern was filled by a fall of earth and
stone, thus accounting for the complete absence of neolithic culture
and the good preservation of the wall decorations.
The principal figures number fourteen and comprise six horses,
six bison, one wild goat, and one deer. Of the more than one
hundred partial figures, a majority represent the bison. Here,
as elsewhere, are found problematical figures that might be con-
strued as caricatures of man. The details of a fine polychrome
bison, painted over a partially effaced series of figures in black, are
exactly similar to those in the polychrome frescoes of Altamira and
Font-de-Gaume.
One curious figure of a bison (pl. 12, fig. a) is done in a peculiar
technique. The head was first engraved, then painted reddish brown,
the horns remaining without color. The entire body was filled in
with dots or small spots carefully arranged, as if done with the point
of a brush. At Marsoulas there are at least three distinct layers of
wall decorations, probably dating from the Aurignacian, Solutréan,
and lower Magdalenian epochs.
The large caverne des Forges at Niaux (Ariége) is about 4 kilo-
meters from Tarascon. On account of its size Niaux has for a long
time been looked upon as a sort of show place. In 1886 Doctor Gar-
rigou noted the presence of drawings on the walls of this cavern.
They were rediscovered in 1906. This is another one of the caverns
being explored by Cartailhac and Breuil, at the expense of the Aca-
démie des Inscriptions and by authority of the Administration des
Eaux et Foréts.
The narrow entrance is 100 meters above the Vic-de-Sos, a tributary
of the Ariége. The cavern has a total length of 1,100 meters. The
best specimens of mural art, including fine drawings and engravings,
are in the rotunda at a distance of 772 meters from the entrance.
They are grouped on the ceiling as well as the sides. Figures of the
bison, thirty in number, predominate. The horse, wild goat, and
stag are also represented. The drawings are outlines in a single
color, usually black, in which style of art Niaux excels. The medium
is presumably a mixture of charcoal and oxide of manganese, to
which grease or oil may have been added. It was applied with a
brush. Nearly half the animals are represented as having arrows
(pl. 12, fig. 6) sticking in their sides. It is suggested that these may
be votive figures symbolizing the hunter’s hopes for success in the
chase. Both drawings and engravings are wonderfully well pre-
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy PLATE 12.
Fic. a. BISONS, THE ONE ON THE LEFT IN RED, THE OTHERS IN BLACK.
SHADING OF TWO IN QUINCUNX. CAVERN OF MARSOULAS (HAUTE-
GARONNE). AFTER CARTAILHAC AND BREUIL, L’ANTHR., 16, P. 439,
1905.
Fic. b. LARGE BISON WITH FOUR ARROWS IN ITS SIDE (THE TWO LATERAL
ONES ARE IN RED). CAVERN OF NIAUX (ARIEGE). ABOUT zz. AFTER
CARTAILHAC AND BREUIL, L’ANTHR., 19, P. 29, 1908.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 563
served by reason of their distance from the entrance, the absolute
calm, and the uniform temperature of air and walls.
One of the striking features about paleolithic art is its realism.
This is especially true of the phases leading to the period of its
highest development. Recent investigations confirm in the main
Piette’s views as to the evolution of Quaternary art, although the
successive stages overlap more than he had supposed. Sculpture ap-
peared in the lower Aurignacian, but continued without interruption
through the Solutréan and to the middle of the Magdalenian—a much
longer period than Piette had in mind. Although beginning but
little earlier than engraving, sculpture came to full fruition first.
Engraving, on the other hand, developed more slowly at first, not
reaching its zenith till the middle Magdalenian, when it supplanted
sculpture.
The sculptor’s problem is in many respects the simpler, his oppor-
tunity of success greater. Not confined to a single aspect of his
model, he has as many chances of succeeding as there are angles from
which to view his work. The engraver or painter, on the other hand,
must seize the likeness at the first attempt or else fail. His model
was almost always an animal form, generally a quadruped. The
most striking, as well as the most complete, single aspect of a quad-
ruped is its profile. This happens to be the view that can be most
easily represented on a plane surface.
In dealing, however, with the human form the problem is more
complex. So far as the head is concerned, the profile presents fewer
difficulties and at the same time is quite as characteristic as the front
view. With the body it is just the reverse, the view from the front
being the most complete and characteristic as well as the easiest to
manage. This element of complexity in a given aspect of the human
form must have confused the primeval engraver and painter not a
little, although it was not of such a nature as to disturb the sculptor.
Herein may le the reasons why the latter chose as models man and
four-footed animals indifferently, while the former’s predilections
for quadruped forms were so pronounced. At any rate, the fact is
that a large majority of paleolithic engravings and practically all
the paintings are animal profiles. The earliest ones are in absolute
profile, thus simplifying the problem of representing the legs with-
out materially detracting from the general effect.
By degrees more freedom entered into the execution of the figures
and more or less successful attempts were made at bringing out de-
tails of anatomy by means of incised lines or color or both. The
artist, however, retained his predilection for profiles. Attempts at
rendering any other aspect are rare even in the Magdalenian. One
of the most creditable efforts is the front view of a reindeer incised
on a piece of reindeer horn (fig. 18). That the artist was ignorant,
564 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
however, of the laws of perspective is painfully evident. This speci-
men is from the lower Magdalenian horizon of the cavern of Gourdan
(Haute-Garonne).
In the same layer at Gourdan was found another fragment of rein-
deer horn with panel engravings that are of more than passing inter-
est (fig. 14). That the dorsal view presented difficulties perhaps
even greater than those of the front view is seen in the upper left-
hand panel. The model in this case
was a bovidian. This was a daring
enue artist who sought difficulties he was
unable to overcome. Neither was he
afraid to acknowledge failure if such
it was considered at the time, for his
signature appears in two places—
above the left horn and opposite the
left shoulder. The adjoining panel
with fish (pike) in profile is also
signed in two places, but by another
artist, whose signature, composed of
an oval pit with four smaller ones
above it, is not unlike a four-pointed
coronet. Of the two lower panels
only the one on the right is adorned.
The principal figure is that of a small
antelope running. The body is in
profile, while the head is turned from
the beholder. The posterior convex-
ity at the base of each ear is indi-
cated, as it was also in the bovidian
of the upper panel. The head of a
horse viewed from in front is seen
just above the antelope. The front
view of the head alone presents fewer
Wie. 18 Reindeer viewed from in Gifieulties than that of the entire ame
front, engraved on reindeer horn. yal, as is attested by engravings on a
From the lower Magdalenian de- : i
posits, cavern of Gourdan (Haute. Wand from the middle Magdalenian
Garonne). After Piette, L’anthr, deposits of the rock-shelter of Mége
vol. 15, p. 159, 1904. E -
(Dordogne). The artist’s represen-
tation of a deer’s head was so successful that it was repeated with
slight variations four times on the shaft of the slender wand (fig.
15). Many representations of the front view are so diagrammatic as
to be scarcely recognizable. Some of the processes that lead to con-
ventionalism are simply short cuts to the artist’s goal, the goal being
to convey a given impression. This can often be done better by
evading difficulties than by meeting them. The paleolithic artist
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 565
soon found this to be true especially of the front and dorsal views.
Even his favorite profiles did not escape the universal tendency
particularly when
they dealt with
groupings or herds \,
of animals. An ex- \\
cellent example was
recently discovered
in the cavern of
La Mairie at Tey-
‘jat (Dordogne). It
Ae
ty
\ wy Hi A ih
7 2
in
ast
Ny
Ls
represents a herd of Zupps §
. RS SS
reindeer (fig. 16). \ f= \
The three in the lead DLs 3
Wey
—
ve
are fairly well dif-
ferentiated as is also
one at the rear. The
space between is
filled in by cross-
hatching similar to
that on the bodies of
the leaders, repre-
senting therefore
the undifferentiated
bodies of those in
middle of the herd.
Above rises a forest
of horns. These be-
ing the most charac-
teristic feature of
the animal are exag-
gerated as if to make
up for the artist’s sac-
rifice of detail with
respect to body and
limbs. The entire
group is delicately
incised on the radius
of an eagle that was
Pe hy 77,
7) My
Ie)
WD
found in the upper fic. 14.—Panel engravings on a piece of reindeer horn.
Magdalenian layer Lower Magdalenian, cavern of Gourdan (Haute-Garonne).
After Piette, L’anthr., vol. 15, p. 163, 1904.
of the cavern floor.
A work of art similar to the foregoing but engraved on a frag-
ment of stone and representing horses instead of reindeer was found
many years ago in the cavern of Chaffaud (Vienne). The surface
566
Fic. 15.—Front view of
the deer’s head, re-
peated four times on
the shaft of a wand.
Middle Magdalenian,
rock-shelter of Mége
(Dordogne). After
Breuil, Rev. de l’Ecole
d’anthr. de Paris, vol.
16, p. 209, 1906.
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
of the stone is divided into two panels—an
upper and a lower. Each panel is filled by a
herd of galloping horses—seventeen in one
group and eighteen in the other. In both
panels the horse at each end is completely
traced. Those in between are represented by
contour lines of the heads, necks and forefeet
only, giving the effect of an orderly compact
squadron of cavalry in action. The original is
said to have disappeared but Cartailhac® has
reproduced it in negative from an estampage.
From the beginning of the Magdalenian
epoch, symbolism began to play an important
role in paleolithic art. According to Piette,
symbols are figures or images employed as signs
of objects; therefore they represent words. In
the process of time the words were divided into
syllables, the syllables into letters; the same
signs have designated successively words, syl-
lables, and letters. Among the earliest paleo-
hthic symbols are the dotted circle, the lozenge
and the spiral or sigmoid scroll. The first is
supposed to be a sun symbol. It reappears as
an Egyptian hieroglyph, also on dolmens and
menhirs, on bronze age funerary urns and
ornaments of the first iron age. The circle
without the dot passed into the ancient alpha-
bets and from them into modern alphabets.
The lozenge was employed as an artist’s signa-
ture. The spiral has flourished in all succeed-
ing ages and like some other symbols may have
developed independently in various ages and
lands.
Piette distinguishes two successive systems of
writing in the Magdalenian—the first hiero-
glyphic and the second cursive. He believes the
latter was derived from the former, but admits
that since symbols are creatures of convention
they may have been from the beginning figures
formed by geometric lines instead of being stm-
plified images. An example of cursive writing
dating from the Magdalenian epoch is given in
figure 17. It is from the classic station of La
“J,/anthropologie, vol. 14, 177, 1908.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 567
Madeleine (Dordogne). The inscription is composed of eight signs,
some of which resemble certain letters of the Phenician and ancient
Greek alphabet, as well as Cypriote
signs. While these may not have
been real letters to the Magdalen-
ians, they did become so in passing
from a symbolic and phonetic stage
combined to one purely phonetic.
The first sign resembles the Phe-
nician guimel, the gamma of ancient
and modern Greek and a sign in
Asylian writing which dates from
the epoch of transition between the
paleolithic and neolithic. Allowing
for some negligence in execution,
the second sign is comparable to the
Phenician alef, the alpha of ancient
and classic Greek, and A of our own
alphabet. The third character is
the Phenician guimel, the gamma of
primitive and classic Greek. The
fourth sign is the same as the third,
only reversed. This is also found
in the Asylian. The fifth and sixth
signs are alike; they are compa-
rable to the letter 1 of the Lycian
alphabet and of the classic Greek—
the equivalent of the Cypriote sign
go. The seventh sign, which is also
found on one of the painted pebbles
of Mas d’Azil, resembles the char- 5
acter ti, di, thi of the Cypriote al-
phabet. The eighth character bears
some analogy to the Cypriote vi
or yl.
Cursive writing was developed
still further during the Asylian
epoch (fig. 18), which is the con-
necting link between the paleo-
\
Mh
Ai al
MM
WM MM MU 7
if,
NAL LA
‘IQIUB,P Voom] Vp “Aoy
‘OA ‘SIIVq op
oz
=~
~~
‘d ‘OL
*(eusopi0d) yelsay, ‘alaey_ VY JO UlIAVD OY} WOAZ ‘o[Sve UB JO SNIPCA OY} UO PoeABISUG JsBspUlaI JO ploH—'OT ‘OIA
YAWN
—
can WAM
A
a
ct
lithic and neolithic periods. The 4&
transitional character of this epoch 7% [=
i=]
is revealed in both faunal and indus-
trial remains. The fauna is com-
posed entirely of species still living in temperate regions. Asylian
culture is a heritage from the Magdalenian. It is characterized by
45745°—sMm 1909——37
568 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the appearance of flat, perforated harpoons (fig. 18) made of stag-
horn, that replaced two successive types of Magdalenian harpoons—
the older with a single row of lateral barbs and the younger with
two rows of lateral barbs. The strati-
——— ee graphic position of the Asylian, re-
posing on the upper Magdalenian, is
in harmony with the cultural and
faunal elements. This is the horizon
Fic. 17.—Inscription, from the upper of the remarkable painted pebbles
Magdalenian, La Madeleine (Dor- 5
degne), After Piette, <Lanthr, (fig. 18) found in the cavern of Mas
vol. 15, p. 164, 1904. PAzil*® (Ariége), that have thrown
so much light on paleolithic systems of writing and their connec-
tion with subsequent systems. According to Piette we are indebted
Fic. 18.—Asylian culture, from the cavern of Mas d’Azil (Ariége). Above, perforated
harpoons of stag horn; below, pebbles with painted designs representing a cursive
system of writing. After Hoernes, Der diluy. Mensch in Europa, p. 79, 19038.
to the Asylian for at least a dozen symbols that have come down
the epoch.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 569
and classic Greek, Latin and Lydian. Discoveries of the past few
years have added appreciably to our knowledge of the Asylian.
One of these at Ofnet (Bavaria) will be discussed in the following
chapter. ;
HUMAN REMAINS.
The decade has witnessed the discoveries of skeletal remains of man
that have added much to our knowledge of the races inhabiting
Europe during the Quaternary. Because of the stratigraphic posi-
tion in which it was found and of its somatological characters, the
human lower jaw discovered by Dr. Otto Schoetensack* on October
91, 1907, in a sandpit near the village of Mauer, 10 kilometers south-
east of Heidelberg, ranks as the most important single specimen.
Mauer lies in the valley of the Elsenz, a tributary of the Necker. The
human lower jaw was found in situ in the so-called Mauer sands, at a
depth of 24.10 meters and 0.87 meter from the bottom of the deposit.
The first 10.92 meters at the top of the sections are composed of loess,
which is classed as upper Quaternary, while the Mauer sands forming
the rest of the section are lower Quaternary. The loess itself repre-
sents two distinct periods, an older and a younger.
The horizon (fig. 19) from which the human lower jaw came has
furnished other mammalian remains, including Felis spelewa, Felis
catus, Canis, Ursus arvernensis, Sus scrofa var. priscus, Cervus lati-
frons, Bison, Castor fiber, Equus, Rhinoceros etruscus, and E'lephas
antiquus.
Schoetensack likens the fossil mammalian fauna of the Mauer sands
to the preglacial Forest beds of Norfolk and the upper Pliocene of
southern Europe. This is particularly true of Rhinoceros etruscus,
and the horse of Mauer, which is a transition form between Hquus
stenonis coccht and the horse of Taubach, both of which may be
referred definitely to the Phocene. The rest of the mammalian fauna
belongs to the lower Quaternary.
The coexistence of man with Hlephas antiquus at Taubach, near
Weimar, gave Schoetensack special reasons for expecting to find
human remains also at Mauer. The possibility of such a discovery
had kept him in close touch for twenty years with the owner of the
sandpit, Herr J. Résch. The discovery was made by one of the work-
men, with whom at the time were another workman and a boy.
Schoetensack was immediately informed, and arrived the following
day. The lower jaw was intact, but the stroke of the workman’s
“Der Unterkiefer des Homo Heidelbergensis aus den Sanden von Mauer bei
Heidelberg: Ein Beitrag zur Paliiontologie des Menschen, von Otto Schoeten-
sack. Mit 13 Tafeln, davon 10 in Lichtdruck. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm
Engelmann, 1908. sf
570 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
shovel had caused the two halves to separate along the line of sym-
physis. It was discolored, and marked by incrustations of sand
exactly as are all fossil bones from the Mauer sands. <A limestone
pebble was so firmly cemented to the left half of the jaw, covering
the premolars and first two molars, that the crowns of all four stuck
to the pebble when the latter was removed. Both the jaw and the
pebble were marked by dendritic formations.
Fic. 19.—Sand pit at Mauer. The lower jaw was found at the spot marked with a
cross. After Schoetensack, Der Unterkiefer des Homo Heidelbergensis, Taf. II, Leip-
zig, 1908.
Perhaps the first thing to attract one’s attention is the absence of
a chin (pl. 13). The region of the symphysis is somewhat goril-
loid, while the ascending ramus suggests rather the gibbon. The
teeth, however, have a distinctly human stamp, not only in their gen-
eral appearance, but also in point of size—larger than the average,
but smaller than in exceptional cases to be found among the Aus-
tralians, for instance. One is impressed, in fact, by the relative
smallness of the teeth as compared with the massive jaw in the case
of Homo heidelbergensis. The alveolar arch is almost long enough,
for example, to allow space for a fourth molar. JT noted the same
phenomenon in a collection of recent crania from Gazelle Peninsula,
New Britain. In one of these the alveolar arch of the upper jaw
@ American Anthropologist, 1902, n. s., vol. 4, 474.
allies
aan
+
oe
;
if.
a
mF n)
fe ba
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PLATE 13
Fic. a. LOWER JAW OF HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS. ABOUT #.
Fic. b. LOWER JAW OF HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS. AFTER SCHOETENSACK, DER
UNTERKIEFER DES HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS, LEIPZIG, 1908.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. Sy bl
projects 12 millimeters beyond the third molar, while the average for
the males is 8.6 millimeters. Respecting the series of lower jaws, I
quote from my paper read in 1902: “ The third molar is generally sit-
uated well in front of the ascending ramus of the lower jaw, when the
jaw is so held as to bring the anterior margins of the rami in a line
with the eye. With the jaw held in this position, the entire crown
of the third molar can be seen in 13 out of a total of 18 cases.”
The crowns of the teeth in the Mauer specimen are worn enough
to show the dentine, proof that the individual had reached the adult
stage. All the molars, except the third left, have five cusps. The
tendency in recent man is toward a four-cusp type for the third
molar, if indeed there be a third molar. The breaking away of the
crowns of four teeth on the left side tended to facilitate the study of
the pulp cavities and the walls. This study reveals the fact that the
dentition of Homo heidelbergensis represents a youthful stage in the
dentition of the modern European. That is to say, in the ontogeny
of the latter, a stage representing adult dental characters when the
race was young is now reached at the age of from 9 to 14 years.
This is not an anthropoid character, but a primitive human char-
acter—another reason for leaving the anthropoids to one side in our
search for the ancestral form and the origin of genus //omo.
A study of the corpus and ramus mandibule reveals at once a
number of points of divergence from the modern European. The
body is massive, and relatively long in proportion to the bicondylar
breadth, its greatest height being in the region of the first and second
molars. The basis mandibule, if apphed to a plane, touches only on
either side of the symphysis and near the angulus, forming three gen-
tle arches—one median and short, called by Klaatsch incisura sub-
mentalis; and two lateral and long, to which might be given the name
incisura basilaris. The latter is seen to good advantage also in the
chimpanzee.
The ramus is characterized by unusual breadth, 60 millimeters as
opposed to an average of 37 for recent examples. The angle formed
by lines tangent to the basis and the posterior border of the ramus
is 107°—smaller than the average. The processus coronoideus is
exceedingly blunt, and the incisura mandibule correspondingly shal-
low. The condyloid process is noteworthy on account of the extent
of articular surface, due to an increased antero-posterior diameter
(13 and 16 millimeters), since the transverse diameter is relatively
short. The neck constriction is very sligl t, approaching in this
respect the anthropoid forms.
The first fossil lower jaw to attract world-wide attention on ac-
count of its primitive characters and association with remains of
572 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the mammoth and rhinoceros, was that found in 1866 by Dupont in
the cavern of La Naulette, valley of the Lesse, Belgium. It was
only a fragment, but enough remained to demonstrate the complete
absence of chin and the nature of the dentition. Its kinship with
the man of Neanderthal, whose lower jaw could not be found, was
evident. It tended therefore to legitimatize the latter, which
hitherto had failed of general recognition. The fortunate associa-
tion of skull with lower jaw came in 1886, when the remains of two
individuals were discovered in the cavern of Spy, also in Belgium.
In the same layer were found not only remains of the mammoth and
the rhinoceros, but also an industry of the Mousterian type.
Among the human remains found in 1899 by Professor Gorjanovié-
Kramberger at Krapina, there are parts of a number of lower jaws
that bear the same racial characters as those of La Naulette and Spy.
They were also associated with a Mousterian industry. Instead,
however, of the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, as at Spy, there were re-
‘mains of Rhinoceros merckii, an older type. This may be accounted
for by the fact that Rhinoceros merckii would persist longer in the
south than in the north.
That the lower jaws of La Naulette, Spy, and Krapina represent
one and the same stage in the evolution of Homo sapiens, there is no
longer any doubt. That this stage is intermediate between recent
man and Homo heidelbergensis, a careful comparison of the speci-
mens in question furnishes ample proof.¢ The lower jaw from
Mauer is therefore pre-Neanderthaloid. That it also exhibits pre-
anthropoid characters gives it a fundamental position in the line of
human evolution. Doctor Schoetensack is to be congratulated on his
rich reward for a twenty years’ vigil.
The lower jaws of the Neanderthal, or so-called primigenius, type,
mentioned above, were all found in cavern or rock-shelter deposits.
These cannot be definitely correlated with river-drift and loess;
hence we cannot measure the time that separates the man of Spy
from Homo heidelbergensis. Judging from somatic characters
alone, the time separating the two must have been considerable.
The Mousterian industry which is found associated with Homo
primigenius occurs in deposits that mark the close of the middle
Quaternary, and also in cavern deposits corresponding to the base
of the upper Quaternary. It belongs to the transition from the Riss
glacial period to the Riss-Wiirm interglacial period. At Wild-
kirchli, in the Alps, it is frankly interglacial, a station that probably
belongs to the close of the Mousterian epoch.
The position of the Mauer lower jaw near the bottom of the old
diluvium, and its association with the remains of Llephas antiquus
“Spy approximates more closely the Mauer type than does Krapina.
: : - mg
if bi 1. yes " oe ee
ert ca Lie =p
‘
ayer.
Un aes
se aad
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PLATE 14.
HOMO PRIMIGENIUS, OR MOUSTERIENSIS, FROM THE CAVERN OF LE MousTIER (DORDOGNE).
(Photographs by O. Hauser.)
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 573
and Rhinoceros etruscus, suggest for it a place at least as far back as
the lower Quaternary. But the industry of the lower Quaternary
is eolithic, the evolution of the Chellean type not taking place until
the middle Quaternary. One would expect to find Mafflean indus-
try in the horizon of Homo heidelbergensis and this, according to the
latest report, is what Professor Schoetensack has succeeded in doing.
During the summer of 1908, Herr O. Hauser found part of a
human skeleton, including the skull, in the classic station of Le
Moustier itself. This station, belonging to a wonderful series of
paleolithic sites in the valley of Vézére, France, has been known
since the explorations of Lartet and Christy, 1863-1865. Hauser
very wisely delayed the removal of the human remains from the
cavern of Le Moustier until after the arrival of a party of German
anthropologists, including Professor Klaatsch, of Breslau, the party
going direct from the German Anthropological Congress held at
Frankfurt during the first week in August.
Hauser’s discovery was made in the lower cave at Le Moustier,
and includes not only an almost complete skull (pl. 14, figs. a, 6)
but also various parts of the skeleton of a youth of about 15 years.
At this age, sex can not be determined from the bones alone. The
race characters also are not so distinct as they would be at full
maturity; but they point unmistakably to the type of Neandertal,
Spy, and Krapina—the so-called Homo primigenius which now also
becomes Homo mousteriensis. It was a rather stocky type, robust
and of a low stature. The arms and legs were relatively short,
especially the forearm and from the knee down, as is the case among
the Eskimo. Ape-lke characters are noticeable in the curvature
of the radius and of the femur, the latter being also rounder in
section than is the case with Homo sapiens. In the retreating fore-
head, prominent brow ridges, and prognathism it is approached to
some extent by the modern Australian. The industry associated with
this skeleton from Le Moustier is that typical of the Mousterian
epoch.
A discovery of paleolithic human remains was made on August
3, 1908, by the Abbés J. and A. Bouyssonie and L. Bardon, assisted by
Paul Bouyssonie, a younger brother of the first two. It is in many
respects one of the most satisfactory, particularly on account of the
pieces being so nearly complete. The locality is the village of La
Chapelle-aux-Saints, 22 kilometers south of Brive, in the department
of Corréze, which forms a part of one of France’s celebrated cavern
belts, including Dordogne, Charente, and Gironde to the west.
The discovery at La Chapelle-aux-Saints was made in a cavern a
short distance from the entrance. It includes not only human bones;
but also stone implements and the remains of the reindeer, Bison,
Equus, Capra ibex, Rhinocerous tichorhinus, fox, bird.
574 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
That this may have been a burial is suggested by the disposition
of the human remains which seemed to lie in a rectangular pit sunk
to a depth of 30 centimeters in the floor of the cavern. They were
covered by a deposit intact 30 to 40 centimeters thick, consisting
of a magma of bone, of stone implements, and of clay. The stone
implements belong to a pure Mousterian industry. While some
pieces suggest a vague survival of the Acheulian implement, others
presage the coming of the Aurignacian. Directly over the human
skull were the foot bones, still in connection, of a bison—proof that
the piece had been placed there with the flesh on, and proof, too, that
the deposit had not been disturbed. Two hearths were noted also,
and the fact that there were no implements of bone, the industry
differing in this respect from that at La Quina and Petit-Puymoyen
(Charente), as well as at Wildkirchli, Switzerland.
The human bones include the cranium and lower jaw (broken,
but the pieces nearly all present and easily replaced in exact posi-
tion), a few vertebre and long-bones, several ribs, phalanges and
metacarpals, clavicle, astragalus, caleaneum, parts of the scaphoid,
ilium, and sacrum. The ensemble denotes an individual of the
male sex, whose height was about 1.60 meters. The condition of the
sutures and of the jaws prove the skull to be that of an old man.
The cranium is dolichocephalic, with an index of 75. It is said to be
flatter in the frontal and occipital regions than those of Neanderthal
and Spy.
Beyond the loss of teeth, due evidently to old age, the skull is
so nearly intact as to make possible the application of the usual
craniometric procedure, thus leading to a more exact comparative
study than has been possible, for example, in all previously discov-
ered paleolithic human skulls dating from the same period, not ex-
cepting even Spy and Homo mousteriensis. This is particularly true
of the basi-occipital region, the upper jaw, and the face-bones (pl. 15).
Weare thus enabled to supplement our knowledge of Mousterion crani-
ometry at several points and to correct it at others. This is the first
case, for example, in which the foramen magnum has been preserved
in human crania of the Mousterian type. It is found to be elongated,
and is situated farther back than in modern inferior races. The
character of the inion and its relation to the cranial base is revealed
for the first time. There is no external occipital protuberance, but
the linea nuche superior (torus occipitalis transversus) is well
marked. The character of the surface in the nuchal region indicates
that the muscles here were highly developed. The palate is relatively
long, the sides of the alveolar arch being nearly parallel; that is to
say, the palate is hypsiloid—one of the two characteristic simian
forms. Boule also notes the absence of the fossa canina. The nose,
separated from the prominent glabella by a pronounced depression,
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PLATE 15.
Fic. a. SKULL OF THE FOSSIL MAN OF LA CHAPELLE-AUX-SAINTS, AFTER
RESTORATION OF THE NASAL BONES AND JAWS. AFTER BOULE, L’ANTHR.,
20; P: 267, 1909.
Fic. b. PROFILES OF THE CRANIUM OF A CHIMPANZEE, THE CRANIUM OF LA
CHAPELLE-AUX-SAINTS, AND THAT OF A MODERN FRENCHMAN SUPERPOSED,
AND WITH A COMMON BASI-NASAL LINE EQUAL IN LENGTH FOR EACH. BA,
Basion; NA, NASION. AFTER BOULE, L’ANTHR., 20, P. 265, 1909.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 575
is relatively short and broad. The lower jaw is remarkable for its
size, for the antero-posterior extent of the condyles, the shallowness
of the incisura mandibule, and the absence of chin.
Boule estimated the capacity of the Chapelle-aux-Saints skull
according to the formule of Manouvrier, of Lee, and of Beddoe,
obtaining results that varied between 1,570 and 1,750 cubic centi-
meters. By the use of millet and of shot an average capacity of 1,626
cubic centimeters was obtained. Judging from these figures the
capacity of the crania of Neandertal and Spy has been underesti-
mated by Schaafthausen, Huxley, and Schwalbe.
By its cranial capacity, therefore, the Neandertal race belongs
easily in the class of Homo sapiens. But we must distinguish be-
- tween relative capacity and absolute capacity. In modern man,
where the transverse and antero-posterior diameters are the same as
in the skull of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, the vertical diameter would
be much greater, which would increase the capacity to 1,800 cubic
centimeters and even to 1,900 cubic centimeters. Such voluminous
modern crania are very rare. Thus Bismarck, with horizontal cranial
diameters scarcely greater than in the man of La Chapelle-aux-
Saints, is said to have had a cranial capacity of 1,965 cubic centi-
meters.
The most remarkable thing about the astragalus is the special de-
velopment of the articular surface for the lateral malleolus, develop-
ment that recalls the condition in anthropoids and climbing mam-
mals. This seems to indicate that, as among anthropoids, the foot of
the man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints should repose on its external
margin, also that the fibula was relatively more powerful than is the
case among modern races.
The calcaneum is characterized by its shortness and especially by
the large dimensions of the lesser process (sustentaculum tali). The
latter in its proportions resembles that in the Veddahs and in anthro-
poids.
During the autumn of 1909 M. D. Peyrony, of Les Eyzies, had the
good fortune to discover human remains of Mousterian age at two
different localities in the department of Dordogne. The first find
was made in a small cavern at Pech de l’Azé, 5 kilometers from
Sarlat. Here in undisturbed upper Mousterian deposits was found
the skull of a child five or six years old. About it were the numerous
animal bones broken artificially, the teeth of the horse, deer, rein-
deer, and an abundance of Mousterian implements. The lower
Mousterian deposit on which the skull rested contained fine imple-
ments of the Acheulian type.
M. Peyrony’s second discovery was made September 17, 1909, in the
rock-shelter of La Ferrassie near Bugue. The section at La Fer-
rassie comprises five archeological horizons, Acheulian, Mousterian,
576 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and lower, middle, and upper Aurignacian. It was between the
Acheulian and Mousterian deposits and at a depth of 3 meters that
an almost complete human skeleton was found. Although in part
crushed by the enormous weight of earth above, all the bones were
in place with the exception of those of the right foot and hand, which
had been displaced and partially destroyed, probably by some carni-
vore or rodent. The skeleton has been removed intact with care and,
it is hoped, will soon be published in detail. Unlike the case of La
Chapelle-aux-Saints, this was not an interment. The body was
placed at one corner of the shelter and covered with branches or
skins, perhaps a little earth, or all three of these combined. About
the head and shoulders were three stones that might have served as
weights. Gradually it was covered deeper and deeper by débris°
from the overhanging rocks and that left by succeeding Aurignacian
populations. Its stratigraphic position is clearly defined. A more
extended report as to its somatological characters is awaited with
much interest. It should not only confirm but also supplement exist-
ing data bearing on the osteology of Homo primigenius, as did the
remains from La Chapelle-aux-Saints.
Thanks to persistent, painstaking, systematic explorations, the
Dordogne seems destined to maintain its lead in matters paleolithic.
Herr O. Hauser who made the important discovery of Homo mous-
teriensis at Le Moustier in 1908 has been also rewarded with a rich
harvest in 1909. At Combe-Capelle, near Montferrand-Périgord, he
found on August 26 an adult male skeleton of Aurignacian age. The
type, however, is of a higher order than that of his Homo mousterien-
sis, the difference being greater than might be inferred from its strati-
graphic position. The remains had been interred, the pit being sunk
into a deposit of Mousterian age. The stone implements found with
the skeleton about the head, arms, knees, and feet are Aurignacian.
For this reason Klaatsch suggests the name Homo aurignacensis
hauseri. A number of snail shells were also deposited with the dead,
probably as ornaments. As was the case the previous year at Le
Moustier, Professor’ Klaatsch, of Breslau, was called to Combe-
Capelle to superintend the removal of the skeleton (pls. 16, 17).
Klaatsch classes Homo aurignacensis hauseri with the human re-
mains from Briinn (Mahren) and Galley Hill, near London. All
three skulls are long and narrow, markedly dolichocephalic. In so far
as the fragmentary condition of the Galley Hill skeleton will admit
of comparison the other skeletal parts agree in type. Klaatsch also
notes certain resemblances to the much later Magdalenian race, as
represented by the skeleton found twenty years ago at Chancelade,
also in the Dordogne» Although of rather short and powerful build,
Klaatsch believes this Aurignacian race did not evolve directly from
(‘1osney ‘Oo Aq ydeisoj0yd)
*“(AND0GYOQ) 311SdVO-3EdWOD JO YHALTAHS MOOY SHL WOUYS ‘IYSSNVH SISNAOVNDINNY OWOH
t
el
‘Ol 3ALV1d *ApingoeW—' 6061 ‘Hodey ueiuosyyiWS
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—MacCurdy. PATE ie
vd Ni
LUN F i Aaa
rete wwe vf
hid ¥ A. Wy
SKULL OF HOMO AURIGNACENSIS HAUSERI.
(Photographs by O. Hauser.)
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. wer
the Neandertal or Mousterian race. On the other hand, he believes
it later developed into the Cro-Magnon and Chancelade types.
The caverns of Grimaldi (Baoussé-Roussé), between Mentone and
Ventimiglia and on the Italian side of the international boundary,
form one of the most compact groups of paleolithic caverns in all
Europe.
Counting two small rock-shelters, the group includes nine stations,
the most important being the Grotte des Enfants, La Barma Grande,
Grotte du Cavillon and the Grotte du Prince. General attention was
first called to this region many years ago by Riviére’s discovery of a
human skeleton in the Grotte du Cavillon—the so-called homme de
Menton, now in the Natural History Museum, Paris. Later five skele-
tons in all were found at La Barma Grande, and two, of children, in
the Grotte des Enfants, whence its name.
Interest in archeology and ownership of one of the caverns (Grotte
du Prince), led the Prince of Monaco to provide for a systematic ex-
ploration of the Grimaldi cavern deposits hitherto undisturbed, be-
ginning with the virgin Grotte du Prince. The work was placed in
the hands of the Canon L. de Villeneuve, Prof. M. Boule, and Dr. R.
Verneau. The Grotte du Prince proved to be rich in faunal remains.
Not a single human bone was found, however, although as many as
twenty-eight hearths were encountered. The age, therefore, of the
skeletons previously found in the neighboring caverns still remained
in doubt. Work was next begun (1900) in the Grotte des Enfants
that had been only partially explored by Riviere. Here, as at the
Grotte du Prince, the entire series of deposits was found to be
Quaternary; the occupation of the cavern, however, is supposed to have
begun and to have ended a little later than at the Prince’s cavern.
The two layers at the bottom were characterized by a so-called
warm or tropical fauna—“lephas antiquus and Rhinoceros merckii.
All the succeeding layers contain the fauna of the reindeer. The
explorers were rewarded by finding human remains at three distinct
levels, all three being in the reindeer deposits. Beginning at the
bottom, a common sepulture with an adult female and youthful
male skeleton was encountered at a depth of 8.5 meters and resting
directly on the deposits with the fauna of Elephas antiquus. On
account of their accentuated negroid characters, these differ from
all other Quaternary skeletons. To this type, which Verneau has
called the Race de Grimaldi, attention has been called afresh by
the Venus of Willendorf, a stone figurine recently discovered near
Krems, Austria.
At a level of less than a meter above the common sepulture with
negroid remains was found a male skeleton of the Cro-Magnon
type. The fauna of the two horizons is precisely the same, and con-
578 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tinues to be uniform to the top of the section. The female skeleton,
therefore, found by de Villeneuve at a depth of 1.9 meters from
the surface is Quaternary, belonging probably to the close of the
Magdalenian epoch. It has certain negroid characters, such as rela-
tively long forearms and thighs. The slight parieto-occipital flat-
tening suggests the Cro-Magnon type, while in some respects it is
not unlike the neolithic dolichocephals.
The reindeer is associated with three successive cultural epochs—
Aurignacian, Solutréan, and Magdalenian, respectively. All three
epochs are probably represented at the Grotte des Enfants, in which
case the negroid skeletons might be considered as of Aurignacian age.
Immediately below were remains of Hlephas antiquus. It may be
recalled that at Krapina, the latter was associated with a Mousterian
industry and skeletal remains of the Homo primigenius type.
The human skeletal remains from the Grotte des Enfants are all
referable to the reindeer period, the transitional Asylian epoch not
being represented there. Thanks to the researches of Dr. R. R.
Schmidt? in the cavern of Ofnet, a number of human skulls dating
from the Asyhan have been brought to hght. Stratigraphically,
Ofnet is, after Sirgenstein, one of Germany’s most important paleo-
lithic stations. An instructive section of the deposits is reproduced in
plate 18, taken at a point just inside the entrance to the cavern. On
account of its great weight, the fallen stone at the top had _ pro-
tected this portion of the floor deposits from earlier exploitation.
The first two layers are sterile. In the third and fourth, Schmidt
found an industry typical for the middle and upper Aurignacian in
association with an Equus fauna, including the lemming. The fifth
layer marks the appearance of a pure early Solutréan culture, with
a continuation of Equus fauna. The lemming reappears at the base
of the sixth deposit, which is surmounted by a characteristic upper
Magdalenian industry.
The horizon that interests us most is the seventh, called by Schmidt
“ Mesolithik,” and coérdinate with the Asylian. The layer is only
about 5 centimeters: thick except at two points where pockets are
formed that reach to the level of the Solutréan deposit. The com-
pact earth in these pockets was impregnated with red ochre, and in
each was a circular group of human crania covered with powdered
ochre. All the crania, twenty-seven in one group and six in the other,
were placed so as to face the setting sun. <A large majority in each
group were skulls of females and children, there being in all but six
male skulls. The burials of the heads without the bodies were made
while the flesh was still on as the lower jaw and one or several cervical
6 Die vorgeschichtlichen Kulturen der Ofnet. Bericht des naturwissenschaftl.
Vereins fiir Schwaben und Neuberg (FE. V.), 85, 1908.
PLATE 18.
Report, 1909.—MacCurdy.
Smithsonian
Zeitalter
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SECTION THROUGH FLOOR DEPOSITS IN THE CAVERN OF OFNET, BAVARIA. AFTER R. R. SCHMIDT, ACHTUNDDREISSIGSTER BERICHT F. SCHWABEN
UND NeuBuRG (E. V.), 1908.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 579
vertebre were found in place with each cranium. The skulls of the
females and children were accompanied by necklaces of perforated
stag canines and shells (Planorbis). The skulls were neither burnt
nor mutilated.
With the possible exception of a Tardenoisian flint point, there is
nothing in this horizon to suggest the neolithic; no ceramics, no re-
mains of domesticated animals, although the neolithic is well repre-
sented in the succeeding deposit. In respect to fauna and stratigra-
phy, it is Asylian. Two typical Asylian cultural elements—flat har-
poons of stag horn and painted pebbles—are missing, however.
Schmidt classes the industry as Asylo-Tardenoisian. The burial cus-
tom leans rather to the paleolithic. The use of ochre and of shell
ornaments is common to a number of paleolithic burials: Asylian
of Mas d’Azil; Magdalenian of Cro-Magnon, Laugerie-Basse,
Grimaldi, and Placard; and Solutréan of Briinn (Moravia). The
practice of burying the head alone seems to have been in vogue also at
Gourdan, for there according to Piette one never finds any human
bones except those of the cranium, lower jaw, and the first two or
three cervical vertebre.
Twenty of the Ofnet crania have been restored and are to be care-
fully studied by Doctor Schliz, who reports a mixture of the Medi-
terranean and the Alpine type. The Mediterranean influence on the
physical type is not surprising, when viewed in the light of Ofnet’s
cultural resemblances to stations in southwestern Europe.
CONCLUSIONS.
The first explorer, the original discoverer on a world scale, was
primitive man. He had covered the earth before the Europeans of
to-day set for themselves the highly interesting task of rediscovering
it and him. After some centuries, this self-imposed, instructive, and
pleasure-giving problem is nearly solved. Superficially, at least, the
earth has been compassed, the blank spots on the world map of to-day
being few and comparatively small.
The conquest, however, has been largely one of two dimensions.
Now that it is nearly over, we are left all the more free to focus the
attention on a whole series of antecedent worlds. This is what
Europe is at present doing. She is now bent on discovering the pre-
historic worlds beneath her very feet. She has found that man’s
occupation of the earth has not only length and breadth, but also
depth, and therefore admits of measurement in three dimensions in-
stead of two. Surely here is more work for the pathfinder. That
success will attend his labors, the discoveries of the past decade offer
ample proof.
This survey of recent progress is made first of all from the stand-
point of chronology. In the second place the evidence of man’s
antiquity has been arranged under three categories, derived respec-
580 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Neolithic level.
Brick earth.
nice Lower Magdalen-
2 ;
aan ian level.
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re
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3
iS Flinty layer. Mesvinian level. a
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2/9 earth. Oo
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a Mafflean level.
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° Flinty layer.
4
Cretaceous.
Fic. 20.—General section showing all the Quaternary deposits and the levels at which
industrial remains are to be found when in exact stratigraphic position; based on
discoveries made in Belgium and northern France. After Rutot, Bull. Soc. préh. de
France, 1908.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 581
tively from (1) valley deposits, (2) caverns and rock-shelters, and
(3) human skeletal remains.
The older paleolithic horizons, the Strépyan, Chellean, and Acheu-
lian are to be found in valley deposits beginning with the middle
Quaternary. The younger paleolithic horizons are quite generally
thought of as being restricted to caverns and rock-shelters. Thanks
to the results of recent researches, such a view is no longer tenable.
With a higher degree of precision and differentiation there is re-
vealed the diluvial equivalents of the upper paleolithic series, Mous-
terian, Aurignacian, Solutréan, and Magdalenian.
As might be expected the nature of the industry in the upper
diluvial series tallies with that of the cave deposits. Thus each
category of finds supplements and confirms the other. The only
regret of the archeologist is that the work of his predecessors could
not be done over again in the light of the latest discoveries. Experi-
mentation in any line presupposes a certain amount of waste. The
coefficient of waste in archeological experimentation is unfortunately
very high. The valley deposits are well-nigh inexhaustible. Much,
therefore, may be expected of them. With caverns the case is dif-
ferent. The supply of those still untouched is limited; the list of
those already wholly or in part excavated is long. Think of the
Dordogne, Grimaldi, Kent’s cavern, as once more virgin fields! The
latter, for example, has contributed little toward a better definition
of paleolithic chronology, yet judging from the published illustra-
tions it contained practically every type of industry from the Acheu-
han to and including the Magdalenian.
In paleolithic studies the chief elements of control are stratigraphy,
technology, and paleontology. These are all given a place in the
table of relative chronology. Perhaps no better summary of the
bearing of stratigraphy on the question of paleolithic man could be
chosen than a composite section of nonmarine Quaternary deposits
as they occur in the Paris Basin and in Belgium. I have chosen
Rutot’s combination of the three sections: Saint-Acheul (Somme),
exploitation Helin at Spiennes, near Mons, and the Thiarmont quarry
at Ecaussines, between Brussels and Mons (fig. 20). The section
shows the stratigraphic relation not only of the paleolithic to the
eolithic below and the neolithic above, but also, by means of a bracket,
that portion of the diluvial series for which there are cavern equiva-
lents. It should be recalled, however, that there is no direct strati-
graphic relation between the cavern deposits and those of the valleys.
At Saint-Acheul and Helin, industries occurred at all the horizons
indicated except the Aurignacian and Solutréan. The deposits at
Ecaussines corresponding to these two horizons are sterile. By going
to Willendorff, in the Danube Valley, near Krems (or to the Rhine
Valley), the diluvial cultural series can be completed, as has already
been pointed out.
582 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
According to Rutot, the neolithic is wholly superficial, never being
found in situ in the brick earth. Whether the latter is entirely barren
of industry remains to be determined. As it was deposited by the
last flood waters of the Quaternary, to find middle or upper Magda- |
lenian industry near its base should create no surprise. At the other
end of the series the paleolithic stops short of the lower Quaternary,
the industry of the latter being purely eolithic.
Respecting technology, the various paleolithic types of implements
are for the most part so familiar to students of the prehistoric that
with one or two exceptions I have deemed it unnecessary to figure
them (figs. 4 and 5). They admit of separation into two more or
less distinct groups. The older, practically confined to the diluvial
deposits, 1s represented by the Strépyan, Chellean, and Acheulian.
The generalized type, common to all three horizons, is the almond-
shaped implement chipped on both sides. The younger group, com-
mon both to the upper series of diluvial deposits and the caverns,
includes the Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutréan and Magdalenian
horizons. Lithologically, it is composed largely of flint flakes that
are chipped on one side only. The group is characterized also by
the appearance of bone implements and the beginnings of the arts
of sculpture, engraving, and painting. In this as well as the older
group there is everywhere orderly development marked either by
refinement of preexisting forms or the appearance of new ones.
The result is that a given combination of cultural phenomena has
its definite stratigraphic position. The two kinds of evidence are
therefore in harmony.
Of the three elements of control, the least thoroughly mastered is
paleontology. Some forms appear, disappear, and reappear. Some,
again, persist in certain latitudes much longer than in others. Z7e-
phas antiquus, for example, and Rhinoceros merckii existed in France
from the beginning of the Quaternary to the lower Acheulian epoch,
having retreated from Belgium with the coming on of the Riss glacia-
tion. Farther south, at Grimaldi, we find them contemporary with
Mousterian man. . Their successors, Hlephas primigenius and Rhinoc-
eros tichorhinus, appeared in Belgium as early as the Strépyan and
persisted almost until the end of the Quaternary, as their remains
have been found in the lower Flandrian deposits (ergeron).
The researches of Commont prove that at the beginning of the
paleolithic there were two adjacent contemporary zoological prov-
inces, (1) a northern, including England (for Great Britain and Ire-
land were then a part of the mainland), Belgium, and northern Ger-
many with the fauna of the mammoth, and_(2) a southern, including
the greater part of the Paris basin and the valley of the Somme,
where the fauna of Hlephas antiquus still persisted. The fauna of
the mammoth overran France in the Acheulian epoch, 1. e., about the
time that Llephas antiquus retreated toward the south. If these facts
ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY. 588
are kept in mind, the apparent mélange of arctic and tropical types
need no longer present insuperable difficulties. It will be readily seen,
also, that in the table (pl. 1) no attempt has been made to give either
the horizontal or the vertical range of a given species. Each dominant
species simply appears once and in one of its favorite horizons.
With man the case is different. Already in the paleolithic he
exhibited those universal tendencies for which he has ever since been
famous. His horizontal range was over the whole of Europe not
preémpted by the glaciers and his vertical range covered the entire
Quaternary. Fortunately, he can be traced not only by the presence
of his own bones, but also by that of his industries. In fact, the
bulk of the evidence rests on industrial remains, due in part, at least,
to their indestructible character. The decade’s discoveries of osse-
ous remains, however, have added immensely to our knowledge of
fossil man. The already familiar Neandertal type has become still
better known through the finding of well-preserved specimens whose
faunal and cultural associations are also more clearly defined than
ever before.
New types have been discovered at various horizons, ranging from
the Mafilean to the Asylian, giving a fairly comprehensive composite
picture of human evolution from near the beginning of the Quater-
nary to its very close. Neandertal man seems to have been a direct
descendant of Homo heidelbergensis, there being little evidence of
somatological changes due to admixture of races until after the close
of the middle Quaternary. The somewhat sudden appearance of
a distinctly higher type in the Aurignacian epoch (Combe-Capelle)
is a fact difficult to explain without recourse to the theory of an
influx of new blood. Curiously enough, the appearance of this new
race is signalized also by great cultural changes—the use of bone
implements and the beginnings of sculpture, engraving, and painting.
To this Aurignacian element, inherited by the succeeding Magdalen-
ian races belongs much of the credit for the phenomenal art develop-
ment of the upper paleolithic.
_ I have endeavored to trace the principal lines along which the
science of prehistoric anthropology has been developing, lines that
are yearly becoming more distinct. If hitherto they have seemed
obscure, it has not been the fault of our ancestors who left their story
upon each age in its turn, but is due rather to our slowness to dis-
cover the record and interpret it aright. I have also endeavored to
show that in both discovery and interpretation the achievements of
the past decade are not only highly creditable in themselves, but are
also prophetic of a promising future.
YALE UNIVERSITY,
New Haven, Conn., April 6, 1910.
45745°—sm 1909 38
co 7 = r
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a7
THE EUROPEAN POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES.
The Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1908."
By WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, Ph. D.,
Professor of Economics in Harvard University.
The population of Europe may, in a rough way, be divided into
an east and a west. The contrast between the two may be best illus-
trated perhaps in geological terms. Everywhere these populations
have been laid down originally in more or less distinct strata. In
the Balkan States and Austria-Hungary this stratification is recent
and still distinct; while in western Europe the several layers have
become metamorphosed by the fusing heat of nationality and the
pressure of civilization. But in both instances these populations are
what the geologist would term sedimentary. In attempting a de-
scription of the racial problems of the United States your attention
is invited to an entirely distinct formation which, in continuation of
our geological figure, may best be characterized by the term eruptive.
We have to do not with the slow processes of growth by deposit
or accretion; but with violent and voleanic dislocation. We are
called upon to traverse a lava field of population, suddenly cast forth
from Europe and spread indiscriminately over a new continent. In
Europe the populations have grown up from the soil. They are
still embedded in it, a part of it. They are the product of their im-
mediate environments; dark in the southern half, blonde at the north,
stunted where the conditions are harsh, well developed where the
land is fat. Even as between city and country, conditions have been
so long settled that one may trace the results in the physical traits
of the inhabitants. It was my endeavor in the “ Races of Europe ”
to describe these conditions in detail. But in America the people,
one may almost say, have dropped from the sky. They are in the
land but not yet an integral part of it. The population product is
artificial and exotic. It is as yet unrelated to its physical environ-
@Reprinted by permission from The Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, London, vol. 38, July to December, 1998,
pp. 221-240.
585
586 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ment. A human phenomenon unique in the history of the world is
the result.
In the description of these conditions two great difficulties are at
once encountered. One is the recency of the phenomenon; the other
the paucity of precise physical data. As the first immigration to
America on a large scale is scarcely more than half a century old,
and in its more startling and violent aspects has lasted only half
« generation, time enough has not yet elapsed to permit a working
out of nature’s laws. What evidences have we as to the effect of the
new environment upon the transplanted peoples? It is amusing to
read in the older books on ethnology, and even in the files of this
learned body, of the undoubted effect of the American climate upon
Kuropeans in tending to produce the black wiry hair, the bronze skin,
and the aquiline features of the American Indians. Such conclusions
are, of course, now understood to be a product, not of climate but of
vivid imagination, somewhat overexcited, perhaps, by Buckle’s
_“ History of Civilization.” Time is needed, not only to show the
effect of the physical environment, but also to demonstrate the laws
of inheritance which are certain to emerge from so heterogeneous a
mix up of all the nations of the earth. Almost everything in fact
lies in the womb of the future. We must be content at this time
rather to indulge in speculation and prophecy than to revel in the
more positive delights of somatological statistics. ‘This is the field
in which a great generalizing intellect lke Huxley’s would have
been at its best.
The second difficulty in the study of racial conditions in the United
States is the lack of precise physical data. This may be ascribed in
large measure to the overwhelming insistency and importance of
other allied concerns. This ethnic phenomenon, tremendous and im-
portant as it is for pure science, 1s for the moment overshadowed by
others, social and political. The attention of students is compelled
by the urgency of the problems presented by the affairs of men,
rather than by their physical persons. Questions of living wages,
of overcrowding. of population in the great cities, of public health,
of moral chaos, of political demoralization, are demanding immediate
solution at the hands of science. And then again, in the purely
anthropological field, there are the other inviting paths of study af-
forded by the presence of the negro and the disappearance of the
aboriginal Indians. Both of these should be of absorbing interest to
specialists, the former unfortunately, much neglected; but the latter,
the study of the Indian, of immediate concern because whatever is
to be done must be done at once. The day will indeed come when
science will awake to the opportunities presented by the ethnic com-
position of the present white population of the United States, but that
day is not yet here. And then, finally, it should be borne in mind by
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 587
way of excuse for the rather vague and general character of this
address, that the United States lacks certain institutions, which have
greatly facilitated the anthropological study of Europe. We have
no great standing armies to be recruited year by year from all sorts
and conditions of men. All military service is voluntary and for
hire. The only data of this sort comes to us from the time of the
civil war. Moreover still another supply of material is rendered
difficult of approach by reason of the attitude of our people toward
anything savoring of government paternalism. An attempt at a
physical census of the school children of New York, like Virchow’s
great investigation in Germany, would probably lead to a violent
outbreak of yellow journalism concerning the property rights of the
individual in his offspring—an uproar which might even disturb
the courts and the legislatures. Private initiative with the exercise
of the greatest tact and diplomacy must alone be relied upon. For
instance, a difficult and yet inviting field of study for the physical
anthropologist is afforded by our mountaineers in Kentucky and
Tennessee. A Simon-pure Anglo-Saxon stock is here isolated over
a large area. Anticipating some years ago a vacation trip into these
wilds, I took counsel as to modes of approach for physical measure-
ments upon this rather inflammable human material, wherein blood
revenge and the clan feud are still customary. This population has
always enjoyed the proud distinction of being the tallest in the United
States. By enlisting rivalry in a wholesale contest over the tallness
of the men of Tennessee or Kentucky, I was told that one might, in-
deed, hope to fill one’s saddlebags with statistics without endangering
one’s life in the attempt.
Judged solely from the standpoint of numbers the phenomenon
of American immigration is stupendous. We have become so accus-
tomed to it in the United States that we often lose sight of its
numerical magnitude. About 25,000,000 people have come to the
United States from all over Europe since 1820. This is about equal
to the entire population of the United Kingdom only fifty years ago,
at the time of our civil war. It is, again, more than the population
of all Italy in the time of Garibaldi. Otherwise stated, this army
of men would populate, as it stands to-day, all that most densely
settled section of the United States north of Maryland and east of
the Great Lakes; all New England, New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania in fact. This horde of immigrants has mainly come
since the Irish potato famine of the middle of the last century. The
rapid increase year by year is shown by the accompanying diagram.
It has taken the form not of a steady growth but of an intermittent
flow. First came the people of the British Isles after the downfall of
Napoleon, from 2,000 in 1815 to 35,000 in 1819. Thereafter the num-
bers are about 75,000 yearly until the Irish famine, when 368,000
immigrants from the British Isles landed in 1852. To the English
588 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
succeeded the Germans, largely moved at first by the political events
of 1848. By 1854 1,500,000 Teutons, mainly from northern Germany,
had settled in America. So many were there that ambitious plans
for the foundation of a German State in the new country were
actually set on foot. The later German immigrants were recruited
largely from the Rhine provinces and have settled farther to the
northwest, in Wisconsin and Jowa; the earliest wave having come
from northern Germany to Ohio, Indiana, Ulinois, and Missouri.
The Swedes began to come after the civil war. Their immigration
culminated in 1882 with the influx of 50,000 in that year. More
recent still are the Italians, beginning with a modest 20,000 in 1876,
1820 1830. 1840 1850 1860 1870 - 1880 1890 1900 1910
{In the figures at the side five ‘0's have been omitted: thus 1,3 = 1,300,000.)
“IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1820-1907.
rising to over 200,000 arrivals in 1888, and constituting an army of
300,000 in the single year of 1907; and accompanying the Italian has
come the great horde of Slavs, Huns, and Jews. Wave has followed
wave, each higher than the last; the ebb and flow being dependent
upon economic conditions in large measure. It is the last great wave
shown by our diagram which has most alarmed us in America. This
gathered force on the revival of prosperity about 1897, but it did
not assume full measure until 1900. Since that year over 6,000,000
people have landed on our shores, one-quarter of all the total immi-
gration since the beginning. The newcomers of these eight years
alone would repopulate all the five older New England States as
they stand to-day; or if properly disseminated over the newer parts
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 589
of the country, they would serve to populate no less than nineteen
States of the Union as they stand. The newcomers of the last eight
years could, if suitably seated, elect 38 of the present 92 Senators of
the United States. Do you wonder that thoughtful political students
stand somewhat aghast? In the last of these eight years (1907)
there were 1,250,000 arrivals, sufficient to entirely populate both New
Hampshire and Maine, two of our oldest States with an aggregate
territory approximately equal to Ireland and Wales. The arrivals
of this one year would found a State with more inhabitants than any
twenty-one of our existing Commonwealths. Fortunately, the com-
mercial depression of 1908 has for the moment put a stop to this
inflow. Some considerable emigration back to Europe has in fact
ensued. But this can be nothing more than a breathing space. On
the resumption of prosperity the tide will rise higher than before.
Each immigrant, staying or returning, will influence his friends, his
entire village; and so it will be until an economic equilibrium has been
finally established between one continent where labor is dearer than
land, and the other where land is worth more than labor.
It is not alone the rapid increase in our immigration which merits
attention. It is also the radical change in its character, in the source
from which it comes. Whereas until about twenty years ago our
immigrants were drawn from the Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic popula-
tions of northwestern Kurope, they have swarmed over here in rap-
idly-growing proportions since that time from Mediterranean, Slavic.
and oriental sources. A quarter of a century ago two-thirds of our
immigration was truly Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon in origin. At
the present time less than one-sixth comes from this source. The
British Isles, Germany, Scandinavia, and Canada unitedly sent us
90 per cent of our immigrants in the decade to 1870, 82.8 per cent in
1870-1880, 75.6 per cent in 1880-1890, and only 41.8 per cent in 1890-
1900. Since then the proportion has been very much smaller still.
Germany used to contribute one-third of our newcomers. In 1907
it sent barely one-seventh. On the other hand, Russia, Austria-Hun-
gary, and Italy, which produced about 1 per cent of the total in 1860-
1870, jointly contributed 50.1 per cent in 1890-1900. The growth
of this contingent is graphically shown by the preceding diagram.
I have been at some pains to reclassify the immigration for 1907
in conformity with the racial groupings of the “ Races of Europe,”
disregarding, that is to say, mere linguistic affiliations and dividing
on the basis of physical types. The total of about 1,250,000 arrivals
was distributed as follows:
350000 "Mediterranean (nalce== sess a eee one-quarter.
LOA OO OS AU OTING eral Ce ie as ae ee et one-sixth.
BOOSIE RAK tes = = ee OE eS ee eee one-quarter.
GA OOO R ME TCO CRA COs sare een ee Sees tye eee one-sixth.
146: 000T Jewish: (mainly, roussian)): 2s es eee eee one-eighth.
590 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
In this year 330,000 South Italians take the place of the 250,000
Germans who came in 1882, when the Teutonic immigration was at
its flood. One and one-half million Italians have come since 1900,
over 1,000,000 Russians, and 1,500,000 natives of Austria-Hungary.
We have even tapped the political sinks of Europe, and are now
drawing large numbers of Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians. No
people is too mean or lowly to seek an asylum on our shores.
The net result of this immigration has been to produce a congeries
of human beings, unparalleled for ethnic diversity anywhere else on
the face of the earth. The most complex populations of Europe, such
as those of the British Isles, northern France, or even of the Balkan
States, seem ethnically pure by contrast. In some of these places the
soothing hand of time has softened the racial contrasts. Of course,
there are certain water holes, like Gibraltar, Singapore, or Hong-
kong, to which every type of human animal is attracted; and a
notably mongrel population is the result. But for ethnic diversity
on a large scale the United States is certainly unique. Our people
have been diverse in origin from the start to a greater degree than is
ordinarily supposed. Virginia and New England, to be sure, were
for a long time Anglo-Saxon undefiled; but in the other colonies
there was much intermixture, such as the German in Pennsylvania,
the Swedish along the Delaware, the Dutch in New York, and the
Highland Scotch and Huguenot in the Carolinas. Little centers of
foreign inoculation in the early days are discoverable everywhere.
On a vacation trip recently in the extreme northeastern corner of
Pennsylvania my wife and a friend remarked the frequency of
French names of persons, and then of villages, of French physical
types, and of a French cookery. On inquiry it turned out that many
settlements had been made by French, who emigrated after the battle
of Waterloo. Many such colonies could be named, were there time,
such as the Dutch along the lake shore of western Michigan, the Ger-
mans in Texas, and the Swiss villages in Wisconsin, none of them
recent but constituting long-established and permanent elements in
the population. Concerning New York City, Father Jognes states
that the director-general told him of eighteen languages spoken there
in 1644. For the entire thirteen colonies at the time of the revolu-
tion, we have it on good authority that one-fifth of the population
could not speak English, and that one-half at least was not Anglo-
Saxon by descent. Upon such a stock it is little wonder that the
grafting of these 25,000,000 immigrants should produce an extraor-
dinary human product. For over half a century more than one-
seventh of our aggregate population has been of actually foreign
birth. This proportion of actual foreigners of all sorts varies greatly
as between the different States. In Minnesota and New York, for
example, at the present time, the foreign born, as we denote them
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 591
statistically, constitute about one-quarter of the whole; in Massa-
chusetts the proportion is about one-third, and occasionally, as in
North Dakota in 1890, it approaches one-half (42 per cent). It is
in the cities, of course, where this proportion of actual foreigners
rises highest. In New York City there are over 2,000,000 people born
in Europe who have come there hoping to better their lots in life.
Boston has an even higher proportion of actual foreigners; but the
relatively larger number of English-speaking ones, such as the Irish,
renders the phenomenon less striking. Nevertheless, within a few
blocks, in the foreign colony, there are no less than twenty-five dis-
tinct nationalities. In this entire district, once the fashionable
quarter of Boston, out of 28,000 inhabitants, only 1,500 in 1895 had
parents born in the United States.
The full measure of our ethnic diversity is revealed only when one
aggregates the actually foreign born with their children born in
America—totalizing, as we call it, the foreign born and the native
born of foreign parentage. This group thus includes only the first
generation of American descent. Oftentimes even the second genera-
tion may remain ethnically as undefiled as the first, but our positive
statistical data carries us no farther. This group of foreign born
and their children constitutes to-day upward of one-third of our total
population; and, by excluding the negroes, it equals almost one-half
(46 per cent) of the white population. This is for the country as a
whole. Considered by States or cities, the proportion is, of course,
much higher. Baltimore, one of our purest American cities, had
40 per cent of foreigners, with their children, in 1900. In Boston
the proportion leaps to 70 per cent, in New York to 80 per cent, and
reaches a maximum in Milwaukee with 86 per cent thus constituted.
Picture to yourselves, if you please, an English city of the size of
Edinburgh with only about one person in eight English by descent,
by only a modest two generations! To this condition must be added
the probability that not over one-half of that remnant of a rear guard
can trace its descent on American soil as far back as the third genera-
tion. Were we to eliminate these foreigners and their children from
our city populations, it has been estimated that Chicago, with to-day
a population of over 2,000,000, would dwindle to a city of not much
over 100,000 inhabitants.
One may select great industries practically given over to foreigners.
Over 90 per cent of the tailors of New York City are Jews, mainly
Russian and Polish. In Massachusetts, the center of our staple cotton
manufacture, out of 98,000 employees one finds that only 3,900, or
~about 4 per cent, are native-born Americans, and most of those are of
Irish or Scotch-Irish descent two generations back. All of our day
labor, once Irish, is now Italian; our fruit venders, once Italian, are
now becoming Greek; and our coal mines, once manned by peoples
592 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
from the British Isles, are now worked by Hungarians, Poles,
Slavaks, or Finns. <A special study of the linguistic conditions in
Chicago well illustrates our racial heterogeneity. Among the people
of that great city—the third in size in the United States—fourteen
languages are spoken by groups of not less than 10,000 persons each.
Newspapers are regularly published in ten languages, and church
services are conducted in twenty different tongues. Measured by the
size of its foreign linguistic colonies, Chicago is the second Bohemian
city in the world, the third Swedish, the fourth Polish, and the fifth
German (New York being the fourth). I know of one large factory
in Chicago employing 4,200 hands, representing twenty-four distinct
nationalities. Rules of the establishment are regularly printed in
eight languages. In one block in New York, where friends of mine
are engaged in college settlement work, there are 1,400 people of
twenty distinct nationalities. There are more than two-thirds as
many native-born Irish in Boston as in the capital city, Dublin.
With their children, mainly of pure Irish blood, they make Boston
indubitably the leading Irish city in the world. New York is a
larger Italian city to-day than Rome, having 500,000 Italian colonists.
It contains no less than 800,000 Jews, mainly from Russia. Thus it
is easily the foremost Jewish city in the world. Pittsburg, the center
of our iron and steel industry, is another Tower of Babel. It is said
to contain more of that out-of-the-way people, the Servians, than the
capital of that country itself.
Such being the ethnic diversity of our population, the primary and
fundamental physical question is as to whether these racial groups
are to coalesce to form ultimately a more or less uniform American
type, or whether they are to continue their separate existences within
the confines of one political unit. Will the progress of time bring
about intermixture of these diverse types; or will they remain sepa-
rate, distinct, and perhaps discordant elements for an indefinite
period, lke the warring nationalities of Austria-Hungary and the
Balkan States? We may perhaps best seek an answer by a serial
discussion, first, of those factors which tend to favor intermixture.
and thereafter of those forces which operate to prevent it.
The extreme mobility of our American population, ever on the
increase, is evidently a solvent force from which powerful results
may well .be expected in the course of time. This is rendered
peculiarly patent by the usual concomitant that this mobility is
largely confined to the male sex. The census of 1900 showed that
nearly one-quarter of our native-born whites were then living in other
States than those of their birth. Kansas and Oklahoma are probably
the most extreme examples of such colonization. Almost their entire
population has been transplanted, often many times, moving by
stages from State to State. The last census showed that only 53
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 598
per cent of the population of the former State were natives of Kansas.
An analysis of the membership of its state legislature some years ago
revealed that only 9 per cent were born within the confines of the
State. Even in the staid commonwealth of Iowa, only about one-
third of the American-born population was native to the State.
This restlessness has always been characteristic of our original stock.
Even our farmers, in other countries more or less yoked to the soil,
are still on the move, traveling first westward, and now southward,
seeking new outlets for their activities. And from this rural class
is also drawn the steady inflow to the great cities and industrial
centers, which is so much a feature of our time. Thus has rural
New England been depopulated, leaving almost whole counties in
which the inhabitants to-day number less than in 1800. In this
process during the ten years prior to 1890 the little State of Vermont
parted with more than one-half of her population by emigration.
Maine sent forth one-third. And other States as far south as
Virginia and Ohio parted with almost as many. It has been esti-
mated even of the city of Boston, an industrial center of over half a
million inhabitants, that the old, native-born Bostonians of twenty
years ago number less than 64,000. At first our immigrants do not
feel the full measure of this restlessness. The great inflowing streams
of human beings at New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, like rivers
reaching the ocean, tend to deposit their sediment at once on touching
our shores. At the outset these immigrants are immobile elements,
congesting the slums of the great cities. But with the men par-
ticularly, with the exception of the Jews perhaps, the end is not there.
As among the Italians, Greeks, and Scandinavians, they are apt to
return to the fatherland after awhile, and then to come back again,
this time with a wider appreciation of their opportunities, so that
when they return they scatter far more widely. Instead of bunching
near the steamship landing stages they range afield. With their
children this mobility may become even more marked. Cheap rail-
road fares, the demand for harvest labor in the West, the contract
labor on railways and irrigation works, all tend to stimulate this
movement. It was this mobility of our older Anglo-Saxon popula-
tion which kept the nation unified over a vast and highly varied area;
and it will be such mobility, engendered by the exigencies of our
changing economic life, which will help to stir up and mix together
the various ingredients of our population.
A second influence, making for racial intermixture, is the ever
present inequality of the sexes among these foreigners. This is
most apparent when they first arrive, about 70 per cent of them
being males. Few nationalities nowadays bring whole families as
did the Anglo-Saxon and German people a generation ago. The
Bohemians, indeed, seem to do so, as well as many of those immi-
594 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
grants practically driven out from Europe by political persecution.
Thus, in 1905, Russia sent 50,000 women folk—more than came from
England, Sweden, and Germany combined, and Austria-Hungary
sent 78,000, or thrice the number of women contributed by England,
Ireland, and Germany. But of the main body the large majority
are men. This vanguard of males tends, generally, to be followed
by more women later, after an initial period of trial and explora-
tion. Thus, among the Italians the proportion of men to women,
once six to one, has now fallen to about three to one. Having estab-
lished themselves in America, what are these men to do for wives?
In all classes matrimony, early or late, is man’s natural estate. They
may write home or go home and find brides among their own people,
or they may seek their wives in America. This probably the ma-
jority of them do, and, of course, most of these naturally prefer to
marry within their own colony of fellow countrymen. But suppose,
in the first place, this colony is predominantly men, or constitutes
a small outpost, isolated among a population alien or semialien to
them. An odd consequence of the ambition to rise of these foreign-
born men, tending inevitably to break down racial barriers, is that
they covet an American-born wife. The woman always is the con-
servative element in society, and tends to cling to the old ways long
after they have been discarded by the men. The result is that in
intermixture of various peoples it is more commonly the man who
marries up in the social scale. Being the active agent, he inclines
to choose from a social station higher than his own. There were
about 15,000,000 people in 1900 born in the United States of foreign-
born parents, wholly or in part. About 5,000,000 of these had one
parent foreign born and one native born; that is to say, with one
parent drawn from the second generation of the immigrant stream.
And in two-thirds of these mixed marriages it was the father who
was foreign born, the mother being native born. This law I have
verified by many concrete examples and by some additional statis-
tical data. It is the same law which, contrary to general belief, leads
most of the infrequent marriages across the color line to take the
form of a negro husband and a white wife. For certain States, as
in Michigan, the registration statistics are reliable, and here again
show that over two-thirds of the mixed marriages have foreign-born
grooms and native-born brides. At the United Hebrew Charities
in New York City many thousand cases of destitution among for-
eign-born women arise from the desertion of the wife, with her old-
fashioned European ways, by the husband, who has outdistanced her
in adaptation to the new life. This law is well borne out in the
growing intermarriage between the Irish and the Italians. The Irish,
from their longer residence in America, are obviously of a higher
social grade. The ambitious young Italian fruit vender or the
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 595
Jewish merchant who has “made good,” being denied a wife among
his own people, there being too few to go around, then woos and
wins an Hibernian bride. Religion in this instance is no bar, both
being Catholics. In a similar fashion, in New England, where Ger-
mans are scarce and Irish abound, it is the German man who usually
marries up into an Irish family. The same thing seems to be true
even in New York, where the German colony is very large. When
intermarriage between the two people occurs, six times out of seven
it is the Irish woman who bears the children. In this connection the
important role in ethnic intermixture by the Irish women deserves
mention. One reason is surely her relative abundance. Thus, in our
Boston foreign colony, with every other nationality largely repre-
sented by men, there is a surplus of 1,500 Irish females. But a
second reason also is the superior adaptability and comradeship of
the Irish woman, together with her democratic ways and lack of
spirit of caste. Irish, or Irish-American, womanhood bids fair to
be a potent physical mediator between the other peoples of the earth.
One may picture this process going further, especially in those parts
of the country where the more ambitious native-born males have
emigrated to the West or to the large cities. The incoming foreign-
ers, steadily working upward in the economic and social scale, and
the stranded, downward trending American families, perhaps them-
selves of Irish or Scotch-Irish descent, may in time meet on an
even plane.
The subtle effects of change of environment—religious, linguistic,
political, and social—is another powerful influence in breaking down
ethnic barriers. The spirit of the new surroundings, in fact, is so
different as to prove too powerfully disintegrating an influence. In
the moral and religious fields this is plainly noticeable and often
pathetic in its results. The religious bonds are often entirely
snapped. This is discernible among the Jews everywhere. As one
observer put it to me, “ Religion is supplanted by socialism and the
yellow journal.” Large numbers, notably of the young men, break
loose entirely and become agnostics or freethinkers. The Bohemians
are notorious in this regard. This is accompanied by a breakdown
of patriarchal authority in the family, and with it, in the close con-
tacts of city life, the barriers of religion against intermarriage
visibly weaken. Differences of language are also less powerful
dividing influences than one would think, especially in the great
cities. One not infrequently hears of bride and groom not being on
speaking terms with one another. And one of my friends tells me
of a pathetic instance of a Czech-German marriage in which the
man painfully acquired some knowledge of German, but in later life
forgot it almost entirely, so that in the end the two old people were
_ driven to the use of signs for daily intercourse.
596 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Despite the best efforts of parents to keep alive an acquaintance
with the mother tongue, it tends to disappear in the second genera-
tion. To be sure at the present time no less than about 1 in every
16 of our entire population, according to the census of 1900, can
not even speak the English language. Such ignorance of English
of course tends strongly to persist in isolated rural communities.
The Pennsylvania Dutch, who still, after over two hundred years of
residence in America, can say “Ich habe mein Haus ge-painted and
ge-whitewashed,” are a case in point. It is averred that in some of
the Polish colonies in Texas even the negroes speak Polish, as
Swedish is used in Minnesota and the Dakotas, German in the long-
standing Swiss colonies in Wisconsin, and French among the French-
Canadians in New England. On Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, many
rural schools have a separate room for the non-English speaking
pupils. But the desire, and even economic necessity, of learning
English is overwhelming in its potency. In the transitional period
of acquiring English the dependence of the parents upon the chil-
dren entirely reverses the customary relationship. Even the young
children, having learned English in the public schools, are indis-
pensable go-betweens for all intercourse with the public. As a
result they relegate the parents to a subordinate position before the
world. Census enumerators and college-settlement workers agree
in citing instances where the old people are commanded to “shut
up” and not interfere in official conversations; or, in the familiar
admonition, “not to speak until spoken to.” The decadence of
family authority and coherence due to this cause is indubitable.
Thus it comes about that already in the second generation the bar-
riers of language and religion against ethnic intermixture are every-
where breaking down. The English tongue readily comes into serv-
ice, but, unfortunately, in respect to religion, the traditional props
and safeguards are knocked from under, without as yet, in too many
instances, suitable substitutes of any sort being provided. From this
fact arises the insistence of the problem of criminality among the
descendants of our. foreign born. This is a topic of vital importance,
but somewhat foreign to the particular subject in hand.
Among the influences tending to hinder ethnic intermixture, there
remains to be mentioned the effect of concentration or segregation
of the immigrants in compact colonies, which remain to all intents
and purposes as truly outposts of the mother civilization as were
Carthage or Treves. This phenomenon of concentration of our for-
eign born, not only in the large cities, but in the northeastern quarter
of the United States, has become increasingly noticeable with the de-
scending scale of nationality among the more recent immigrants. The
Teutonic peoples have scattered widely, taking up land in the West
and thus populating the wilderness. But the Mediterranean, Slavic,
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 597
and Oriental people heap up in the great cities; and with the exception
of Chicago, seldom penetrate far inland. Literally four-fifths of all
our foreign-born citizens now abide in the twelve principal cities
of the country, and these are mainly in the East. We thought it a
menace that in 1890, 40 per cent of our immigrants were to be found
in the North Atlantic States; but in the decade to 1900 four-fifths of
the newcomers settled there; the result being that in the latter year
not 40 but actually 80 per cent of the foreign born of the United
States resided in this already densely populated area. Four-fifths
of the foreign born of New York State and two-thirds of those in
Illinois are now packed into the large towns. To be sure this phe-
nomenon of urban congestion is not confined to the foreigner. With-
in a 19-mile radius of the city hall in New York dwells 51 per cent
of the population of the great State of New York, together with 58
per cent of the population of the adjoining State of New Jersey.
But its results are more serious among the foreign born, heaped up
as they are in the slums and purlieus. On the other hand, in the
middle and far West, the proportion of actual foreign born has been
declining since 1890. Cities lke Cincinnati or Milwaukee, once
largely German, have now become Americanized. In the second
and third generations, not recruited as actively as before by constant
arrivals, the parent stock has become visibly diluted. And in the
rural northwest, as the older Scandinavians die off, their places are
being supphed by their American-born descendants; but with admix-
ture of raw recruits from the old countries to a lesser degree than
before.
This phenomenon of concentration obviously tends to perpetuate
the survival of racial stocks in purity. In a dense colony of 10,000
or 50,000 Italians or Russian Jews there need be a little contact with
other nationalities. The English language may intrude and the old-
fashioned religion may lose its potency, but as far as physical contacts
are concerned, the colony may be self-sufficient. Professor Buck
found in the Czech colony in Chicago that while 48,000 children had
both parents Bohemian, there were only 799 who had only one parent
of that nationality. Had there been only a small colony the number
of mixed marriages would have greatly increased. Thus the Irish
in New York, according to the census of 1885, almost overwhelmingly
took Irish brides to wife; but in Baltimore at the same time, where
the Irish colony was small, about one in eight married native-born
wives. Such facts illustrate the force of the influences to be over-
come in the process of racial intermixture. Call it what you please,
“consciousness of kind,” or “race instinct,” there will always be,
as among animals, a disposition of distinct types to keep separate
and apart. Among men, however, this seldom assumes concrete
form in respect of physical type; although in “ The Races of Eu-
598 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
rope” I have sought to demonstrate its results among the Basques
and the Jews. Marriage elsewhere appears to be rather a matter
of social concern. There is no physical antipathy between different
peoples. Oftentimes the attraction of a contrasted physical type is
freely acknowledged. The barrier to intermarriage between ethnic
groups is more often based upon differences in economic status. The
Italian “ Dago” is looked down upon by the Irish; as in turn the
Irishman used to be characterized by the American as a “ Mick,” or
a“ Paddy.” Any such social distinctions constitute serious handicaps
in the matrimonial race; but on the other hand, as they are in con-
sequence largely artificial, they tend to disappear with the demon-
stration of economic and social efficiency.
Heretofore our attention has been directed to a discussion of the
influences making for or against a physical merger of these divers
peoples. It may now be proper to inquire how much of this inter-
mixture there really is. Does it afford evidence of tendencies at
work, which may in time achieve momentus results? The first cur-
sory view of the field would lead one to deny that the phenomenon
was yet of importance. The potency of the forces tending to restrict
intermarriage seems too great. But on the other hand, from such
concrete statistical data as are obtainable, it appears as if a fair begin-
ning had already been made, considering the recency of the phe-
nomenon. The general data from the federal census are valueless
in this connection. Although they indicate much intermarriage of
the foreign born with the native born of foreign parentage, the over-
whelming preponderance of this is, of course, confined to the same
ethnic group. The immigrant Russian Jew, or young Italian, is
merely mating with another of the same people, born in America of
parents who were direct immigrants. The bride in such a case is as
truly Jewish or Italian by blood as the groom, although her social
status and economic condition may be appreciably higher. But evi-
dence of true intermixture across ethnic lines is not entirely lacking.
No less than 56,000 persons are enumerated in the federal census as
being of mixed Irish and German parentage, for example; and of
these, 13,400 were from New York State alone. German-English inter-
marriages are about as frequent, numbering 47,600. Irish and French-
Canadian marriages numbered 12,300, according to the same author-
ity. Three times out of five it is the French-Canadian man who
aspires to an Irish bride. In the northwest the Irish and Swedes
are said to be evincing a growing fondness for one another. For
the newer nationalities the numbers are, of course, smaller. .
Some idea of the prevalence of mixed marriages is afforded by
the specialized census data of 1900. Take one nationality, the
Italians, for example. There were 484,207 in all in the United
States. Of these nearly one-half, or 218,810, had both parents
’ EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 599
Italian. Marriages of Italian mothers and American-born fathers
produced 2,747; while, conformably to the law already set forth, no
less than 23,076 had Italian fathers and native-born mothers. There
still remained 12,523 with Italian fathers, and mothers of some other
non-American nationality; and 3,911 with Italian mothers, and
fathers neither American nor Italian born. Thus of the 484,000
Italian contingent nearly one-tenth proved to be of mixed descent.
For the city of Boston, special inquiry showed that 236 Italians in
a colony of 7,900 were of mixed parentage, with predominantly Irish
tendencies.
Mixed marriages are, of course, relatively infrequent; but at all
events, as in these cases, constitute a beginning. Sometimes they
occur oftener, especially in the great centers of population where
all are herded together in close order. Thus in a census made in
New York of the oldest part of the city south of Wall and Pine
streets to the Battery by the Federation of Churches, out of 307
families completely canvassed it appeared that 49 were characterized
by mixed marriages. This proportion of 1 in 6 is certainly too
high for an average; but it is nearly equaled by the rather unreliable
data afforded by the mortality statistics of old New York for 1906,
showing the parentage of descendants. This gave a proportion of
1 to 8 as of mixed descent. How many of those called mixed were
only offspring of unions of first and second generations of the
same people is not, however, made clear. Some good authorities,
such as Dr. Maurice Fischberg, do not hesitate to affirm that even
for the Jews, as a people, there is far more intermarriage with the
gentile population than is commonly supposed. In Boston the most
frequent form of intermarriage, perhaps, is between the Jewish men
and Trish or Irish-American women.
A few general observations upon the subject of racial intermixture
may now be permitted. Is the result likely to be a superior or an
inferior type? Will the future American two hundred years hence
be better or worse, as a physical being, because of his mongrel origin?
The greatest confusion of thinking is permitted upon this topic.
Evidence to support both sides of the argument is to be had for the
seeking. For the continent of Europe it is indubitable that the
highly mixed populations of the British Isles, of northern France,
of the valley of the Po, and of southern Germany are superior in
many ways to those of outlying or inaccessible regions where greater
purity of type prevails. But the mere statement of these facts car-
ries proof of the partial weakness of the reasoning. Why should
not the people of the British Isles, the Isle de France, and of the
Po Valley be the best in Europe? Have they not enjoyed every ad-
vantage which a salubrity of climate and fertility of soil can afford ?
Was it not, indeed, the very existence of these advantages which ren-
45745°—sm 1909——89
600 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
dered these garden spots of the earth Meccas of pilgrimage? Viewed
in a still larger way, is it not, indeed, the very beneficence of nature
in these regards which has induced or permitted a higher evolution
of the human species in Europe than in any of the other continents.
The races certainly began even. Why are the results for Europe as
a whole so superior to-day? Alfred Russel Wallace, I am sure,
would have been ready with a cogent reason. What right have we
to dissociate these concomitantly operative influences of race and
environment and ascribe the superiority of physical type to the effect
of intermixture alone? Yet, on the other hand, does not the whole
evolutionary hypothesis compel us to accept some such favorable
conclusion? What leads to the survival of the fittest, unless there be
the opportunity for variation of type, from which effective choice
may result? And yet most students of biology agree, I take it, in
the belief that the crossing of types must not be too violently extreme.
Nature proceeds in her work by short and easy stages. At this point
the opportunity for the students of heredity, like Galton, Pearson, and
-their fellow-workers appears. What, for instance, is the order of
transmission of physical traits as between the two parents in any
union? We have seen how unevenly assorted much of the inter-
mixture in the United States tends to be. If, as between the Irish
and the Italians, who are palpably evincing a tendency to mate to-
gether, it is commonly the Italian male who seeks the Irish wife;
and if, as Pearson avers, inheritance in a line through the same sex
is prepotent over inheritance from the other sex, what interesting
possibilities of hereditary physical differences may result ?
An interesting query suggested by the results of scientific breeding
and the study of inheritance among lower forms of animal life is
this, what chance is there that out of this forcible dislocation and
abnormal intermixture of all the peoples of the civilized word there
may emerge a physical type tending to revert to an ancestral one,
older than any of the present European varieties? The law seems to
be well supported elsewhere that crossing between highly evolved
varieties or types tends to cause reversion to the original stock, and
the greater the divergence between the crossed varieties the more
powerful does the reversionary tendency become. Most of us are
familar with the illustrations, such as the reversion among sheep
to the primary dark type, and the emergence of the old wild blue-
rock pigeon from blending of the fantail and pouter varieties. ‘The
same law is borne out in the vegetable world, the facts being well
known to fruit growers and horticulturists. The more recently-
acquired characteristics, especially those which are less funda-
mentally useful, are sloughed off, and the ancestral features, common
to all varieties, emerge from dormancy into prominence. Issue need
not be raised, as set forth by Dr. G. A. Reid, whether the result of
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 601
crossbreeding is always in favor of reversion and never of progres-
sion; but interesting possibilities linked up with this law may be
suggested. All students of natural science have accepted the primary
and proven tenets of the evolutionary hypothesis, or rather, let us
say, of the law of evolution. And all alike acknowledge the subjec-
tion of the human species to the operation of the same great laws ap-
plicable to all other forms of life. It would have been profoundly
suggestive to have heard from Huxley on a theme like this. We are
familiar in certain isolated spots in Europe, the Dordogne in France
for example, with the persistence of certain physical types without
change from prehistoric times. The modern peasant is the proven
descendant of the man of the stone age and the mammoth. But
here is another mode of access to that primitive type, or even an
older, running back to a time before the separation of European
varieties of men began. Thus, to be more specific, there can be little
doubt that the primitive type of European was brunette, probably
with black eyes and hair and a swarthy skin. Teutonic blondness
is certainly an acquired trait, not very recent, judged by historic
standards, to be sure, but as certainly not old, measured by evolu-
tionary time. What chance is there that in the unions of rufous
Trish and dark Italian types a reversion in favor of brunetteness may
result? Were it not for the inflammatory character of the contro-
versy in a gathering of anthropologists over the relative primitive-
ness of the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic types in Europe, I
might be tempted to go further and speculate as to the bearing of
American racial intermixture upon this much-mooted question.
A relatively unimportant, yet theoretically very interesting, de-
tail of the subject of racial intermixture is suggested in Wester-
marck’s brilliant “ History of Human Marriage.” It is a well-known
statistical law, almost the world over, that there are more boys than
girls born into the world. The normal ratio of births is about 105
males to 100 females. Students have long sought the reasons for this
irregularity, but nothing has yet been proven conclusively. Wester-
marck brings together much evidence to show that this proportion
of sexes at birth is effected by the amount of inbreeding in any
social group, crossing of different stocks tending to increase the per-
centage of female birth. Thus, among the French half-breeds and
mulattos in America, among mixed Jewish marriages, and in South
and Central America female births may at times even offset the differ-
ence and actually preponderate over the male birth. The interest
of this topic lies in the fact that it is unique among social phenomena
in being, so far as we know, independent of the human will. It
is the expression of what may truly be denominated natural law.
Westermarck’s general biological reasoning is that inasmuch as the
rate of increase of any animal community is dependent upon the
602 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
number of productive females, a sort of accommodation takes place
in each case between the potential rate of increase of the group and
its means of subsistence, or chance of survival. More females at
birth is the response of nature to the increasingly favorable environ-
ment, or condition. In-and-in-breeding is undoubtedly injurious
to the welfare of any species. As such, according to Westermarck,
it 1s accompanied by a decline in the proportion of females born.
This is the expression of nature’s disapproval of the practice, while
intermixture tends, contrariwise, to produce a relative increase of
the female sex. Certain it is that an imposing array of evidence
can be marshaled to give color to the hypothesis. My suggestion at
this point is that here in the radical intermixture just now beginning
in the United States, and sure to assume tremendous proportions in
the course of time, will be afforded an opportunity to study man in
his relation to a great natural law in a way never before rendered
possible. Statistical material is at present too meager and vague, but
one may confidently look forward to such an improvement in this
regard that an inviting field of research will be exposed to view.
The significance of the rapidly increasing immigration from
Europe in recent years is vastly enhanced by other influences in the
United States. A powerful process of social selection is apparently
at work among us. Racial heterogeneity, due to the direct influx of
foreigners in large numbers, is aggravated by their relatively high
rate of reproduction after arrival; and in many instances by their
surprisingly sustained tenacity of life, greatly exceeding that of
the native-born American. Relative submergence of the domestic
Anglo-Saxon stock is strongly indicated for the future. ‘ Race
suicide,” marked by a low and declining birth rate, as is well known,
is a world-wide social phenomenon of the present day. Nor is it by
any means confined solely to the so-called “ upper classes.” It is
so notably a characteristic of democratic communities that it may
be regarded as almost a direct concomitant of equality of opportunity
among men. To this tendency the United States is no exception;
in fact, together with the Australian commonweaiths, it affords one
of the most striking illustrations of present-day social forces. Owing
to the absence of reliable data it is impossible to state what the actual
birth rate of the United States as a whole may be; but for certain
Commonwealths the statistical information is ample and accurate.
From this evidence it appears that for those communities, at least, to
which the European immigrant resorts in largest numbers the birth
rate is almost the lowest in the world. France and Ireland alone
among the great nations of the earth stand lower in the scale. This
relativity is shown by the following table, giving the number of births
in each case per thousand of population:
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 603
Birth rate (approximate).
EIN aly eee Sere eae ee ee ee hee 40 | Australia, Sweden___--__________-_ 27
ANTE i ore ee aoe eee 37 | Massachusetts, Michigan__________ 25
German Vas 2 ee See 36 | Connecticut, Rhode Island_--_____~ 24
eG elliy eater ees 8) ee Se St Perelan Ge 2 st ees See ERs 23
TO Mlany dete esl va De Dee Som EAT C Oia ee ike cece 2 Sel ee 22
England, Scotland, Norway, Den- News Hampshire 2222222 see ias (G2) 20
MIs a ht ge eS PS 30
This crude birth rate, of course, is subject to several technical cor-
rections, and should not be taken at its full face value. Moreover,
it may be unfair to generalize for the entire rural West and South
from the data for densely populated communities. And yet, as has
been observed, it is in our thickly-settled Eastern States that the
newer type of immigrant tends to settle. Consequently, it is the
birth rate in these States, as compared with that of the newcomer,
upon which racial survival will ultimately depend.
The birth rate in the United States in the days of its Anglo-Saxon
youth was one of the highest in the world. The best of authority
traces the beginning of its decline to the first appearance, about 1850,
of immigration on a large scale. Our great philosopher, Benjamin
Franklin, estimated six children to a normal American family in his
day. The average at the present time is slightly-above two. For
1900, it is calculated that there are only three-fourths as many chil-
dren to potential mothers in America as there were forty years ago.
For Massachusetts, were the old rate of the middle of the century sus-
tained, there would be 15,000 more births yearly than now occur.
In the course of a century the proportion of our entire population,
consisting of children under the age of 10, has fallen from one-third
to one-quarter. This, for the whole United States, is equivalent to
the loss of about 7,000,000 children. So alarming has this phenom-
enon of the falling birth rate become in the Australian colonies that
in New South Wales a special governmental commission has volumi-
nously reported upon the subject. It is estimated that there has been
a decline of about one-third in the fruitfulness of the people in fifteen
years. New Zealand even complains of the lack of children to fill her
schools. The facts concerning the stagnation, nay even the retro-
gression, of the population of France are too well known to need de-
scription. But in these other countries the problem is relatively sim-
ple, as compared with our own. Their populations are homogeneous,
and, ethnically at least, are all subject to these social tendencies to the
same degree. With us the danger lies in the fact that this low and
declining birth rate is primarily confined to the Anglo-Saxon con-
tingent. The immigrant European horde, until recently at least, has
continued to reproduce upon our soil with well-sustained energy.
604 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Baldly stated, the birth rate among the foreign born in Massachu-
setts is about three times that of the native born. Childless marriages
are one-third less frequent. This somewhat exaggerates the contrast,
because of differing conditions as to age and sex in the two classes.
The difference, nevertheless, is very great. Kuczynski has made de-
tailed investigations as to the relative fecundity of different racial
groups. The fruitfulness of English-Canadian women in Massa-
chusetts is twice that of the Massachusetts born; of the Germans and
Scandinavians it is two and a half times as great; of the French-
Canadians it is thrice; and of the Portuguese four times. Even
among the Irish, who are characterized nowadays everywhere by a
low birth rate, the fruitfulness of the women is 50 per cent greater
than for the Massachusetts native born. The reasons for this rela-
tively low fecundity of the domestic stock are, of course, much the
same as in Australia and in France. But with us it is as well the
“poor white” among the New England hills or in the Southern
States as the town dweller, who appears content with few children or
none. The foreign immigrant marries early and children continue
to come until much later in life than among the native born. It may
make all the difference between an increasing or declining popula-
tion whether the average age of marriage is 20 years or 29 years. The
contrast between the Anglo-Saxon stock and its rivals for supremacy
may be stated in another way. Whereas only about one-ninth of the
‘married women among the French-Canadians, Irish, and Germans
are childless, the proportion among the American born and the Eng-
lish-Canadians is as high as 1 in 5. A century ago about 2 per
cent of barren marriages was the rule. Is it any wonder that serious
students contemplate the racial future of Anglo-Saxon America
with some concern? They have witnessed the passing of the Ameri-
can Indian and the buffalo. And now they query as to how long the
Anglo-Saxon may be able to survive.
On the other hand, evidence is not lacking to show that in the
second generation of these immigrant peoples a sharp and consider-
able, nay, in somé cases, a truly alarming, decrease of fruitfulness
occurs. The crucial time among all our newcomers from Europe has
always been this second generation. The old customary ties and
usages have been abruptly sundered and new associations, restraints,
and responsibilities have not yet been formed. Particularly is this
true of the forces of family discipline and religion, as has already
been observed. Until the coming of the Hun, the Italian, and the
Slav, at least, it has been among the second generation of* foreigners
in America, rather than among the raw immigrants, that criminality
has been most prevalent. And it is now becoming evident that it is
this second generation in which the influence of democracy and of
EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—-RIPLEY. 605
novel opportunity makes itself apparent in the sharp decline of fecun-
dity. In some communities the Irish-Americans have a lower birth
rate even than the native born. Doctor Engelmann, on the basis of
a large practice, has shown that among the St. Louis Germans the
proportion of barren marriages is almost unprecedentedly high.
Corroborative, although technically inconclusive, evidence from the
registration reports of the State of Michigan appears in the follow-
ing suggestive table, showing the nativity of parents and the number
of children per marriage annually in each class:
Children.
German father, American-born mother__--_-~____________-__ 2. DB
American-born father, German mother_______________________ 2.3
Germanitather, German MoOGher. 2= == 22. = Pe sires 5)
American-born father, American-born mother_______--___-__~ 1S
I have been at some pains to secure personal information concern-
ing the foreign colonies in some of our large cities, notably New York.
Dr. Maurice Fishberg for the Jews and Dr. Antonio Stella for the
Italians, both notable authorities, confirm the foregoing statements.
Among the Italians particularly the conditions are positively alarm-
ing. Peculiar social conditions influencing the birth rate and the
terrific mortality induced by overcrowding, insanitation, and the un-
accustomed rigors of the climate make it doubtful whether the Italian
colony in New York will even be physically self-sustaining. Thus it
appears that forces are at work which may check the relatively
higher rate of reproduction of the immigrants and perhaps reduce it
more nearly to the Anglo-Saxon level.
The vitality of these immigrants is surprisingly high in some in-
stances, particularly where they attain an open-air rural life. The
birth rate stands high and the mortality remains low. Such are the
ideal conditions for rapid reproduction of the species. On the other
hand, where overcrowded in the slums of great cities, ignorant and
poverty stricken, the infant mortality is very high, largely offsetting,
it may be, the high birth rate. The mortality rate among the Ital-
ians in New York, for instance, is said to be twice as high as in
Italy. Yet some of these immigrants, such as the Scandinavians, are
particularly hardy and enduring. Perhaps the most striking in-
stance is that of the Jews, both Russian and Polish. According to
the census of 1890 their death rate was only one-half that of the
native-born American. For three of the most crowded wards in New
York City the death rate of the Irish was 36 per 1,000; for the Ger-
mans, 22; for natives of the United States, 45; while for the Jews it
was only 17 per 1,000. By actual computation, at these relative rates,
starting at birth with two groups of 1,000 Jews and Americans, re-
spectively, the chances would be that the first half of the Americans
would die within forty-seven years, while for the Jews this would
606 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
not occur until the lapse of seventy-one years. Social selection at
that rate would be bound to produce very positive results in a cen-
tury or two.
At the outset, confession was made that it was too early as yet to
draw positive conclusions as to the probable outcome of this great
ethnic struggle for dominance and survival. The great heat and
sweat of it is yet to come. Wherever the Anglo-Saxon has fared
forth into new lands, his supremacy in his chosen field, whatever
that may be, has been manfully upheld. India was never contem-
plated as a center for settlement, but Anglo-Saxon law, order, and
civilization have prevailed. In Australia, where nature has offered
inducements for actual colonization, the Anglo-Saxon line is ap-
parently assured of physical ascendency. But the great domain of
Canada—greater than one can conceive who has not traversed its
northwestern empire—is subject to the same physical danger which
confronts us in the United States, actual physical submergence of
the English stock by a flood of continental European peoples. And
yet, after all, is the word “ danger” well considered for use in this
connection? What are the English people, after all, but a highly
evolved product of racial breeding? To be sure, all the later crosses,
the Saxons, Danes and Normans, have been of allied Teutonic origin
at least. Yet encompassing these racial phenomena with the wide,
sweeping vision of him in whose honor this address is rendered, dare
we deny an ultimate unity of origin to all the people of Europe? Our
feeble attempts at ethnic analysis can not at the best reach further
back than to secondary origin. And the primary physical brother-
hood of all branches of the white race, nay, I will go even further
and say of all the races of men, must be admitted on faith—not on
the faith of dogma but on the faith of scientific probability. It is
only in their degree of physical and mental evolution that the races
of men are different. You have your “ white man’s burden ” to bear
in India; we have ours to bear with the American negro and the
Filipinos. But an even greater responsibility with us and with our
Canadian fellow-citizens is that of the “Anglo-Saxon’s burden ”—to
so nourish, uplift, and inspire all these immigrant peoples of Europe
that in due course of time, even if the physical stock be inundated
by the engulfing flood, the torch of Anglo-Saxon civilization and
ideals, borne by our fathers from England to America, shall yet burn
as bright and clear in the New World, as your fires have continued to
illuminate the Old.
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"I1899—'606| ‘HOdey uRiuOsYyIWS
THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE, WITH
SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE INDIANS.
[With 14 plates.]
By ELEANOR YORKE BELL.
INTRODUCTION.
The object of this paper has been chiefly to collect and record the
somewhat scanty and widely scattered data concerning the Panama
Isthmus, much of which is not available to the average reader, being
written in either the Spanish or the French language, especially the
most valuable information in regard to the aborigines. An attempt
has also been made to describe the scenery and the natives (in many
instances from personal observation), and to reconcile widely di-
vergent statements, as given by various authorities, when occasioned
only by minor mistakes, such as the confusing of geographical
names, etc.
The notes throughout are numbered and refer to the list of books
consulted.
Of the 31,571 square miles comprising the Republic of Panama
only a small section is known to the foreigner, and even the edu-
cated Panamanians themselves possess a very slight knowledge of
their country as a whole, vast areas of beautiful hills and valleys
being practically unexplored. The great extent of coast line and pro-
portionate small area, through which 463 so-called rivers flow, has
worked against the development of the interior by means of exten-
sive road building, as the small amount of native produce is easily
transported down some navigable stream to a coast town. The cli-
matic conditions, the scarcity of labor, the poverty of the country,
and frequent political disturbances have also played an important
part in this lack of progress in Panama. But Panama is undoubtedly
a land well enriched by nature, and before long conditions must
change which will result in the acquirement of many fortunes through
the exploitation of its mineral and agricultural resources.
*
607
608 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The Republic extends from the border of Costa Rica to the Depart-
ment of the Cauca, in Colombia, about 470 miles, making, therefore,
the greatest length from west to east. Panama City is east of Colon,
a fact very confusing at first to the stranger who sees the sun rise
in the Pacific and set in the Atlantic. At this point the Isthmus
is about 47 miles in width, which is not, however, the narrowest part,
as the distance from the mouth of the Rio Bayano to Mandingo Bay is
only 30 miles. The country is scarcely half inhabited and in no
sections at all thickly populated, except the above-mentioned cities —
and towns stretching along the Panama Railroad and the banks of
the Chagres. The valleys of the Bayano or Chepo, the Tuyra, and
lower Chucunaque have scattered villages, but west from Panama ~
City, extending through the Department of Chiriqui are several large
towns or cities with their surrounding districts well populated, the
whole containing a larger per cent of the “ sangre azul,” white blood,
than is to be met with outside of the capital city. The high Cordil-
.leras are believed to be, to a great extent, uninhabited at the present
day, though in several sections there are known to be numbers of
Indians, as in the intervening valleys and coasts.
Geographically, the Isthmus appears to belong to the Northern
Continent rather than the Southern, of which it has always been a
part, politically speaking, yet its mountains are detached from those
of Costa Rica, except a spur crossing the border between Chiriqui
and Bocas del Toro, and at Darien there is also a decided break before
reaching the Andes.?
The mountain elevations vary from 1,500 to 7,000 feet, with the
three volcanic peaks—Rico Blanco, 11,740; Volcan de Chiriqui or
Bart, 11,265; and Rovalo, 7,020 (44). In many cases the figures
given of these mountain elevations must be largely conjectural owing
to the fact that much of the interior is almost unknown, but those
obtained by marine surveys are considered more reliable. Panama
hes 8 degrees from the equator, and has a temperature averaging
26° C. It has two seasons, wet and dry, the latter lasting only
from December to April, when it does not rain at all. During this
period the climate is very agreeable—the days clear and the nights
brilliant. While modern knowledge of sanitation and hygienic ly-
ing in tropical countries has done much to improve the largely unde-
served bad name of the Isthmus, still there are many sections of
a4*Yja République de Panama appartient au point de vue géographique 4
VAmérique Centrale. Elle se trouve au bout de la longue bande de terres
isthmiques qui forment les anneaux de la chaine de montagnes reliant depuis
des temps tertiaires les continents septentrionaux et méridionaux de ]’Amérique.
La nature du sol, histoire de sa découverte, lorigine des habitants * * #*
fait classer la République de Panama parmi les contrées de Amérique Cen-
trale” (19).
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 609
low-lying coast and shut-in valley districts where, especially during
the rainy season, when the climate is far from healthy for the un-
acclimated and where the enervation occasioned by the excessive
humidity with a comparatively high temperature produces much dis-
comfort and endangers health. The whole north coast, with the ex-
ception of Bocas and Colon, has never proved a suitable place of
habitation for the white man, though it was first settled by them,
and many successive attempts at colonization along the shore have
been made.
Much of the scenery in Panama, aside from the “ beaten track,”
is extremely and, unexpectedly beautiful. In the bush, as it is called,
far from human dwellings, where complete solitude reigns, the won-
derful charm can best be appreciated. Lovely effects of light and
shade are produced as the everpresent rain squall sweeps over the
scene, changing, in a moment, a brilliant green savanna or fringe of
jungle covered with waving vines and many colored parasites into a
soft yellow gray. Toward evening, when the sky glows with violet
and golden lights, just before the curtain of night falls, the air is
filled with the thrilling songs of birds as they seek shelter, and the
hum of millions of insects, till suddenly, as the last sun’s ray disap-
pears, all is hushed and still and utter darkness envelops everything.
There is, indeed, a mysterious beauty and nearness to nature, the
intensity of which can nowhere be appreciated as in the Tropics.
Through dark overgrown stretches of the trails, where the instinct of
the native horses alone must be trusted, and the sky is obscured by
masses of low-hanging branches, new wonders appear at every step.
By little pools and brooks swarm numbers of those gorgeous blue-
green butterflies (Aforpho), resting in the cool shade, and the mar-
velous tropical ants, marching, each with a bit of flower or leaf, in
ordered file, like soldiers on parade, give the appearance at a distance
that the ground itself is actually moving. The jungle and marshes
are the home of the armadillo, sloth, monkey,’ anolis, iguana, and
snakes; among the latter are many of the pitviper family and also the
boa constrictor. The coral snake is feared, as is the fer de lance of
Martinique, and is a beautiful though rather small snake with alter-
nating red and black bands. Among the larger game on the
Isthmus are the tiger, puma, jaguar, cougar, ant-eating bear, tapir,
fox, peccary, hedge hog, wild-cat, and deer. Living on the banks of
the rivers and in the streams of many sections are innumerable
caimans and water fowl, brilliant flamingos and the valuable egret
being frequently found. Of the birds common to the Isthmus there
are the eagle, toucan, maccaw, parrot, parrakeet, ete.
“The Chrysothrix monkey is found only in the Department of Chiriqui in
Panama (44).
610 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Panama is especially rich in rare cabinet and dyewoods,* which
with spices, vanilla, medicinal plants, rubber, fruits, ivory nuts,
cocoanuts, coffee, hides, and tortoise shell form the principal articles
of export. The native trees are mahogany, cottonwood, logwood,
laurel, lignum-vite, ebony, cork, cedars (the yellow cedar is con-
sidered indestructible), manzanillo, pepper, almond, and orange.
The chief medicinal plants are ipecac, guaiacum, croton, sarsaparilla,
and “maria balm.” There are many varieties of fruits, though the
cultivation of them is still a small industry; chief among them are the
banana, lime, plantain, pineapple, alligator-pear, mango, mama,
guava, granada, papayo, granadillo, melon, pomarosa, sapote, and
bread fruit.
The mineral wealth of the Isthmus has been justly famed from
the earliest days, though the statement in a recent consular report,
“Te Panama posséde d’immense richesses minérales,’ is probably
rather overstated. However, the gold which the Conquistadores
- found everywhere in extensive use by the Indians for ornament and
even articles of utility, proves that there is a good proportion of this
valuable metal in the small area of the Isthmus. The mines already
known are probably not yet exhausted, as their exploitation has been
very spasmodic, and one may conclude also that in a country so little
explored there are other and possibly richer mines than those already
discovered. In fact, since the eighteenth century the gold mines
have not been in operation to any extent, except the Cana mine
(called “ Potosi” by Bancroft) in the Santo-Espiritu Mountains of
Darien,’ which is now being worked by an English company at a
good profit. ‘The expense incident to the operation of these mines
and the lack of reliable labor have brought many attempts to ulti-
mate failure, except in the case of the Cana mine, already mentioned,
and the new enterprises just starting in western Panama. The gold
of the Isthmus is of an unusually fine quality with a natural alloy
of copper. Besides gold and copper, some silver, iron, coal, salt,
manganese, cinnabar, and oil comprise the mineral resources. The
famous pearl beds of the “Archipielago des Las Perlas” no longer
produce any quantity of marketable pearls, though the industry is
not entirely dead, and the trade in mother-of-pearl is extensive.
Much tortoise shell is exported; from the port of Colon to that of
@The dyewoods and plants are “ribes glandulosum, weinmannia giabra,
pterocarpus draco, opuntea tuna, ruellia tuberosa, morus nigra, persea gralis-
sima, bixa orrellano, indigo-fero tintorio, and the muquera, which produces a
beautiful red without preparation (4).
’This mine was very productive, but was closed for many years by royal
decree in 1685, owing to raids of the Indians and buccaneers. Its greatest out-
put was 100,000 castellanos a year (5). The gold is brought on muleback to
Real and thence taken in small ships to Panama,
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 611
New York alone, $12,742 worth of shell was sent during the first year
of the Republic (26).
A brief general historical review of the Panama Isthmus is neces-
sary before taking up the description of the seven departments in
detail, as each must be treated separately, owing to the fact that the
different races, dates of colonization, etc., make it impossible to treat
the subject homogeneously.
The Atlantic coast of the Isthmus was first discovered by Rodrigo
de Bastides and Alonzo de Ojedo about 1501 (some historians give
the date as early as 1499), but no attempt at landing was made till
Columbus on his last voyage founded a small colony on the Belen
River, which was soon destroyed, however, by the war-like chief,
Quiban. Columbus then sailed down the coast, discovering the harbor
of Porto Bello and the Mulatas Archipelago, which he called “ Islas
Berbas.” Ojedo was given a grant of land including the fertile
valley of the Atrato and lower coast of Darien; his friend Nicuesa
likewise obtained a grant which extended eastward along the coast to
Cape Gracias a Dios. Two settlements were made, San Sebastian de
Uraba and Santa Maria del Antigua. The former (not strictly in
what is Panama to-day) was abandoned as early as 1514 (1, p. 31).
St. Mary’s was governed by Encesio and Balboa, and from here the
latter, with Alonzo Martin, about 1513, crossed the Isthmus and
discovered the Pacific Ocean from the peak of Mount Perri, as legend
has it, near the Cana mine. At this time, also, the Gulf of San
Miguel, the Chepo and Pearl islands were discovered.
After Balboa had seen the beautiful pearl encrusted canoe belong-
ing to the Indian chief, Tumaco, he was determined to find the
islands, and was aided in his quest by this friendly chief himself.
Before the colony of Santa Maria removed to the site of Old Panama,
various parties had explored as far as Veraguas, and a settlement
was made at Nata by Espinosa as early as 1517 (5), or, according to
the statement in “ Colombia” (7, p. 308), by Alonzo Perez de la
Rua, in 1515. Either of these figures make this settlement antedate
Old Panama, founded in 1519, which is generally but erroneously
considered to be the first colony on the Pacific side of the Isthmus.
The story of Old Panama, the wealth and splendor of the inhabitants
leading to its destruction by Morgan, the buccaneer, in 1671, is known
by all. Old Panama’s chief claim to interest is perhaps that it was
here where Balboa was beheaded by Pedro Arias D’Avilla, at that
time the governor, and that here also Pizarro fitted out his fleet for
the conquest of Peru at the sacrifice of 2,000 poor Indians unac-
customed to such labor, who had been pressed into service. Old
Panama was the seat of a bishopric and had a mint as early as 1535,
and was in every respect a powerful and opulent city for that day.
A need was soon felt by the colonists for cities on the north coast
612 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
which would be storehouses, so to speak, for the treasure on its way
to Spain before being taken on board the ships. This resulted in the
founding of Porto Bello and Nombre de Dios and the building of the
Paved Road and the Royal Road to Cruces. Both cities, however,
were soon destroyed by the buccaneers.
Spain’s power in this part of the New World was of short duration,
for, after a glorious few years of wealth and luxury, her cities were
despoiled and left neglected. Spanish pride and lust of gold paved
the way for the work of the pirates just as Spanish cruelty to the In-
dians reaped its own reward. Before 1570 the natives had rebelled
and negro slaves from the Guinea coast were imported to take their
places, proving in many ways disastrous to the country, for they
soon became the predominant factor, outnumbering the descendants
of the Europeans. That the original colonists were a wonderful
people in various respects can not be doubted, and they certainly
seem to have possessed great physical endurance and vigor. It is
truly marvelous that, without the aid of modern science, they could
have withstood successfully the dangers of the tropical jungle and
to have so early subdued many hostile tribes of the aborigines who
resented the invasions of their land, and, above all, that they could
have built such beautiful and well fortified cities within a short cen-
tury and a half under such difficulties.
After the period of piratical raids the Isthmus fell into a state of
decay for more than a century, and has practically no recorded his-
tory. In 1719 it was divided into the departments of Panama and
Veraguas, forming a part of New Granada. At one time the Isthmus
was placed under the captain-general of Cuba as a punishment for
some unruly act. Panama took small part in the war of independ-
ence and was the last province to be free of Spanish rule. The
relation of this province to New Granada and later to Colombia
was always a peculiar one. She submitted apparently at times to
the authority of Bogota in military matters only, but retained con-
trol in the main, though not always, of her internal administration,
monetary affairs, customs, revenues, stamps, etc. Indeed, at one
period she positively refused the paper money issued by Colombia,
though a heavy penalty was imposed on those who declined to receive
it. The Isthmus was undoubtedly much neglected by the central
government until the canal schemes began to develop, when her
potential importance was realized. Overtaxation kept the country
pitifully poor, and numerous attempts to free itself from Colombia
were the result, though independence was not finally accomplished
until 1908.
DEPARTMENT OF PANAMA.
Of the seven divisions of the Republic the largest and in some
respects the most interesting is that of Panama, including the famous
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 613
“Tsthmus of Darien.” On the Atlantic coast the confines are the Rio
Miel (forming the boundary of Colombia, though Panama still
claims the Tanela River some distance to the southeast) and the Mu-
latas Archipelago. Here it joins the department of Colon, which with
Panama almost evenly divides the Isthmus lengthwise till it reaches
its western limit at Cocle. The entire southern Pacific coast is in-
cluded in Panama from Cocle to Colombia. This department con-
tains the largest city (Panama City), with towns lke Chorrera, a
small resort in the hills, and Chame, both in the western section.
From the Bay of Panama to that of San Miguel the country is unin-
habited, except the valley of the Chepo* or Bayano’. The Chepo is
navigable as far as the hamlet of La Capitana, near the point where
the Mamoni flows into the main stream. On this tributary is the
town of Chepo (population 6,875 in 1898, according to Valdés, which
must include, however, a large surrounding area). It is a poor place,
though until comparatively recently it had some well-to-do inhab-
itants, who left it for Panama City, with which it is connected by
trail. In 1565 Chepo was colonized by Cordova, governor of Old
Panama, though it was known as early as 1515 as an Indian town.
This section was so harassed by the buccaneers, Watling, Wafer,
Sharp, Bullman, Dampier, Guzman, Coxon, Baskerville, and others
that two forts were built, one on the tributary river, the Terrable,
and the other, not more than a stockade, near Chepo, in the con-
struction of which it is said the Indians actually assisted, as at the
time the marauders were preying upon them more than were the
Spaniards themselves. The Terrable River was surveyed by Reclus,
who, however, failed to find his way by means of it to the coast, as
was also the Mamoni, a beautiful river full of cascades and water-
falls, explored by the American surveyors from 1870-1875. The
main waters of the Chepo flow in an approximately southeasterly (or
westerly) direction, with no habitations along its banks, except the
small hamlet of Jesus Maria. Its most southeasterly tributary, the
Canaza, rises in a country absolutely unknown at the present time.
In fact, the only other parts of the interior of Darien that are
known are the districts along the Tuyra and lower Chucunaque with
their tributaries, along which small towns are scattered through
this forgotten country, over which, in the old days, the buccaneers
passed by many routes. The above-mentioned villages are the
homes of negro and Indian half-breeds who, when they work at all,
are rubber hunters or traders in hard woods. They are miserable
towns and contain no permanent white residents, the largest of them
“@The name Chepo is derived from the chief Cheapes, encountered by Balboa.
®Bayano is from a famous fugitive slave, who, uniting with others of his
kind, committed atrocities on the Spanish in these parts, and was killed after a
laborious campaign by Pedro de Ursua in 1555 (4).
614 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
being Yavisa, Chepigana, Pinogana, Real, and Molineca. Beside the
Cana mine, there is gold found at the present time in the waters of
two tributaries of the Tuyra, the Balsas, and the Marea (19), and an
old mine was recently located by an American on a supposed Co-
lombia trail between the sources of the Tuquesa and the Ucurganti,
tributaries rising eastward of the Chucunaque. There is no record
that the upper Chucunaque has been explored farther than this since
Admiral Selfridge’s party reached the Sucubti in 1870, going in
from the coast at Caledonia Bay. Reclus surveyed (1878) the lower
tributaries of the Chucunaque, the Tupisa, etc., and with the other
French engineers, Wyse and Sosa, ascended many of the navigable
streams tributary to the Tuyra, such as the Paya and Cue, and
from where descent into the valley of the Atrato can be made.
Much work was also done in this section by La Charme, De Puydt,
and Hellert. The Atlantic coast line of the department of Panama
is the home of scattered Indians, who would, undoubtedly, still
actively resent any invasions of their territory as they have always
- done in the past. From Careta and Caledonia bays several attempts
have been made to cross Darien, but the parties never penetrated
very far into the interior, as the Indians absolutely refused to prop-
erly guide them over trails and passes, though usually making a
show of friendship to the white men when they were in any num-
bers. During the early part of the eighteenth century the Scotch
attempted to found a colony at Port Escoces, the tragic misfortunes
of which are quaintly related by the Rev. Francis Borland (21). As
early as 1719 Jesuit missionaries had penetrated into the heart of
Darien only to be massacred by the Indians. This hostility con-
tinued until 1740, when a peace was made, and priests were again
sent out; those to the region about the north coast, by order of
the viceroy, Don Sebastian de Eslava, and those to the south coast
were sent from Panama. This resulted in the founding of the towns
already mentioned in the Tuyra Valley. In 1784 there was a com-
plete chain of forts across Darien that were well garrisoned, but
by 1790 they were abandoned and Darien remains to a great extent
the undisturbed domain of the Indian. But one of these forts is
standing, that at Yavisa, which is in a ruined condition. Another
was formerly to be seen at Viejo Real (a strategic point on an island
in the Tuyra), but within the last fifty years or so all trace has
been lost in the dense growth of vegetation covering it. In 1852 an
abortive attempt was made by an English engineer, Gisborne, to
penetrate Darien, who relied much on information obtained from
Doctor Cullen, which he, and later also Admiral Selfridge, however,
found to be untrustworthy.
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 615
DEPARTMENT OF COLON.
Colon lies between the Departments of Panama and that of Vera-
guas on the Atlantic coast, and is bounded on the south by the De-
partments of Cocle and Panama. Through it, and Panama as well,
runs the Canal Zone, belonging permanently to the United States.
These towns. are too well known to warrant a description here.
The San Blas coast and territory surrounding Mandinga Bay com-
prised the domain of the San Blas (Manzanillo) and Mandinga
Indians, their country ending, approximately, where the Rio Man-
dinga rises. Back from low-lying coast hills, in the higher sierras,
the region is supposed to be uninhabited as far as the source of the
Chagres except for wandering tribes toward the south. The route
from the coast to the northern tributary of the Chagres, the Rio
Pequeni, has been traversed by Americans and no Indian villages
were encountered.
Following the coast northwestward is seen the town of Palenque,
settled by fugitive slaves many years ago, who lived in underground
caves and passages and whose descendants to-day are held to be
quite different from the usual Isthmian negro. They are extremely
industrious, strong, and good woodsmen. Not far from here, on a
small stream of the same name, was Nombre de Dios, of which no
trace remains, and near it, on a beautiful but landlocked and un-
healthy harbor, stands the ruins of Porto Bello, sacked by Drake,
Vernon, Spring, and Morgan. The ruins of the two forts still
exist, St. Felix on one side of the harbor, and Sts. Jéronimo y
Christobal on the other, and fragments of the large government
house “ Santiago de la gloria,” still remain. Porto Bello now has
a small colored population, and is considered one of the most un-
healthy places on the Isthmus. In the upper Chagres Valley are
two little settlements, St. Barbara and San Juan, but the surround-
ing country is little known, and the sources of several of the rivers
tributary to the main river are still to be surveyed as bearing on the
eanal-dam problem. A short distance up the coast from the city
of Colon is the mouth of the Chagres, just beyond the zone border,
where there is a tiny native village above which stands the fine old
castle of San Lorenzo, famous in the history of the New World.
It was built by Juan Antonelli, an engineer of Filip IIT, and was
considered one of Spain’s greatest strongholds. In fact, it did for
some time defy the furious attacks of many buccaneers, but was
almost destroyed at the time of its surrender to Morgan’s forces.
The account of its capture as told by the Dutchman, Esquemaling,
one of Morgan’s men, is very interesting. In 1740 the already
ruined fortifications were completely laid low by the English under
Admiral Vernon, but it was rebuilt in 1752 by Ignacio de Sala (5)
45745°—sm 190940
616 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and now, once again stands a desolate, moss-covered crumbling ruin,
a reminder only of the glory that was once Spain’s.
The rivers, Cocle, Los Indios, and Belen, flowing into the Atlantic
in the western part of Colon, have been known for centuries to wash
down gold. Their sources in the high sierras are practically un-
known. The old mine of San Antonio, on the Cocle, at one time had
an output of about $40,000 a year, though it has been closed for a long
period. With modern mining machinery, this, as other mines on the
Isthmus, could undoubtedly be made to yield a much larger sum. On
the banks of the Cocle, also, an attempt has been recently made by a
Belgian company to raise bananas on a large scale, and, though not
fully exploited as yet, it is expected to make good returns eventually.
A great difficulty is encountered in the fact that the river is not easy
to navigate, though other conditions, such as soil, etc., are extremely
favorable to such enterprises.
THE DEPARTMENT OF COCLE.
In point of antiquity the Department of Cocle has a foremost
place, for here on the Rio Chico was the second settlement on the
Isthmus proper. The original town of Nata was destroyed in 1529
by the Indians, who were especially warlike in this region, and was
rebuilt in 1531, when it was christened “ Santiago de las Caballeros
de Nata.” The city attained much wealth and splendor in the colo-
nial period. The church, still in existence, is in good condition and
of excellent architecture, having a fine tower, in which are spiral
steps, cut in the stone. To-day Nata is a small place with a poor
population and practically no trade, quite different from the little
town of Aguadulce, its neighbor, which is near the Estrella mine.
This section is a good stock-raising country, and a quantity of hides
are exported by way of Aguadulce to the coast. Near this place is
the hacienda of Panama’s last revolutionary spirit, Gen. Estaban
Huertas, who retired here to take up stock raising, and who received
also a generous pension from the last administration.
The most important place in this department is Penonome, with a
population of 15,833 (46), making it the largest city on the Isthmus
outside of Colon and Panama. Penonome has two churches, schools,
barracks, public buildings, and enjoys a large trade, especially in
grain, rubber, coffee. and straw hats.
LOS SANTOS.
Los Santos, the department south of Cocle and east of Veraguas,
borders Parita Bay and is a fertile agricultural country, with a good
climate. The principal towns are Los Santos, Pese, Las Minas,
Las Tablas, and Parita. A good deal of salt is exported from the
mines of the province, and gold is also found in the western section.
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 617
DEPARTMENT OF VERAGUAS.
Veraguas, lying between Chiriqui on the west and Colon, Cocle, and
Los Santos on the east, stretches from sea to sea, though at present
it has only a small coast line on the Atlantic, into which flow the
boundary rivers, the Belen and the Concepcion, and between them the
Viejo Veraguas. Veraguas was explored by Nicuesa and called
“ Castella del Oro.” An immense amount of gold was taken from
the mines in the years following its discovery at Montijo, El Mineral
de Veraguas, and Sona (the last is operated at present time). Valdes
says that as early as 1570 200,000 negroes were working in the mines
of Veraguas, which, at that date, however, included those of Chiriqui
and neighboring provinces as well.
The chief place in Veraguas is Santiago, somewhat smaller than
Penonome, situated on a plain 105 meters above the sea, having in
consequence a fine climate. Here are preserved many old customs,
modes of speech, and a strict moral code, such as have not been
observed elsewhere on the Isthmus, derived undoubtedly from the
aristocratic Spanish ancestors of the inhabitants who settled in this
section. While Santiago is on the main line of travel from Panama
to David, it remains a secluded, old-fashioned little city. The chief
industries of Veraguas are mining, stock raising, and some cotton
manufacture.
DEPARTMENT OF CHIRIQUI.
Chiriqui extends from Veraguas on the east to the Costa Rican
border, and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Department of
Bocas del Toro on the north. Chiriqui was not created a separate
department till 1849, and came into special prominence a number of
years ago (1859) after the discovery of great quantities of gold and
archeological treasures in the old Indian tombs or huaccas. From
one cemetery alone was taken $50,000 worth of gold (35). Chiriqui
exports gold, copper, salt, ebony, dyes, spices, medicinal herbs, to-
bacco, coffee, cane, and cocoa. Coal is also found in some quantities
on the island of Muerto, but the chief supply of this mineral is from
the neighboring Department of Bocas. David, the capital, having a
httle smaller population also than Penonome, is, next to Panama
itself, the most important place on the Isthmus—built on the site
of an ancient hermitage which was connected by trail with San
Lorenzo, a very early settlement. The climate and location of
4“ Tans le district de Canazas (ouest) il y des mines, en exploitation et
dautres qui sont a l’état de projet. Ce district a une superficie d’environ 160
milles carrés, au nord, il est borné par les districts de Santa Fé et de S. Fran-
cisco, au sud, par el Rio San Pablo, a Vouest, par Rios Piebras et Caflaza, et a
Vest, par la riviérre Santa Maria et Je district de la Mesa” (19),
618 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
David are excellent, and the city itself presents an attractive picture
with whitewashed houses and overhanging red-tiled roofs, surrounded
by a fertile plain, the high mountains in the distance. There are
many signs of progress in David, and the inhabitants would cordially
welcome Americans among them, a few of whom have already settled
there, where conditions of life are found to be not at all unpleasant.
The people of the surrounding districts are Indian half-breeds, very
industrious and cleanly, much above the average standard. In 1732
this section suffered terribly from an invasion of Indians inhabiting
the Mosquito Gulf district, who completely overran it and committed
all sorts of depredations. The towns of Chiriqui are Dolega, Reme-
dios, Gualaca (gold mine), St. Felix (copper mine), Bugaba, Buga-
bita, Alanje,and Caldara. Near the last-named town,a mere hamlet,
was discovered the “ Piedra Pintal,”’ the inscription on it still re-
maining a mystery, and is considered by some the supposed work of
a race completely lost sight of. The carved gold, copper, and stone
. ornaments, weapons, and utensils, etc., of the Chiriqui tombs have
made their way to Paris and London, many having been collected
by M. Zeltner, who was at one time the French consul at Panama,
and were sent by him to France. The National Museum, Washing-
ton, D. C., also has many small specimens, but most of the pottery is
in the British Museum. Many of the rings and chains in the posses-
sion of Panamanians have been copied and make exquisite pieces of
jewelry, bringing high prices when sold. The portrayal of animals
forms a large part of the work, especially were frogs, lizards, and
snakes depicted. A very complete description of them is given by
Bollaert (87).
DEPARTMENT OF BOCAS DEL TORO.
The remaining department of the Republic is that of Bocas del
Toro, with a large town of the same name on an island off the coast
above Chiriqui Lagoon and is a well known port to merchant vessels.
Bocas has largely a foreign population, its trade being almost en-
tirely in the hands of Americans or Europeans. About the vicinity
are ranches with small single-track railroads on which the fruit,
chiefly bananas, is transported from the interior. This district is
still only developed to a small extent, and the whole Chiriqui Lagoon
region is destined in the future to become one of the greatest fruit-
raising centers of the Caribbean. Chiriqui Grande, a small place,
is connected by a good trail to David, the construction of which,
though only a trail, cost considerable. This is the only route which
crosses the Isthmus except the Panama Railroad. The shores of the
lagoon are low and marshy, but they are, nevertheless, inhabited by
Indians and half-breeds, living in small scattered settlements. Many
of them speak a Spanish that can not be understood by educated
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 619
Isthmians at all. The Panamanians will tell you that this dialect
contains a mixture of English, badly pronounced, and spoken with
a peculiar accent, and that it is probably derived from the crews
of the British merchantmen that in the old days frequently sought
refuge from storms in the lagoon.
RACES AND RACE ADMIXTURE.
The population of the Isthmus is so variously stated that it is
difficult to approximate the figures, ranging as it does from 300,000,
as given in the Monthly Bulletin of the American Republics (Feb-
ruary, 1904), to 400,000, as given by Menihold two years later, a
discrepancy which is considerable, considering the smallness of the
country. These figures exclude, of course, the Americans within
the Canal Zone, and also the Indians living in their natural state.
Racial complexities are nowhere more in evidence in so small an
area than on the Panama Isthmus. An accurate classification of
the inhabitants would be practically impossible, as there are in-
numerable “ permutations ” in varying degrees among this heteroge-
neous people, who hardly recognize the bars of racial distinction.
The foundation of the population is found in the aborigines, the
Conquistadores, and in their negro slaves. At the present time the
pure white blood is in an exceedingly small minority, the vast ma-
jority of Isthmians being colored people with either Indian or white
blood, or both. The combination of Indian and white without any
negro blood is comparatively rarely seen. The distinctions are, how-
ever, as follows: Mestizo, white and Indian; mulatto, white and
negro; zambo, negro and Indian.
It was not until the time of the building of the railroad and later,
the canal enterprise, that the flood of Asiatics, Europeans, and West
Indian colored people, from the Dutch, French, and English colonial
possessions came to the Isthmus, many of whom never returned to
their native lands and left in their adopted country a numerous and
nameless progeny. Their children mingling in turn with those of
various races has resulted in a most conglomerate people. These
descendants of foreign laborers are chiefly confined to the districts
adjacent to the “ great highway ” and its terminal cities. The Ori-
entals, chiefly Chinese or Japanese, though there are some Hindoos,
at the present time do not mingle with the other races of the Isthmus
to any appreciable extent, though in the towns along the railroad
such as Matachin ” there are many evidences of a former interbreed-
“Valdes observes that in the Spanish spoken in rural communities of the
Isthmus generally, idioms are used never observed elsewhere in either Central
or South America.
>’ Matar=Spanish to kill, and Chino=Chinaman.
620 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
ing of the yellow with the black and the white races. The negro of
Panama proper is the descendant of the original African slave and
in some remote places high up in the hills are to be found a rather
wild type, whose ancestors were the cimarrons (a term equivalent
to that of “ Maroon” as used in Jamaica). The lives of these negroes
are very picturesque, existing as they do in a most primitive fashion
in their palm thatch huts surrounded by a riot of gorgeous flowering
vines and plants. In a small nearby clearing a little yucca, maize,
frijoles, bananas, and tobacco are cultivated, and about the huts are a
few chickens and a pig usually fraternizing with the black babies on
the dirt floor. Often the shacks have no walls at all, simply consist-
ing of a shelter from sun and rain supported by four bamboo poles.
The bushman seldom has any need for money, as he obtains by barter
the only articles necessary to his needs with which nature does not
supply him. <A few, very few, clothes and a machete, used to cut
his trail and build his house and employed also as his weapon, are
-the only things he must obtain from the villages. The utensils and
retainers are gourds or calabashes; seldom, if ever, is any pottery
seen in these homes. If the head of the family works at all, he gath-
ers a little rubber or burns charcoal, occasionally descending to dis-
pose of it into the far-off settlement.
The natives of the Isthmus in general, even in the larger towns,
live together without any marriage ceremony, separating at will and
dividing the children. As there is little or no personal property,
this is accomplished amicably as a rule, though should disputes arise
the alcalde of the district is appealed to, who settles the matter.
This informal system is always stoutly defended by the women, even
more than by the men, for, as among all people low in the scale of
civilization, it is generally held that the women receive better treat-
ment when not bound and therefore free to depart at any time.
Recently an effort has been made to bring more of the inhabitants
under the marriage laws, with rather amusing results in many in-
stances. The majority of the population is nominally Catholic, but
the teachings of the church are only vaguely understood, and its prac-
tices consist in the adoration of a few battered images of saints whose
particular degree of sancitity is not even guessed at and who, when
their owners are displeased with them, receive rather harsh treatment,
as these people have usually no real idea of Christianity beyond a
few distorted and superstitious beliefs. After the widespread sur-
veys of the French engineers, a sincere effort was made to re-Chris-
tianize the inhabitants of the towns in Darien as well as elsewhere,
for, until this time, nothing had been done toward their spiritual
welfare since the days of the early Jesuits. In the last thirty years
spasmodic efforts have been made to reach the people with little result,
and, excepting at Penonome, David, and Santiago, there are few
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PeATEs2:
Fic. 1.—A SAVANNAH.
Fic. 2.—NATIVES OF GOOD CLASS, SHOWING ONLY SPANISH AND NEGRO.
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PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL, 621
churches where services are held outside of Panama and the towns
along the railroad.
The chief amusement of the Isthmian is gambling, cock-fighting,
and dancing, the latter assisted by the music of the tom-tom and by
dried beans rattled in a calabash. After feasts or burials, when much
bad rum and whisky is consumed, the hilarity keeps up all night
and can be heard for miles, increased by the incessant howls of the
cur dogs lying under every shack. Seldom does an opportunity come
to the stranger to witness the really characteristic dances, as the
natives do not care to perform before them, though a lttle money
will sometimes work wonders. Occasionally, their dancing is really
remarkably interesting, when a large amount of pantomime enters
into it and they develop the story of some primitive action, as, for
instance, the drawing of the water, cutting the wood, making the fire,
cooking the food, ete., ending in a burst of song symbolizing the joys
of the now prepared feast. In an extremely crude form, it reminds
one of the old opera ballets and seems to be a composite of the original
African and the ancient Spanish, which is very probably the case.
The Orientals of the Isthmus deserve a word in passing. ‘They are
chiefly Chinese coolies and form a large part of the small-merchant
class. Others, in the hill districts, cultivate large truck gardens,
bringing their produce swinging over the shoulders on poles to the
city markets. Their houses and grounds are very attractive, built
of reed or bamboo in the eastern fashion and marked everywhere by
extreme neatness, contrasting so strikingly with the homes and sur-
roundings of their negro neighbors. Many cultivate fields of cane or
rice as well, and amidst the silvery greens, stretching for some dis-
tance, the quaint blue figures of the workmen in their huge hats make
a charming picture. Through the rubber sections Chinese “ middle-
men” are of late frequently found buying that valuable commodity
for their fellow countrymen in Panama city, who are now doing quite
a large business in rubber. These people live much as in their native
land, seldom learning more than a few words of Spanish (except
those living in the towns), and they form a very substantial and good
element of the population.
THE INDIANS.
The estimated number of full-blooded aborigines in the Republic
of Panama is stated from 10,000 (5) to double that figure. Some
years ago Acosta thought there was an even greater number than
920,000, and, as the race is rapidly dying out, he may not have been
as far wrong as it would seem—still, it is doubtful if the figure
would have reached 30,000. These estimates are of little value,
however, because at the present day no one can really know the
number of aborigines.
622 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The territory of the Indians lies chiefly in the mountains of Bocas
del Toro, Veraguas, and Chiriqui, and on the Caribbean coast of
Darien extending into the interior; also along the Pacific coast from
the Gulf of San Miguel to Colombia, and on certain branches of the
Chucunaque and Tuyra. Very little about the Indians has been
recorded since the accounts of the early colonists given by the old
historians, Herara, Andagoya, Gomara, Las Casas, Oviedo, Peter
Martyr, etc., who confused the names greatly, and who usually spoke
of a tribe by the name of its chief, which frequently happened to be
that of the largest settlement of the vicinity. as well. Much in-
formation has been obtained from the buccaneers, chief among them
Wafer, whose book, with the above-mentioned historians, forms the
basis of the material given by Bancroft and other authorities. In
the middle of the nineteenth century an interest was awakened in
Colombia by men like Acosta, who gives, from personal observation,
some data of the Darien Indians, though his chief work was on the
Chibchas of the plains of Bogota and Tunja. Acosta affirms that
‘the most valuable knowledge concerning the Indians is hidden away
in the libraries of Sevilla and in the Academia de Historia de Mad-
rid, which, of necessity, though, must treat chiefly of the natives as
the Spaniards first found them. When Acosta visited the coast of
Darien he found no remaining words preserved from the time of
the conquest except the proper noun “Careta.” Another Colom-
bian, Restrepo. some years later was sent on an expedition into
Darien and made some very interesting notes on the customs of the
Indians. It is to M. Pinart, however, a Frenchman and trained
student, that most of the valuable contributions to the subject are
due, as he traveled extensively through the country about the year
1880, collecting data, and the result of this work is the foundation
of practically all the recent knowledge we have of the aborigines,
though the French and American engineers have added much also
by way of stray notes, etc., to the store of information. The preface
of Pinart’s “ Colleccion de Linguistica y Ethnografia Americanas,”
written in 1882, is interesting as showing his reasons for taking up
the work.
Considering the Indians in the western half of the Isthmus, we find
two distinct stocks, the Doracho-Changuina and the Guaymies. The
former, now almost extinct, as pure bloods, spread over parts of
Chiriqui and Bocas, inhabiting chiefly the Cordillera which cross
the Costa Rican border and the valleys of the Rio Tilorio and the.
Changuina-Aula. To them is attributed the megalithic monument
at Mesa (35). They were noted potters and their elaborately painted
vessels indicate some artistic ability. The Dorachos were held to
be bold warriors and were usually at war with their neighbors. They
were described as being much lighter in color than the other tribes.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 3.
Fic. 1.—NEGRO-INDIAN FAMILY OF YAVISO; CANE HOUSE WITH TILED ROOF.
Fila. 2.—A HUT IN THE PANAMA JUNGLE.
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Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 4.
Fig. 1.—PANAMA NATIVES WITH PACK HorSES GOING TO MARKET.
FiG. 2.—TOWN OF CHAGRES.
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 623
Little of their origin is known, but Brinton (35) and others sug-
gest they are probably descended from the Mayas of Yucatan. Ac-
cording to Pinart, who made a collection of their idioms, the Dorachos
did not believe in a God that abode in the skies, as the Guaymies
have always done, but believed that the “ great spirit ” lived in the
Volcan de Chiriqui, and when they were angered at the god they
would avenge themselves by shooting their arrows toward the crater
as a sign of their displeasure. They constructed tombs of “ flat
stones laid together with much care in which they placed costly jars
and urns filled with food and wine.” This was done for their great
men, and for the lesser ones they dug trenches filled in with stones
and in which gourds of maize or wine were substituted for the
pottery (24, v. 4). The Dorachos were brave, honest, and intelli-
gent and, in common with all isthmian tribes, fearless of death.
From 1674-1681 war was made on these Indians by the governor
of Costa Rica as they had descended, robbed, and killed travelers on
the road then much frequented from Panama to Guatemala. The
Indians who survived the years of exterminative war were gathered
into the missions of Bugaba, Boqueron, San Francisco de Dolega,
and Gualace.
We now come to the Guaymies, who still inhabit the mountains of
the Serrania de Tabasana range with their interlying valleys and the
plains of the Atlantic coast. These Indians live practically in a
savage state, occasionally descending into the towns of Veraguas and
Chiriqui, and are especially seen about Remedios. With the Tala-
mancans of Costa Rica, of whom Gabb (36) has written so inter-
estingly, the Guaymies are thought to be a remote branch of the
Chibchas nation by both Deniker and Brinton.t| Many Chibchas
words are found in their dialect and especially is their affinity
shown by their burial customs, their metal work, and the lack of
anything like permanent temples or homes among them. ‘To the
ancestors of the Guaymies (or Guaimies) are attributed the treasures
of the Chiriqui and Veraguas tombs, which bear a close resemblance
to the art of the main stock of the Chibchas. Pinart has given the
number of the Guaymies as 3,000, but Valdés puts it at “no less than
6,000,” (5) though in his description of their customs (to be given
here later) Valdes evidently draws much from Pinart’s information,
judged by the fact that in Deniker practically the same material is
given in part, and there is accredited to Pinart. Reference is here
made to Pinart’s “ Chiriqui” which the writer could not obtain.
Pinart says in a note in his “ Vocabulario Castellano-Guaymie ”
«A number of tribes in the state of Panama were either filially connected or
deeply influenced by outposts of the Chibchas nations. These are the Guaymies
in Veraguas, who possessed the soil from ocean to ocean, and the Talamancans
of Costa Rica (385).
624 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
that at the time of the conquest the Guaymies were the most im-
portant nation of the Isthmus, and defines the territories of their
principal tribes, which are the Move-Valiente, Murire-Bukueta, and
the Muoi. The Valientes are to-day the chief tribe of all, though
the Muoi was the mother tongue of all Guaymie dialects.
A free translation of Valdes’ (5) description of the Guaymies who,
he says, remain, at the present time, completely pure in language and
customs, is as follows:
The Guaymies live in groups for the most part in the high Valle de Miranda
in the Cordillera de Veraguas, cut off from communication with the plains by
defiles, difficult of access. They have retained their independence, having
warded off invasions of both blacks and whites, who can not penetrate their
land without the favor of the powerful chief. They are called (one tribe)
Valientes on account of the great cruelties with which they punish the least
offenses. Formerly, it was rare to see a Valiente whose body was not covered
with scars. Some families * * * seem to be descended from those who,
before the arrival of the Spaniards, carved symbolic figures on the rocks of
the mountains and placed gold ornaments in their graves. In former times they
“were without doubt more civilized, but modern progress has destroyed their
industries, as they now provide themselves with arms, tools, utensils, cloth,
ete., from their neighbors, which formerly they made themselves.
Valdes further says:
The political rule of the Guaymies is varied, but they all obey a powerful
cacique who has centralized the power. The Guaymi is small, muscular, and
robust, with a large head and flat features, and is an indefatigable walker and
earrier. AS iS common with all Central American tribes, the Guaymies have
the “totem” or animal god. When the youths come to adolescence they submit
themselves to rude tests and go to the forests in company with their comrades,
far from their parents, for a period of novitiate. Old men, with bodies painted,
masks on their faces, and crowns of leaves on their heads, teach them the
traditions and songs of their tribe, composed in a strange and sacred dialect.
Afterwards, when the youths have endured sufficient hardships—all that they
can without complaining—they are admitted to the tribe and called “los
hombres”? (men) and each is given a distinct name—for the first time. For
the girls, also, at this period® are held ceremonies, and soon after, they are
either married or rather sold. The principal fiesta of the Guaymies, called
“balceria ” by the Spanish, usually takes place in summer. The day is indicated
by knots tied in reeds along the wayside or sent to the different families.
After a general bath, the women employ some hours in painting the men’s
bodies red and blue, adorning their faces with arabesques and extravagant
figures much resembling those on the old vessels (pottery), and then the men
array themselves in some historical attire, wearing a loin cloth of bark and the
pelt of an animal. Ata signal the dancing commences for the game of balsa,
which consists in the breaking up of light wood and flinging it at the legs,
knocking each other down and falling amidst the heaps of broken sticks. It
is said these Indians feel the injuries thus inflicted very little.
@Pinart (16) says, “that during the time of puberty a girl’s tooth is broken,
which is regarded as proof of the fact that she is nubile.” In this paper Pinart
gives also a complete illustrated description of the ‘“ Petroglyphes dans l’Isthme
Americain,” etc.
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 625
When the Guaymies believe that death is pursuing a sick person, they carry
him to the woods and there abandon the dying man without leaving him any-
thing but some plantains and a calabash of water. After death the body is
straightened out and placed on a shed, and after one year the remains are
gathered up, the bones cleaned, made into a bundle, and placed in the family
burying place.
We now come to the Indians in the eastern part of Panama, be-
tween whom and those just described there is little in common,
though they have lived for centuries within a few hundred miles of
each other. Speaking generally, the Indians of the section inhabiting
the coast and mountains of Darien belong to the great Cuna family,
though there are evidences of a second nation to be discussed later.
As early as 1519 Fernandez de Martin says that “all along the
(Atlantic) coast a man was called ‘uma’ by the Indians and a
woman ‘ira,’ which are words in the Cuna language.” Valdes holds
that all the Darien Indians of the coast are Cunas, though he ob-
serves that as no one to-day knows the Cuna dialect it is difficult to
state it positively. The comparison of speech (presupposing a
thorough knowledge of various dialects) is, of course, the only
means by which proof can be established. It is a well known fact
that the Cuna family is of Carib origin,* but the word “ Carib,”
however, as used by the colonists in speaking of the aborigines that
they encountered, was equivalent only to the word “ Indian ” itself
and was applied to natives all along the entire coast of the Carib-
bean. ‘The Caribs, in Chibchas mythology, were supposed to be
descended from tigers, vet there can be no doubt that the natives
of Darien were, as a rule, peaceable, kindly disposed, and rather
indolent at the time of the conquest and until stirred by resentment
of the unfair treatment they received at the hands of the Spaniards.
Borland says, in his quaint fashion, concerning them: “ In general,
they seem to be a pretty modest sort of people, considering them as
wild pagans.” A great mark of distinction among the Cunas is
their comparative lack of arts and industries, in contrast to their
neighbors, and in their manner of disposing of their dead. Of the
many tribes of the Darien Indians mentioned by writers since the
discovery of the country, some must have been merely subtribes,
taking their names from their particular localities; though it is true
the confined area of the Isthmus is remarkable for its number of
2QOjeda found Indians about the settlement of San Sebastian de Uraba who
were the warlike, flesh-eating Caribs (1).
Bancroft (24) observed “it is said that the Caribs ate human flesh when-
ever they had an opportunity. * Herera says that some of the Isthmians pur-
chased slaves whom they sold to the Caribs for food.’ ”
Restrepo (2) says that Dr. Aristides Rojos defends the Caribs and affirms
that they did not eat human flesh, though Columbus, Ovieda, Herara thought
the contrary.
626 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tribes, and in comparing statements made by various authorities
a great deal of discrepancy appears, as already mentioned. The fol-
lowing is a list of the important tribes of Darien, most of whom
are believed to exist, as a whole or in part, at the present time, and
those marked (*) are held to be non-Cuna from data referred to
later.*
The tribes are:
Chucunas: Old name Tumanama (?). Inhabit mountains lying in interior
from Atlantic coast. Held to be very warlike and much feared by coast tribes.
Sucubti: Living on river of same name; comparatively few in number, about
1,000, and were found to be timid when visited by Admiral Selfridge in 1870,
never having seen white men.
Navagandi: inhabiting region between Navagandi Point and the high moun-
tains. Considered warlike, formerly. Probably absorbed by the Sasardi.
Sasardi: Held to be cowardly, but treacherous. Their chief is considered
by some writers to be the head one of all coast tribes—others, that the caique
of San Blas, on Rio Diablo, is chief of all. Live about Caledonia Bay.
Anachunas: North-coast Indians, thought to have been largely absorbed by
Other tribes.
Caiman: Inhabiting lower coast or west shore of Gulf of Darien. Held by
Acosta to be certainly Cuna from words he collected among them. (Not in
Panama proper.) No trace of any villages seen by naval officers in those
waters in 1903-4.
Manzanillo or San Blas: Old name Comogres. Semicivilized.
Mandingas: Region of Mandinga Bay, probably subtribe of San Blas.
Payas: On tributary of Tuyra, much reduced in numbers since visited by
Reclus and later by Restrepo. Have been brought into closer contact with
whites, owing to their location on. main route to Columbia, and are much re-
duced in number and degenerate, having practically lost their independence.
Very cruel when drunk.
(*) Paparos: Whose territory was between the Yape and Puero near the
Payas. Extinct as a tribe.
(*) Chocamus: Valley of Tuyra and lower Chunaque, also southeast shores
of Gulf of San Miguel and Rio Sambu. Nearly extinct.
That all the Cunas of Darien could speak the Cueva dialect is held
by practically all authorities. The Cuevas were a powerful tribe
living on the Pacific coast near the site of Old Panama. Other tribes
mentioned but ill defined by various writers were the Pacoris (or
Pacri), Chiapes, Cheapes, Panamas, Chimans, Escorias, Cutaris,
Chunachunas, Irmiacos, Tucutis, ete. Valdes gives the number of
Cunas as 14,000 (1905), Pinart as 8,000 (1890), and Admiral Sel-
fridge estimated the number at about 7,000 (1870). The following
is a description of the Cunas taken from Valdes (5) :
Generally speaking, the Cunas are small and very muscular. The
women are extremely ugly and wither at an early age, and those of
“Some old writers held Tule, Darien, Paparos, as all meaning Cunas of
Darien. ‘‘ Braves” is a term used to-day by Isthmians designating all moun-
tain Indians of the section.
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 627
some tribes adorn themselves by hanging heavy gold rings through
their noses, while those of other tribes wear collars of colored beads,
also bracelets and anklets which oppress and disfigure the arms and
legs. They wear only a short skirt reaching to the calf. Many
of the men, Valdes says, have not preserved their old picturesque
costumes adorned with the headpieces of brilliant birds’ plumage.
Especially is this so among the San Blas Indians. The Cunas wear
their hair long, and it is very black, coarse, and abundant and does
not turn gray or fall out even in old age. The men have no beards.
All have very prominent cheek bones and small, sunken, bright eyes.
Formerly they anointed their bodies with the juice of the “ gerripa
Americana,” which keeps the flesh fresh and cool. For the great
fétes they paint their faces with the “ bixa orellana.” Their speech
is strange, resembling a monotonous chant, and each phrase is spoken
with great volubility, accentuating the last word and punctuating the
phrases with pauses that the interlocutors take advantage of to ex-
press their assent or comprehension. General terms, moral or ab-
stract sentiments can not be expressed. The Cunas measure time .
by the moon and count by tens, referring to the number of figures.
Their villages are collections of scattered houses spread over great
distances, and each has its “ina” (cacique) and its “piaces” or
“1616,” who is the medicine man, priest, and magician, the third
person of the community being the “camotura,” master of cere-
monies and chief musician; then comes the “ urunia,” or head warrior,
usually the strongest man of the tribe. The favorite dance of the
Cunas is the Guayacan, in which the men and women form a ring
around the camotura,- who occupies the center, playing his instru-
ment, a kind of flute called “ camo6.” Presently, all strike the ground
twice with their feet, take two steps forward, breaking the circle;
then the couples unite, turning around and around together rapidly
to the rhythm of the music. The women give birth to their babies in
isolated huts under the care of an old woman, who, after bathing the
mother and child in the river, conducts them to the lélé, to be purified
with clouds of tobacco smoke and to drive off bad fortune. As with
the Guaimies, the age of puberty for a girl is the occasion of a fiesta;
then, after the year following she can marry the man of her choice.
Wafer (20) says that it was the custom for all the neighbors and
friends to make a clearing, build a house, and plant the ground for a
young couple during the time before the wedding ceremonies were
completed. A husband among the Cunas acquires rights over all
the women with whom he becomes related by marriage. Children
are buried alive or drowned if illegitimate; also those born deformed,
according to some writers. Formerly, if any man was present when
a woman gave birth to a child he was punished by death. At the
time of death the sign of mourning among some tribes is a toucan’s
628 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
head placed over the house, and if more deaths occur there the place
is burned to the ground. Among some tribes, also, the dead are put
in hammocks? with provisions for the journey, kept fresh by the
friends of the dead till the cords of the hammock rot, when the spirit
is held to have reached the other land. When the Cunas travel, they
take no provisions, but live on the crops of their neighbors, a perfectly
correct proceeding in their code. All more or less take part in trade
and at certain times voyage in small numbers to Colon and Panama
or to nearer places with coffee, cocoa, cocoanuts, rubber, and ivory
nuts, getting in return cloth, arms, and implements. The effect of
the traffic has been to modify their primitive customs. (Valdes refers
here evidently especially to the Cunas of San Blas.)
Other customs, from different sources, have been noted regarding
the Cunas and are important to a better knowledge of these Indians.
Soothsaying and sorcery played a large part in their lives, accord-
ing to Wafer, Reclus, and others. Sometimes for days these sor-
cerers would shut themselves up in a small hut, shrieking and
screaming above the noise of the drums, often imitating the cries
of animals, as when a king beast disturbs the quiet of the jungle.
After they emerged in a half-hypnotized condition, they could,
with marvelous certainty, predict future events and the like. Drink-
ing has always been indulged in to a great extent by these Indians,
whose native beverage is chica, made by the old women of the tribe,
who sit about in a circle chewing yam roots or cassava and expecto-
rating it into a large bowl. It is fermented by the saliva, and set
away to be taken through a further process later. In all festivities
the chica forms a principal part, but the men never allow the women
to drink, or even to eat, with them. When helpless from liquor the
men stretch out in hammocks and are fanned and sprinkled with
cold water by their wives. Tobacco is used by the Darien Indians
in a peculiar way, and extensively so by men and women alike. The
leaves are rolled up in long hollow twists, and the lighted end placed
inside the mouth. They usually smoke in parties of four or five,
sitting about in a circle, and blowing the smoke into each other’s
faces. An oath that is most binding among the Cunas is “sworn by
the tooth,” and their custom of saluting each other with backs
turned is likewise a remarkable one.
SAN BLAS INDIANS.
The San Blas .or Manzanillo Indians, appearing occasionally as
they do at Colon, afford an opportunity to study the Cuna at close
*In Comagre and other provinces the bodies of the caciques were embalmed
by placing them in a cane hurdle, hanging them up by cords or placing them
on a stone or log, and around or below the body they made a slow fire of fine
herbs at such a distance as to dry it gradually, till only skin and bone remained
(24).
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 629
range and are the means by which much of the information of the
race in general has been obtained. These queer yellow-brown people,
resembling the Eskimo, should be classed as semicivilized, who, though
retaining all their exclusive prejudices against the white man, have
had their customs somewhat modified by their occasional contact with
civilization. This is seen chiefly in the dress of the men, which no
longer consists of garments made from home-grown cotton-wool and
dyed blue with a vegetable stain, as the San Blas natives now wear,
but, on their voyages at least, of felt hats and cotton cloth of English
manufacture. They are wonderful sailors, and it is a remarkable
sight indeed to see them in the early morning, before the rest of the
world is awake, dashing into the harbor of Colon, managing their
heavily-laden canoes or dugouts* through the surf with marvelous
skill. A few hours after sunrise finds the San Blas men usually
starting for home many miles down the coast to their little villages
lining the shores of the Gulf of San Blas or dotting its coral islands.
Here they live in entire independence and seclusion, fearing only
the “braves” of the interior, who occasionally descend upon them.
A few white men have from time to time sailed down their coasts.
While the stranger is received in a friendly way when he first seeks
permission of the chief to land, the white man is never allowed to
remain ashore at night in any of their villages. At the time of the
building of the railroad, American engineers sailed to San Blas and
sought permission of the cacique to survey his country, but, being met
with a blank refusal, were compelled to return to Colon. An inborn
dread of strangers possesses these people, inherited, doubtless, from
their ancestors, who suffered so cruelly from the Conquistadores, and,
while nominally a part of the Republic, they are as independent, in
fact, as on the day their country was first discovered. The San Blas
people live largely on sea food and iguanas, caiman’s eggs, and
monkeys, when obtainable, though they plant a little cassava, yucca,
etc. They excel in the art of snaring the tortoise, taking the shell
to the market of Colon. Their fishing nets are made from silk grass
and mahoe bark, from which they used to make all their ropes and
cords after stripping and beating it till soft enough to twist. The
canoes are solid trunks of mahogany or cedar trees, and tiny ones are
given the little children as soon as they can walk, which results in
making these Indians literally as much at home on the water as on
the land. At the approach of a stranger among them the women
are hidden away immediately and never seen except when coming
upon them unawares, and to actually obtain a photograph of any of
them is a rare feat indeed. The San Blas men swear an oath over
their father’s body to kill their women should their land be taken
“
@The native word is “ ulo,”’
630 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
by the white man. The women alone at the present day paint
their faces, and they always blacken their teeth on being married.
All the women, more or less, wear nose rings, and their gar-
ments consist of a short skirt and sort of chemise of colored cotton,
composed of various layers of appliqué work neatly sewed together,
forming very curious designs. (See illustrations.) These garments
seem to be peculiar to the San Blas women and are identical to-
day with the description of them that Wafer gave over two hundred
years ago. (Notice conventionalized figure of a man in the illustra-
tion.) The Indians of this coast have developed few arts, and make
no pottery whatever, carved cocoanuts and gourds taking its place.
They formerly used torches of palm wood dipped in oil and bees-
wax for light and made also from the palm a sort of braided box,
covered with an animal’s skin, which is very pretty. They make
a rough basket of vine roots, very strong and serviceable, and
some are cleverly shaped to fit the shoulder for the carrying of
burdens, though their chief industry has been the making of their
hammocks, many finely woven, from cotton-wool. These ham-
mocks serve also as their coffins after death, as already stated.
Then the bodies are hidden away in some remote and dense palm
grove. They do not appear to have cemeteries. The houses are
constructed with skill, built high above the ground, with over-
hanging, thatch-covered roofs, serving to keep out rain and damp-
ness entirely, and are well suited to the climate. The support-
ing posts of the roof are large bamboos or palm trees. Three or four
are driven into the ground at equal distances, according to the size
that the house is to be, and across these is placed the ridge pole. On
each side a few shorter posts are sunk, from which the long rafters
are laid; then the outside is covered with palm or plantain. The high
entrance is reached by means of notched poles, often large, split bam-
boo, and usually drawn up at night. The appearance of some of the
San Blas villages seen from the sea is very attractive, especially those
built on the islands in the midst of bright sand and waving cocoa
palms, surrounded by the beautiful blue waters*of the gulf, whose
white-crested waves dash in over the reefs. Those hamlets of the
mainland, showing a tawny yellow against the green hills, topped
with low-lying clouds, present also a charming picture. The
“poisoned arrow,” formerly much in use by these and all coast In-
dians, it has been found, was only one dipped in the juice of the
“ Manzanillo del playa,” which, as its name implies, grows by the
sea, and, curiously enough, an antidote for the sharp inflammation its
poison caused was discovered to be sea water. Only one tribe of
the coast did not use bows and arrows originally, but wooden swords
and spears tipped with bone instead. Polygamy is allowed among
the San Blas Indians, but not widely practiced, only the caciques
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 5.
Fic. 1.—HALF-BREEDS—NEGRO AND INDIAN.
FiG. 2.—SAN BLAS COAST, PANAMA.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 6.
‘|
J
\ ot
san et wiianccasommpereanent ter
MACHE, A SAN BLAS INDIAN OF THE RIO DIABLO, PANAMA.
(Photograph by the Bureau of American Ethnology. )
Smithsonian Report, 1909,.-—Bell. PLATE 7.
KAY-AK, A SAN BLAS INDIAN FROM THE RIO DIABLO, PANAMA.
(Photograph by the Bureau of American Ethnology.)
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 8.
Fia. 2.—SAN BLAS INDIAN WOMEN HuRRYING OFF FOR FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell . PLATE 9.
FABRIC OF CUT AND INSET WORK.
Ground yellow, backing under cut work red, and on this smaller sections of dark blue, leaving a
border of red. Lined with coarse linen. San Blas Indians, Panama. Original 17 by 21 inches.
Design, human figure.
i
ma:
ns.
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Pace
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 10.
Fic. 1.—SAN BLAS WoRK.
Fic. 2.—SAN BLAS CUT AND FILL WorRK JACKET. PANAMA.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 11.
Fic. 1.—SAN BLAS INDIAN HOUSES.
Fic. 2.—SAN BLAS HOUSE AND UTENSILS. PANAMA.
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Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell. PLATE 12.
Fic. 1.—VILLAGE ON CORAL ISLAND, SAN BLAS COAST.
ai a Wh a on
Fig. 2.—SAN BLAS VILLAGE ON MAINLAND.
Dh
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 631
maintaining more than one wife, as a rule. There seems to be little
evidence of religion among these Indians, though they appear to
believe in a God and in a devil. They also possess some idols, which
they will part with readily in exchange for articles that they desire,
holding them in scant reverence. How much longer these people will
be allowed to remain in their seclusion it is difficult to conjecture,
and, owing to the almost impassable jungle back of their country it
would require an invading army of considerable size to subdue them.
As a political move, an enterprising spirit at the time of the inaugu-
ration of the late president fitted out some of the leading men of
the San Blas tribe in old, but exceedingly gaudy uniforms and took
them to Panama to attend the ceremonies. They were much pleased,
especially after liberal libations had been consumed, and felt keenly
their importance.
THE SASARDI TRIBE.
In the winter of 19034 an American naval officer visited the
district surrounding the beautiful Caledonia Bay, where the natives
only occasionally meet with a stray trader in his small sloop, and
who they have nothing more to do with than necessary for pur-
poses of barter. The Sasardis were found to number about 200 or
300, living in three small villages* on the shores of the bay, pre-
sided over by a chief of great authority it seemed. This cacique
ordered the American vessel to leave immediately, and, finding his
order was not obeyed, he held an interview with the American
officer a few days later, in which he said (through an interpreter)
that the Indians wished to have nothing to do with the white people,
that this county was their own, not belonging to the Colombians
or the Panamanians, adding that under no circumstances could the
erew remain ashore anywhere in the vicinity at night. Later the
chief sent a letter to the ship which was addressed to Queen Vic-
toria, whom he regarded as supreme over all white people, asking
that she put a stop to strangers coming in vessels to his coasts. The
Sasardis were dressed much in the fashion of the San Blas men,
though they undoubtedly come much less into contact with civilized
people. The women were only seen at a distance, but glimpses
revealed the fact, often stated of Cuna women generally, that they
are remarkably hideous. (In 1870 Admiral Selfridge’s party did not
meet with a single woman of this tribe when in Caledonia Bay.)
These Indians had burying grounds in the vicinity of their towns,
and the graves were surrounded with bits of broken glass bottles of
@The houses of these Indians differ from those of the San Blas people in
that they are usually two stories high, the upper floor having no side walls
except in perhaps one corner, and in the remaining open spaces are hung mats
or curtains.
45745°—sm 190941 :
632 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
all colors, evidently held as great treasure, and also innumerable
small trinkets filled the cemeteries. There was no evidence that they.
embalmed any of their dead. The chief insisted that if the Amer-
icans tried to penetrate into the interior they would encounter a
savage tribe who would kill them with their poisoned arrows.
So far, only the Cuna family of Darien has been considered, yet
there have been many references to other Indians in the southern
part with whom the Cunas had frequent quarrels. Reclus (15)
noticed that the Indians in some sections spoke of themselves as the
“'Ti ” and others as the “ Do” Indians, which is interesting, as “Ti ”
means water in the Cuna dialect, and “ Do” means the same thing
in the Choco dialect, according to the vocabularies of the two lan-
guages compiled by Pinart.t In one place Reclus (15) speaks of
“les autochtones de la region (Darien) les Indiens Cunas et Chocas
* * * refoulés dans Vintérieur ou ils habitent les hautes valles
de la Tuyra et du Chucunaque.” Reclus (p. 210) further says “ that
_ the ‘Ti’ Indians are small and thick set and early become obese;
the ‘Do’ on the contrary are large and well made, keeping the
purity of their forms to an advanced age.” Pinart in “ Les In-
diens de l’etat Panama” says, “there is certain proof of a
second nation ” in Darien, but in his “ Notes sur les limites de civili-
zation de l’Isthme American,” he says that the Chocos in Darien
were only in small colonies, being a branch of the main Choco stock,
which extended through Colombia, and which was a very brave
and proud race. Without doubt the “ Do” Indians encountered by
Reclus, when in the vicinity of the Paya tribe, were the remnant of
their neighbors, the Paparos, with whom they were usually at war.
The original trouble between the Paparos and the Payas was caused
by the former resenting the theft of their boys and girls, whom
the Payas sold as slaves to the Spanish. Puinart’s note on these
Indians, in his little book entitled “ Vocabulario, Castellano-Doras-
que,” is very interesting.
Brinton (35) says that the Chocos settled about the Rio Sambu,
which flows into the Gulf of San Miguel near Point Garachine.
These Chocos were of the Chocamus tribe, and were numerous till
a few years ago. On comparing the photographs obtained of the
Indians in the lower Chucunaque Valley, with the Cunas of San
Blas, it will readily be seen that the former are larger and ap-
pear darker in color, exhibiting quite a different type altogether.”
@Belman (12), speaking of the main stock of the Chocos, gives the word
water as “Da” instead of ‘‘ Do.”
bTt is obvious from the photographs that the women of this region do not
object to being seen by white men, and have apparently “posed” before the
camera, which is another indication that there is a fundamental difference be-
tween them and the Cunas, as they are on the north coast.
&
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Bell PLATE 13.
CHOCO INDIAN WOMAN ABOUT YaAVISA, CHUCUNAQUA RIVER DISTRICT, PANAMA.
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PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. ‘ 633
These Indians called themselves “ Cholos,” and I think may safely
be considered Chocos. Cholo is a name applied to half breeds in
many Latin-American countries, but these are obviously pure-blooded
Indians, and it can easily be imagined that “ Cholo ” is a corrupted
form of Choco. This explanation is further borne out by the follow-
ing references from Bancroft, where the terms are used synonymously
referring to the Indians of the section where the Chocos settled.
Referring to “ Seeman’s Voy,” Bancroft (24) says (in an appendix),
“The Cholos extending from the Gulf of San Miguel to the Bay of
Choco, and thence with a few interruptions to the northern parts of
the Republic of Ecuador.” Quoting from Latham in Journal of
Geographical Society, London, Volume XX, page 189, is a statement,
“ Cholos inhabiting part of the Isthmus of Darien, east of the river
Chucunaque.”
A very interesting palm-wood stool and a cacique stick, measuring
about 24 feet, with a grotesque idol surmounting it and underneath
bands of silver, was obtained in the deserted huts of these “ Cholos ”
by the American to whom the writer is indebted for the two photo-
graphs of these Indians, appearing in this article. The cacique
sticks are used by the medicine men among the Darien Indians gen-
erally, its magic effect is supposed to immediately follow when
touched to the afflicted part.
CONCLUSION.
Panama is a land of wonderful possibilities, the home of an unam-
bitious tropical people who have sat for generations at the gate of a
world-traveled highway, watching the trend of progress as expressed
in the passers-by. The small merchant of the towns in the main path
of travel has developed a certain shrewdness, common to his class
everywhere, in overcharging the wayfarer for his temporary needs,
but the rest of the Isthmus remains much as it has been for centuries,
half-awakened, sparsely settled, and in many parts semisavage or
actually so. The necessities of life have come too easily, making
progress very slow, but the day must come when a radical change
will be brought about. Mr. Nicholas, in a magazine article in the
Review of Reviews for March, 1904, says: “ Panama is not without
development in the present or promise for the future, even away from
the zone of great expectations along the canal. * * * Minerals
are in good evidence, government lands to be had for the taking
around Chiriqui, Lagoon,’ etc. But the immediate interest in
Panama should be its rediscovery leading to fields of research for the
zoologist, biologist, ethnologist, etc., and it would, indeed, be regret-
table if America, whose future interests in this country will be pre-
dominant, should not be first to send her scientists into this interest-
ing and unexplored territory of Central America,
634 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
APPENDIX.
In chronological order, the following brief notes concerning the aborigines
are extracted from the accounts of the principal men who have made ex-
peditions into Darien (the dates of their published work being given only) :
WAFER, 1669.
Wafer, who lived two years as hostage to the Cacique Lacenta, describes
the Indians among whom he was as having a certain degree of civilization. They
extracted gold from the mine in the Santo Espiritu Mountains, the chiefs wore
iong white robes with diadems on their heads and lived in comfortable houses
surrounded by a railed-in area, and whose tables were well supplied with
fruits, the results of the chase, and fish from the streams. Wafer was well
treated by the Indians whose territory is thought to be in the vicinity of the
source of the Rio Sabanna.
BoRLAND, 1779.
Borland was a member of the Scotch colony which attempted to settle on the
- shores of Caledonia Bay and to share in the reported wealth of the New World.
He described the Indians of the vicinity as small, great swimmers, living
always by the rivers or on the sea, and very clean of body and in the prepara-
tion of their food, which consisted of dried fish, plaintain, and cassava, with
a drink made from plantains. At first the Indians were very timid, then in a
friendly way visited the colony, bringing fruits and fish to trade. It was not
till the Spaniards attacked the settlement, inciting the natives to enmity, that
the colonists had any serious difficulty with them. They used bows and arrows,
and lived in houses without side walls, always sleeping in hammocks, with fires
at night to ward off wild beasts and to keep from feeling the effects of the
dampness. The men labored little, but hunted and fished. Men and women
alike wore gold nose rings.
Acosta, 1848.
Acosta says that the Gulf of Darien Indians (and those of La Goajira),
after 340 years have preserved much of their independence, primitive character
and language, etc., as described by the early historians, still having their priest,
medicine men, and seers, and painting their bodies. English firelock guns had
already replaced in part, however, the bows and arrows, which they obtained
in trade for tortoise shell and cocoa. During his stay among them he collected
their words by which they counted up to eight; five were, “ pogua,” ‘“ pagua,”
*“ quencheco,” “ auvege,’ and ‘“ cugule.”
GISBORNE, 1853.
Lionel Gisborne was an engineer sent out by an English syndicate to investi-
gate conditions of Darien. He made an attempt to cross the Isthmus from
Caledonia Bay to the Gulf of San Miguel, a region which he observes had been
abandoned entirely to Indians since 1800. He speaks of a large settlement that
was formerly composed of Spaniards and Indians on the Rio Sabanna (probably
meaning the well-known one on the Chepo, as the marshy soil surrounding the
greater part of the Savanna made it unlikely that a large number of Spaniards
settled here and no other writers give any record of any such place). He
observed that the San Blas and Mandinga Indians never allow any inspection
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 635
of their country and described coast tribes as follows: High cheek bones, short
necks, set on high broad shoulders, though chest not deep; limbs small and
well shaped and very muscular, with perfectly formed hands and feet. Their
hair was long and black and neatly combed. Women wore necklaces of beads
and nose rings. Noticed albinos among the Sasardis. Offenses against chastity
punished severely. Indians of the interior much less civilized and he thought
the number of them was large. Gisborne states that in 1852 the towns of
Yavisa, Moleneca, and Chepigano were of considerable size, but were peopled,
even then, by half-breeds entirely. He found it impossible to penetrate any
great distance over the Rio Sabanna route where there was the densest vegeta-
tion and where animal life abounded.
SELFRIDGE, 1874.
Admiral Selfridge, Lull and Collins, also other American naval officers, made
extensive surveys in parts of Darien and in the Chepo district. Admiral
Selfridge’s report contains many notes on the Indians, chiefly the Sasardi,
_Sucubti, and Paya tribes. His force of men, well armed, was of sufficient size
to minimize danger from the Indians, though the impression prevailed that a
small force would have encountered active hostility.
Recius, 1888.
Reclus, a French engineer, who worked with the French naval officer, Lieu-
tenant Wyse, gives some account of the flora and fauna of Darien in his book,
with also much information of the Indian tribes, especially the Payas, whom
he described as having a certain state of civilization with much cultivated
area, tilled by the women. The men were great hunters, and in the forests and
streams were abundant game and fish, but even at that date they were drunken
and improvident in many ways.
RESTREPO, 1892.
In a prologue to Restrepo’s book, written by his father, he states that his
son was sent into the interior of Darien by “ La Compania Minera del Darien,”
and calls it a rich and forgotten country. Restrepo was well received by the
chiefs he encountered, but did not visit the Atlantic coast areas himself, ap-
parently. He relates many curious customs of the natives, one, especially, for
which he could find no explanation; he observed among the Payas, who gave
their children, when in fits of crying rage, chica, in which a shaving from the
door sill had been placed. Restrepo says that the warriors of the Isthmus
adorn their heads with leopards’ and tigers’ paws, also that they wore yellow
and black plumed head pieces. He speaks of the cruelty of the ‘“ Guamos”
tribe, possibly meaning Guaymies, who were far famed for this attribute, and
in another place he says ‘“ Guanes” are considered a section of the Chibchas.
He also observed that Isthmian Indians were distinguished from those of Co-
lombia in the old days by the enormous size of their bows and arrows. The
full account of Restrepo’s expedition is to be found in “ Repertorio Colom-
biano, Bogota, Nos. 11 and 12,” under the title of ‘“‘ Un Viaje al Darien.”
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636 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
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46.
47.
PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 637
Brinton, D. G. The American Race. N. D. C. Hodges, New York, 1891.
Gaps, W. M. Paper on Indian tribes and languages of Costa Rico, ete.,
read before the Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, August 20, 1875.
BoLuaAERT, WM. Ancient Indian Tombs of Chiriqui, etc., American Ethno-
logical Society Transactions, vol. 2, pages 151 to 159.
Burr, WM. H. The Republic of Panama. National Geographic Magazine,
February, 1904.
BaRRETT, JOHN. Facts about Panama. Monthly Bulletin of the Bureau
of American Republics, February, 1904.
Monthly Bulletin of the Bureau of American Republics, July, 1904.
Historical sketch of the Isthmus of Panama (in Spanish).
General conditions in Panama. U.S. Consular Reports, 1904.
NIcHOLAS, FRaNcis C. Panama and its people. Review of Reviews,
March, 1904.
SELFRIDGE, T. O. Reports of Explorations, Surveys, ete. Government Print-
ing Office, Washington, D. C., 1874.
Stanford’s Compendium of Geography. (Central and South Amer-
ica). Vols. 1 and 2, Ed. Stanford, London, 1901.
Wyse, L. N. B. Carte General, 1885.
War Department Map, April, 1909.
Hoitmes, W. H. Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui. 6th An. Rep,
Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, 1888.
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CERAMIC DECORATION—ITS EVOLUTION AND ITS
APPLICATIONS.
By Louis FRANCHET.
Some author has said “ The ceramic art is one of the most ancient
of the world’s arts. Its birth is lost in the shadows of time.” It
is into these deep shadows that we must first penetrate, but there is
little fear that we shall lose our way, for glowing trails have been
blazed for us by such men as Boucher de Perthes, Lartet, de Mor-
tillet, Piette and others still, who have made prehistoric civilization
known to us.
Among all the industrial arts, ceramics is of the most controlling
interest when we wish to study the evolution of that artistic sense
that has developed little by little among men.
To express the conception of his genius the potter must be at once
a modeller, a sculptor, and a painter. He must also possess special
faculties of invention and intuition so as to avoid the pitfalls scat-
tered along his path, hazards which he meets at every turn in the
preparation of his clays, in the working of them and above all in
their baking.
The study of ceramic decoration is also of considerable importance
in connection with the history of peoples, since it often affords a
means of following the progression of great migrations and even dis-
closes, as we shall see later, the very customs of the ancients. It is
the ceramic art, even more than metallurgy, which enables us to
more fully appreciate the degree of civilization of races which have
gone before us.
We must look back, to be sure, several hundred centuries to find
the first appearance of ceramic objects and we are struck with ad-
miration as we examine the remarkable conceptions that emanated
from the still primitive brain of man.
There are not yet in our possession any positive proofs that pot-
tery was known in the paleolithic epoch, in the hewn stone age, but
@Translated by permission from Revue Scientifique, Paris, 47th year, No.
23, June 5, 1909.
6389
640 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
in the era of polished stone which followed this, art was first mani-
fested solely in the form of ceramic objects. The forms of pre-
historic pottery evidence an extraordinary artistic sense in their
designers. In spite of our schools of fine arts we do not equal them
to-day. Our designs, so complicated and generally so ungraceful,
as a general rule are only poor derivations and consequently mere
alterations of these prehistoric designs. But we need not believe
that it was the lack of all decorative material that suppressed orna-
mentation among primitive peoples. The plasticity of the clay
itself pointed out the road to the first artists. The imprint of the
potters’ fingers gave birth to the intaglio decoration, and in the cop-
per age succeeding that of polished stone, we find designs engraved
by means of a cord, or a bit of wood or bone, or with imprints of the
leaves of ferns or other plants.
After these engraved vases came the incrusted vases, with the in-
taglio design filled up with a white or a colored clay, a process in
-common use during the middle ages. The most beautiful of these
specimens are the splendid faiences ascribed to Henry the Second,
made at Saint-Porchaire (Charente-Inferieure) in the sixteenth
century.
However, besides this, we find in the neolithic age an ornamenta-
tion made by gluing the bark of trees or small pieces of tin to the
pot with a sort of pitch. During this long period, though civiliza-
tion was more advanced than is generally realized, yet man was still
in a half-savage state, and struggles between tribes were no doubt
frequent. It is for this reason that the custom arose of building
villages in the center of lakes to give better defense in case of attack.
We have to-day proof that engraved ceramic ware was used for the
decoration of the rude dwellings of these lacustrine villages. In
the lake of Bourget (Savoy) have been found lining panels of graven
clay still carrying the imprint of the wood partition to which they
had been applied. At the same time were discovered the clay
matrices which had been used to make certain of the intaglio im-
prints observed on the panels. These precious objects are deposited
in the Museum of Chambéry.
Along with the graven and incrusted neolithic pottery we find
also painted pottery, not painted with artificially prepared metallic
colors, however, but with colored earths. This application of one
earth to another to obtain an artistic effect was the beginning of the
“engobe” which itself gave birth, many centuries later, to decoration
with hard enamel, which we will now consider.
What is known as “engobe” is a layer of one sort of clay applied
over another clay to conceal its color and to furnish a surface capable
of receiving certain decorations. In “engobing” a piece of pottery
it is plunged quickly into a paste made of the engobe clay or it may
CERAMIC DECORATION—FRANCHET. 641
be sprinkled with the clay. Over the engobe may be applied the
colored pigments. Decoration by engobage was practiced in the
most ancient times, but no race took such a remarkable part in its
development as the Greeks and Etruscans, who produced the great-
est artists ever known in the art of fired pottery.
From a technical point of view the only feature that demands
attention here is the fact that they had the skill to introduce into
these engobes materials sufficiently fusible to give a true glaze to the
work, and that with only three colors—red, brown, both iron colors,
and manganese black—they have inscribed on their vases the entire
history of ancient Greece.
The Greeks have always been our teachers in the practical utiliza-
tion of ceramic decoration. Their most ancient pottery, it is true,
bear only elementary designs painted with colored clays, but little
by little there appeared representations of fabulous animals, then
the great scenes that enable us to construct ideas of their life, cus-
toms, and religion, both from the nature of the forms and from the
inscriptions and the scenes which they portray. In a word, here
we find the utilization of ceramic decoration carried to the limit of
perfection.
Etruscan pottery offers examples quite as remarkable. Then there
are the celebrated Roman potteries, about which certain archeolo-
gists have advanced the most unlikely hypotheses to explain the
famous red luster which covers them. It is to chemistry that they
should have turned to find the solution of the problem, for it is chem-
istry that has revealed to us the fact that this luster is a true enamel
which the Roman potters made by mixing a strongly ferruginous
clay of rock with a glass composed of sand and carbonate of soda
with small quantities of alumina and lime.
This red enamel of the Romans is therefore derived directly from
the “engobe.” It was applied to the unbaked piece and was conse-
quently baked at the same time as the clay base itself, the tempera-
ture being comparatively low, about 900°.
It is pretended that we do not know how to duplicate this beautiful
red; nothing, however, could be more incorrect. We have a rock, the
sandstone of Thiviers (Dordogne), which, when mixed with a glass,
or, more correctly speaking, a frit rich in silica, gives us exactly the
same enamel that we admire on the Roman pottery.
In this field we are even more advanced than were our predeces-
sors, for we can vary at will this red tone from an orange shade all
the way to brown. All that need be done is to add to the glass (or
frit) certain elements such as alumina, boric acid, borax, or zinc
oxide, the proportions of which can be infinitely varied.
The Romans, however, abandoned ceramic painting to devote
themselves entirely to sculpture. Their vases ornamented in relief,
642 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
their statuettes, even without other monuments, would show them
to us as masters of sculpture. But where the Roman plastic art
manifests itself most strikingly is in the use of fired clay in the
decoration of their temples and palaces. Their historical antefixes
and bas-relief are chefs-d’oeuvre, after which our famous art nouveau
appears quite ridiculous.
The Greeks and Romans had learned the technique of glazes in
Egypt, which, after the defeat of Darius the Third by Alexander the
Great, fell under Greek domination, only to pass, three centuries
later, into the hands of the Romans. But they no doubt wished to
make the clay alone responsible for the disappearance of ceramic art.
As I have shown in a former paper, it was the Egyptians and not
the Pheenecians who in their discovery of glass in the eighteenth
dynasty also discovered the art of glazing. As a matter of fact,
what is a glaze but a transparent glass formed of silica and potash
or soda and the more lately discovered oxide of lead?
Enamel is glaze rendered opaque by oxides of tin, antimony,
chromium, and sometimes of iron, an example of which we have seen
in the Roman pottery; covered glazes are those which are only
applicable to vitrified clay, such as stoneware and porcelain, in mak-
ing clay articles.
The discovery of glazing did not completely supersede the use of
engobe. This was overlaid in many cases by a glaze, as is proved
by a great many antique oriental ceramic objects.
In the beginning, the first Egyptian glazes were composed entirely
of quartzeous sand and carbonate of soda. Later, however, in the
Saite epoch, perhaps because of their contact with the Persians, the
Egyptians came to know all the numerous enamels that we are cog-
nizant of to-day.
It is in the Orient, however, that we should look for the most
beautiful manifestations of ceramic decoration and for the complete
comprehension of the science of colors. Not only are we very infe-
rior to the ancients in these respects, but it would appear that as
our scientific progress becomes more accentuated art seems to become
more and more feeble. The enameled ceramic ware of the Orient is
the most beautiful that human genius has conceived, and I would
even say the most grandiose if we considered the monumental ceramic
pieces. It embodies the successful solution of all those difficult prob-
lems which confront the potter in his struggle for perfection—the
form, design and coloring, the working of the clay, the application of
the enamel, and the firing. Our famous faiences of Palissy, of
Nevers, of Rouen, of Moustiers, and of Marseille, not to mention
those of Italy and Holland, are but child’s play by the side of these
works of genius carried out by the Egyptian, Persian, and Arabian
ceramists.
CERAMIC DECORATION—-FRANCHET. 643
There was a reflection of this art in Spain from the thirteenth to
the fifteenth century because the Spaniards had brought back with
them the skill in ceramics which they had acquired in Asia. There
the Arabs first carried out the process of applying enamel over an
“ engobe,” a practice which persisted up to a time when the use of
white opaque enamel had passed into the current technique.
Again, it was the Mohammedans who brought from Persia the
process of decoration by metallic luster, which consists in applying
deposits of copper and silver on the enamel giving the effect of fleeting
iridescence. This was carried from France to Spain in the four-
teenth century and into Italy in the fifteenth. With respect to the
latter country it would be more correct to say that the Italians went
in search of these processes among the Moors in Spain.
After being in disfavor for three centuries, decoration by metallic
luster reappeared in France, at Blois first, in 1876, then on the Gulf
of Juan-Vallauns in 1882, where it was introduced by the Italians.
As for the pretense that the process of decoration by metallic luster
was a secret one, I have elsewhere shown that this is not a fact
because this process has never been completely abandoned. Some-
times more and sometimes less of this luster pottery has been made,
but in the last ten centuries the manufacture of it has never ceased.
During the middle ages, when the manufacture of enameled pottery
was at its dawn in France, the making of lining tiles occupied the
most important place in the art. In the twelfth century they were
content to apply a white engobe to tiles made of red clay, and then
to cover the engobe with a glaze consisting solely of galena, a natural
sulphide of lead, or even merely to coat them with finely divided lead,
which oxidizing under the double influence of the heat and the oxygen
of the air is transformed on the tile into a fusible oxide of Jead,
making a true glass of a yellow color.
In the thirteenth century, inlaid ceramic ware appeared to have
been in great favor. The tile of red clay was molded in such a way
that the design appeared in intaglio; this was filled with a white clay
and then enameled either with the yellow lead glaze or with a green
glaze of copper. In either case the ornamentation in white clay stood
out clearly in tone under the glaze after firing, while the base formed
of the red clay retained its very deep tones.
This manufacture was kept up until the seventeenth century, mak-
ing use principally of three colors, yellow, green, and brown, blue
being sometimes used.
The utilization of lining tiles for architectural decoration had
developed to an even greater extent in Spain, where the oriental
influence had dominated to the end of the fifteenth century—that is,
until the Moors were driven from the Peninsula by Ferdinand the
Fifth.
644 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
In the sixteenth century, when opaque white enamel first made its
appearance in current practice, it was substituted for the engobe, so
that instead of decorating with crude engobe they decorated over
crude enamel. This was first applied to the piece, the decoration
was painted on it, and it was fired at 900° C. The enamel, in vitri-
fying, incorporated with it the color, giving tones of great softness.
As examples of painting on crude enamel, may be mentioned the
beautiful majolicas of the Italian Renaissance, the faiences of Nevers,
of Rouen, of Moustiers, which are Italian products, and finally of
Delft.
In the fifteenth century the Italians were familiar with most of
the colors and enamels which we use to-day, as well as with the
metallic lusters. The processes had become widely known among
them and it is their formule which have furnished a basis for all our
modern discoveries in polychromatic decoration. For this reason,
when Bernard Palissy began the manufacture of his celebrated
. ceramic ware, he had only to make use of the enamels which were em-
ployed in the Latin countries. One can not take him seriously, there-
fore, when he puts himself forward as the inventor in France of
enameled faience. He wished us to believe from his incredible state-
ments that there had been no ceramists before him (which, by the
way, is still the fashion in our day). In any case, he made a great
mistake in burning his furniture and reducing his family to beg-
gary in order to discover that which the humblest potters of his time
already knew.
The Italians during their great artistic Renaissance had imitated
the ancients in giving to their beautiful decorations a utilitarian pur-
pose. Each form not only corresponded to its determined purpose,
but the decoration was appropriate to the use to which the piece was
designed. They had, for example, small round dishes which were
filled with preserved fruit and sent to young maidens on festival
occasions. The painting on these generally represented love scenes.
Certain curious vases were offered exclusively to women soon after
confinement. These singular pieces could be separated into six or
seven parts—spoon, bouillon cup, egg plate, etc.—which after having
been used were placed in the original order, so as to reconstruct the
vase. These were decorated with allegorical subjects representing all
the gods and goddesses of love. The same idea was carried out in all
their other utensils. Thus, on their washstands we find tritons,
nymphs, and marine scenes. The fruit dishes were decorated with
agricultural scenes. It is well known that their architecture was
largely derived from the ceramic art.
There existed in France at the period when Bernard Palissy was
alive a form of decoration quite as remarkable as his, as remarkable
because it denotes in its originators a really novel conception in the
CERAMIC DECORATION—FRANCHET. 645
way of inlaid ceramic ware. This is the decoration of the Saint
Porchaire faiences.
Instead of making large inlaid ornamentations of archaic design
such as were made in France during the twelfth century, the artists
of Saint Porchaire ingeniously conceived the idea of filiform inlays,
offering extraordinary difficulty in the way of execution, entirely
different in this respect from the faiences of Palissy.
The faiences of Saint Porchaire are of yellowish color with incrus-
tations generally colored brown by oxides of iron and manganese,
and are enameled with a colorless glaze.
Painting on rough enamel such as was practiced in Italy and later
in France has one feature of great inconvenience in that since the
crude enamel is very fragile, the artist can do no retouching. At the
beginning of the eighteenth century a new sort of technique was
adopted. The enameled piece was baked at 900° and after this
baking the design was painted with colors rendered fusible by the
addition of a flux, which is a glass melting between 600° and 800°.
The colors prepared by mixing a color producing oxide and a flux
are apphed over the previously baked covering and are then sub-
mitted to a special firing at a low temperature, say 650°. These col-
ors when they become vitrified adhere to the enamel and attain a
brillant hue. This form of coloring is called decoration with vit-
rifiable colors. The best-known ancient faiences decorated by this
process are those of Strasbourg, Lunéville, Saint Armand, and Mar-
seille. These vitrifiable colors were first applied to the decoration
of soft porcelain, and afterwards to hard porcelain, on which it was
almost exclusively used during the nineteenth century at Sevres,
Berlin, and Meissen. They were abandoned in the art when decora-
tion under the glaze appeared nearly a century ago. This latter
form of decoration consists in applying infusible colors reduced to
an impalpable powder to the unenameled piece, or in other words to
the paste after it has been baked. This is then covered with a trans-
parent glaze. All the earthenware which is manufactured to-day for
table use is decorated by this process. The temperature at which the
faiences are baked never exceeds 1,070°, so that all the known metallic
oxides can be used in this decoration. This is not the case in porce-
lain decoration, which must be subjected to a temperature of 1,400°.
The number of colors that can resist this high temperature is ex-
tremely limited; they are the cobalt blues, the chrome greens, the
roses and reds obtained from the grés (sandstone) of Thiviers, the
yellow from nickel, the brown from iron and manganese, the gray of
platinum, and the rose of gold. At this temperature a very beautiful
yellow may be obtained with uranium oxide, which requires a highly
oxidizing flame. The straw yellow obtained by the use of titanic
acid is somewhat pale in tone.
646 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
It was the Royal Manufactory at Copenhagen which, in 1885, first
demonstrated the advantage obtained by the decoration of porcelain
at a high temperature (1,400°).
The factory at Sevres followed it in this process and with very
great success, for it had possessed for a long time the knowledge of
the decoration with colors at high temperatures, which had been
investigated there long before it had been carried out at Copenhagen.
Sévres possessed a range of tones much more vigorous than those in
use at Copenhagen, as may be observed by comparing the products
of the two establishments.
I must now take up the subject of stoneware (grés), to which
Brogniart has added the name of cérame to distinguish it from the
natural grés (sandstone) which is that abundant rock, certain hard
varieties of which are utilized in making mill stones and paving
blocks.
I may first mention the fact that there are four classes of ceramic
_ products, earthenware, faience, stoneware, and porcelain. The first
two are made of unvitrified paste and are consequently porous.
The other two are of vitrified paste (after baking of course) and
are impermeable.
Porcelain is the most beautiful of all these ceramic products, but
its very high price largely limits its use. However, as vitrified clay
articles are much superior to the unvitrified, in the last twenty years
stoneware has been accorded a most important position.
At the same time that stoneware was adopted into the art a special
decoration was applied to it, consisting of covered colors obtained
by the mixture of a coloring agent with a colorless covering.
Stoneware is baked at 1,250° at most, at a temperature consequently
much lower than porcelain. No faith should be given to the asser-
tions of certain ceramists who pretend to bake their stoneware above
the temperature I have just indicated, some of whom talk tempera-
tures as high as 1,800° to 2,000°.
Others do not hesitate to claim that the manufacture and decora-
tion of stoneware are much more difficult than with porcelain. I
hear this absurdity continually repeated, but I am sure that experi-
ence would lead them to a change of mind in this regard.
In considering the question of stoneware, the idea came up of
resuscitating an old color discovered in 1792 by the German chemist
Klaproth. This is the color based on titanic acid. Titanic acid is
met with abundantly in nature, associated to the extent of 2 or
3 per cent with oxide of iron. It appears in the form of a red
crystalline mineral called rutile. One of the most remarkable
properties of rutile is that it gives a mat finish to covering layers in
which it is incorporated. These mat finishes have been declared
the supreme perfection in ceramic decoration, though no one will
CERAMIC DECORATION—FRANCHET. 647
admit that, while they suit certain circumstances, they are deplorable
in many others. A mat finish can be obtained with great facility
with all shades without exception, but there are three which have
been adjudged worthy of serious consideration. These are the brown
mat finish obtained with rutile; the green obtained by combining
rutile with cobalt oxide; the gray blue obtained in the same way as
the green, but by the use of a less proportion of cobalt.¢
The introduction of mat finishes in ceramic decoration filled a long-
felt want. They are necessary because they make possible the use
of certain motifs of sculpture that lose much of their character with
brilliant glazes. The best things should not be abused, however. The
mistake has been made of applying mat finishes to everything,
notably in architecture. The Sévres manufactory has set the
example, as, indeed, it may well do, since it is our great national
establishment for ceramic study. That factory was responsible for
the construction of the immense portico of stoneware with a mat
finish seen to-day in the square of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in Paris.
This sample of modern ceramic architecture bears witness to our
inferiority to the Orient, where they use brilliant enamels ex-
clusively with a skill that might well inspire our architects and
ceramists. Paris to-day numbers several edifices of mat stoneware.
Let us hope that they will not be multiplied.
The tones communicated to glazes and covering layers by metallic
oxides are, from the standpoint of coloration, closely dependent
on the nature of the atmosphere of the kiln. The flames that come
from the hearth of a kiln and penetrate into the firing chamber,
inclosing the articles to be fired, are possessed of different properties
according to their composition. They may be oxidizing, neutral, or
reducing. <A flame is oxidizing when it is saturated with oxygen
derived from the air and contains not only an excess of carbon but
an excess of oxygen. Under these conditions it is blue in color. A
flame is neutral when it contains neither carbon nor oxygen in excess.
It still has a blue tint, but this is less intense than in the preceding
case. A flame is reducing when there is a lack of oxygen in it and
it is saturated with carbon. It is then yellow in color. It is there-
fore easy to understand that these flames, having different composi-
tions, will exert considerable influence on the colors which may be
submitted to their action. The ceramic ware which we usually see is
fired with an oxidizing flame.
Two kinds of decoration may be obtained with a reducing fire;
one at a low temperature, the other at a high temperature. The
decoration with a low temperature is represented by the faiences
“All the formule for mat finishes have been published many times, and are
known to-day to all ceramists.
45745°—sm 1909——42
648 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
with metallic luster. To obtain these scintillating deposits, whose
process of manufacture I have described several times, it is only
necessary to apply to the glaze after it is fired a copper salt—oxide
sulphide, oxalate, or the like. The piece is then heated to a dull red
(about 550°) and afterwards submitted to the action of reducing
cases. These iridescent tones may be varied by the addition of salts
of silver and bismuth, but I have previously shown that the brown,
yellow, golden, or red shades of metallic deposits are not due, as here-
tofore believed, to the nature of the mixture of oxides, but to the
duration of the reduction.
The copper red, called rouge, flammé, or flambé, is fired in a reduc-
ing flame, not at a low but at a high temperature. At the present
time, it is true, the public has been so misled by ceramic fairy tales
that they are completely ignorant as to what these flamed pieces are.
Asa matter of fact, when a particular vase has little value, and is conse-
quently difficult to sell, they embellish it with the description “ flammé
de grand feu” (flamed at a high temperature), demand quadruple
the actual worth, and almost always then find a purchaser. Every-
one seems to possess a peculiar mentality that leads him to see some-
thing wonderful in the simplest things. He is easily led astray by
these ceramic fables, for the art to him is secret, of fearful tempera-
tures, and of mysterious manipulations worthy of the most somber
epochs of the middle ages. These fables are a relic of Bernard
Palissy, who had better never have written his Art de terre.
Many imagine that these flame effects can not be obtained except
on stoneware. This is again an error; they are even more beautiful
on porcelain on account of the whiteness of the clay.
The term flammé applies exclusively to that beautiful red finish,
with a copper base, which generally shows vertical striations due to
the variable intensity of the coloring material. These variations of
tone are a result of the action of the reducing gases, which contain
zones in the interior of the kiln which are not all saturated in the
same degree with carbon dioxide or hydrocarbons. This is clearly
indicated by the fact that on a vase colored with this copper red are
frequently found greenish or bluish parts, and sometimes even pal-
pable greens or blues showing an oxidizing action, and brown and
black parts produced by a more intense reduction than that causing
the vivid reds. These peculiarities show that there evidently exist
varied zones in the kiln, some oxidizing, some neutral, and some
reducing, the latter of course being the preponderating element.
These rouge flammé coverings may be either brilliant or mat; the.
former, however, are incomparably more beautiful than the latter.
To obtain a mat red a large proportion of alumina (in the form of
kaolin) or lime (in the form of chalk) must be introduced into the
649
covering layer. By a large proportion I mean from 20 to 30 per cent.
The covering should be applied to the piece in a very thin layer,
however, 2 millimeters at most.
The reduction should be an energetic one, and in this connection
I have observed that this can be controlled by the proper regulation
of the draft damper. The constructors of kilns have gotten into the
bad habit of placing this directly over the grates, and I have noticed
that such a practice is injurious to the proper operation of the kiln,
while if the regulator is placed at the base of the chimney, which
surmounts the dome, the draft is perfectly even; it can then be regu-
lated in such a way that the interior atmosphere may be rendered
at will either strongly oxidizing or strongly reducing.
In an oxidizing fire a lead glaze with copper acquires that vivid
green tone which has always been very popular among primitive
peoples, and which is still in general usage in the north of Africa—
for example, in Algeria and Morocco, in spite of constant contact
with France—in Italy, and in Spain. An alkaline covering (rich in
potash and soda) acquires a remarkable blue tone (Egyptian blue),
to which may be given a greenish tinge by the addition of lead. This
gives a turquoise tone.
In a reducing fire the green glaze, the blue glaze, or the turquoise
become red, but the last is alkalino-plumbous and will always give a
much more beautiful red than one containing only lead.
With this red I have associated the titanium blue. We have seen
that rutile, natural titanic acid, gives a yellow or brown-yellow in an
oxidizing fire. Under the influence of reducing gases, the titanic
acid passing over into the blue sesquioxide of titanium is an impor-
tant feature in the decoration of the flamed pottery. This titanium
blue has the remarkable peculiarity of preserving its blue tone in
artificial light, instead of appearing brown like the cobalt blues, or
green like the copper blues.
When the copper red and the titanium blue are combined on the
same piece, violet would ordinarily be expected, but each color keeps
its own shade. Violet can nevertheless be produced as I have ob-
served in extremely rare cases, an effect due, perhaps, to particular
conditions of reduction that escaped my attention in the firing.
Violet tones in the flamed ware can be easily obtained, however, by
combining the copper red with the blue of cobalt if the latter is not
added in too great excess.
Finally, I have obtained some curious modifications of tone by
combining copper, sesquioxide of titaniumand glucinum. (Isay cop-
per and not oxide of copper because, according to the theory of Ebell,
the coverings are colored red, not by the oxide but by the metal
itself.) I introduce the glucinum in the form of silicate, conse-
650 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
quently as emerald, using the emerald of Limousin, which is nearly
white because it is free from the chromium oxide present in the green
emerald used in jewelry; an oxide which is really an impurity.
To sum up, ceramic decoration in a reducing fire makes it possible
to obtain effects which are totally unknown in decoration by an
oxidizing firing. The colors obtained by reduction possess a con-
siderable power; they are not due to chance, as certain ceramists
declare, but they are determined by true chemical reactions between
the metallic oxides and the products of combustion. We have not
yet mastered them, it is true, for the study of them is only roughly
sketched out, and if I have been able to determine the exact condi-
tions under which copper red can be obtained at will it is only the
result of a considerable number of observations.¢
Decoration with a reducing flame offers a vast field for research
which I believe will reveal some absolutely new facts.
In this brief study of the evolution of ceramic decoration I think
I have demonstrated sufficiently the truth of the statement I made
at the beginning; that is, that this art has been intimately con-
nected with the history of races since the origin of humanity.
4T can not enter into all the details of the production of copper red. I have
recently written an article on this subject which appeared in the Transactions
of the English Ceramic Society, vol. 8, p. 71 (on the development of copper
red in a reducing atmosphere).
SOME NOTES ON ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
[With 4 plates. ]
By F. T. Baae@anay, F.R.1.B.A.
Roman buildings, after remaining for three centuries the sole in-
spiration of the architects of all Europe, have for a long time now
received far less attention from English students than is their due,
whether they are judged on their merits or by the fact that they are
the direct ancestors of all such modern architecture as can claim
ancient descent.
Our attention has lately been directed once more to Roman work—
first, by the fact that when last English architects examined it they
were content to look at a part only, and hardly went below the surface
even there; secondly, I think, by our growing acquaintance with M.
Choisy’s illuminating work on Roman building methods; and, lastly,
by a half hope that, as the Imperial Roman system of construction
was largely a monolithic concrete system, it may contain some sugges-
tions for dealing with ferro, or reenforced, concrete: all the more since
Roman concrete was almost always itself in a sense reenforced with
brickwork. It is true that to call the brickwork used with concrete
by the Romans “ reenforcement ” is somewhat misleading; at best it
has but little resemblance to what we call reenforcement now; and
much is merely centering or facing. On the whole, however, the cause
for paying special attention at the present time to Roman architecture
is strong enough, I hope, to excuse me for bringing the subject before
you, although I have no fresh information and little new to say about
it. I should like to treat it historically; for, although the dry facts
connected with an architectural style or system of building can be
learned without reference to the historical point of view, they can
only be really interesting or fruitful when seen in chronological se-
quence and in connection with the circumstances that molded them.
Without the help of history we see only the effect and not the cause,
“Read before the Birmingham Architectural Association, February 19, 1909.
Reprinted by permission, after revision by the author, from Journal of the
Royal Institute of British Architects, London, third series, vol. 16, No. 20,
October 16, 1909.
651
652 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
and without perceiving both we get at nothing that is of much real
use to us.
A good history of Roman architecture has yet, however, to be
written; and there are some difficulties in the way of writing it which
are surprising if we consider only how many remains still exist and
how much we know about Roman history and civilization in other
directions. The difficulties are the paucity and architectural un-
importance of existing remains that can even probably be assigned to
periods before the establishment of the Empire, the frequent difficulty
in dating with certainty the existing remains in Rome of later
structures, and the entire absence, in most cases, of definite clues to
the dates of provincial buildings. The first two difficulties are largely
due to the building activity of the first two centuries of our era,
which led, with considerable aid from fires, to the repeated partial or
complete reconstruction of almost all important buildings in Rome.
The uncertainty of the chronology of Roman architecture was
somewhat violently illustrated only a few years ago. In 1894 M.
Chedanne, a young Frenchman, seizing a favorable opportunity, was
able to show that the rotunda of the Pantheon is not the building
erected by Agrippa in B. C. 27, as had generally been supposed, but
almost certainly a structure of the time of the Emperor Hadrian;
quite certainly not earlier, for all the bricks which he extracted at
random from various parts bore stamps known to be of that reign.*
This discovery removed the principal witness to the extraordinary
fact, hitherto always assumed, and often asserted in so many words,
that the Imperial Roman system of brick and concrete construction
sprang suddenly into existence fully developed in the reign of Augus-
tus, and endured, virtually unchanged, for nearly three and a half
centuries. M. Choisy himself, in a short chapter? labeled—perhaps
in irony—* historical,’ spent much language in enlarging on the
unprecedented and surprising nature of the thing; but he insisted
nevertheless on the sudden rise of the system, its almost as sudden
abandonment, and the absence of growth or development between.
M. Choisy, like others, evidently compared the Pantheon with the
writings of Vitruvius, who must have published them at just about
the time it was being built, yet was obviously entirely ignorant of
any methods of building nearly so advanced; and instead of finding
what now appears to be the obvious solution of the puzzle—namely
that the date assigned to the Pantheon was a mistake—M. Choisy
accepted the date as others had done and arrived at the only conclu-
sion then possible—namely that the incredible had really happened,
that the system on which the Pantheon is built had just sprung sud-
denly into existence, and that Vitruvius was a poor old fellow far
aR, I. B. A. Journal, 1895, 176-177. ‘VT’art batir, Part 3, chap. 1.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 653
behind his times and grossly ignorant of what was going on around
him. Unless we believe this of Vitruvius it is impossible to suppose
that walls faced with burnt brick were common, if they existed at all,
in the earlier part of the reign of Augustus. It is true that in a pas-
sage ¢ in which he is supposed to be quoting a law then just promul-
gated he mentions burnt brick as one of the materials allowed to be
used for ground-floor walls in Rome. (It is a passage that reads
rather like a later insertion, but that need not be insisted upon.) But
he nowhere mentions the triangular bricks used in all known remains
of Roman brick facing, and in the long chapter in which he describes
minutely the various kinds of walls he not only does not mention
brick facing at all, but says that opus reticulatum—a facing of smal!
blocks of stone—was what everyone was then using—‘ quo nune
omnes utuntur.” ”
There is one piece of Roman brickwork, the basilica at Pompeii,
which Overbeck in his great work on the town put down to 93 B. C.°
and which others, on the strength of a date said to be scratched on
the building, have attributed to the consulship of Lepidus and Catu-
lus—that is, 76 B. C. But such dates are most improbable. The
work is beautifully executed with molded bricks (pl. 1, fig. 2), in a style
which one can not suppose to have been possible at such dates, but
would be quite natural if the basilica had been rebuilt after the earth-
quake of A. D. 68, which, according to the contemporary evidence of
Seneca, threw down a great part of the town.?
Without admitting that because one doubts whether the Romans
used brick-faced concrete quite so early as has been supposed, one is
therefore obliged to point out when they did begin to use it, it may
be suggested that the upper part of the ruins of Caligula’s palace, and
the original part of the wall of the pretorian camp in Rome, which
Doctor Middleton succeeded in distinguishing from later additions,
are the earliest works of the kind of which considerable remains exist.
From Middleton’s description ¢ the latter wall must have been a very
fine piece of work—better even than that executed under the Flavian
emperors, and he attributed it to the time of Tiberius, when the
camp was first established by Sejanus in A. D. 23. Dean Merivale
says the wall was not built until two centuries later, but he was prob-
ably thinking of the work of Aurelian, who, as Doctor Middleton
shows, merely raised it. The latter’s supposition that the wall was
built at once upon the establishment of the camp is not, however,
@Vit., II, 8,17. The text by Rose and Miiller-Striibing, Leipsic, 1877, is used
throughout.
Davart PTS Shai,
© Overbeck, Pomp., 121.
@ Sen. Quaest. Nat., VI, 1. See also Tac. Annales, XV, 22 and 34.
€ Remains, II, 233 et seq.
654 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
necessarily correct. The mere establishment of the camp was suffi-
cient for the purposes of the moment, and to fortify it permanently
at once would have been to further alarm the people of Rome without
adequate reason. The coin, too, of Claudius on which the camp is
pictured appears to show a.timber fence rather than a brick wall. On
the whole, it seems quite likely that the wall was not built before the
time of Claudius, or even Nero. With regard to the other example
also, the works are immense, and if completed by Caligula must have
been built in three and a half years at most. There is nothing im-
probable in supposing that part of the palace to have been completed
by Claudius; and there is a distinct difference of system between the
lower and upper parts of the work, the lower being of opus reticulatum
with brick quoins and arches only. One part of the ruins of Nero’s
“ Golden House” Doctor Middleton also describes as being faced
with brick, and another with a mixture of opus reticulatum and
brick —that is no doubt with brick quoins. It would be rash to
entertain a positive conviction opposed to the generally accepted
opinion, but it seems possible we may eventually discover that though
fired building bricks were gradually coming to the front from the
middle of the first century B. C., and may have been given a certain
impetus by the metropolitan building act of Augustus, their use in
the place of stone for entire wall facings did not become general
before the time of Nero. If that should be so, we may perhaps also
find that the system of building concrete vaults with a lacing or
framework of brick did not reach its final development before the
middle of the second century of our era.
With respect to Roman concrete, I should like to enter a protest
against the indiscriminate use of the term by Doctor Middleton and
other writers, who apply it even to the walls called by Vitruvius in-
certum and reticulatum, in opposition, as it seems to me, to what
Vitruvius himself tells us. It may be merely a question of a defini-
tion, but if a writer has one definition for a thing and his readers
another, he becomes misleading. Doctor Middleton argues for the
word concrete because “ the result was a perfectly coherent mass, like
a block of stone, particularly unlike what is now usually known as
rubble work.”’ But to the professional reader the difference between
concrete and rubble work is not one of result, but of the way in which
the result 1s obtained—the results by either method may differ as
chalk from cheese. The doctor himself acknowledges that in the ex-
amples he examined the larger stones were placed with so much regu-
larity that they must have been thrown in separately. He arrived at
the conclusion that thick layers of mortar, mixed with small stones,
and layers of larger stones, were thrown in alternately.2- When this
Remains, II, 148, 149. oTbid., Ey 47:
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Baggallay. PLATE 1.
Fia. 1.—VAULT OF THE MAMERTINE PRISON.
Fic. 2.—BASILICA, POMPEII.
All the columns are of brick covered with hard stucco (Opus albarium).
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 655
was done in trenches in the ground, within wooden molds, of which
he found distinct marks on certain walls, or between two built faces,
as described by Vitruvius in speaking of wrought stonework,’ one may
very well admit the term concrete, even though the regularity of the
larger stones suggests that they were laid in by hand rather than
thrown in (pl. 3, fig. 1). But Vitruvius never by so much as a hint
suggests the use of “ false work” in his time. He tells us, and the
appearance of the walls at Pompeii, for instance, bears out the de-
scription, that opus incertum consisted of rough quarry stones, “ one
over the other bonded together ” *—in fact, a rubble wall, built, no
doubt, with a larger quantity of mortar than we use, but built, not
cast. Opus reticulatum he does not describe in detail, but evidently
regards as a fashionable variety (which he does not altogether ap-
prove) of incertum.’ As a matter of fact, it would not be possible to
cast a wall faced with opus reticulatum, and would be very difficult
even to build it behind boarding, especially the weather boarding, of
which Middleton found traces. The facing was of small conical
stones with square heads, which were required to fit neatly together
on the face; to set them inside boarding a man must have worked
overhand and without seeing what he was doing. Without the board-
ing, however, there would be no more difficulty in building such a
wall than in building a flint wall with split facing; and there can
be little doubt that that is how it was done. It must, however, have
been slow work. One- knows how necessary it is to go slow when
building with flint or small rubble in lime mortar. After getting a
foot or two one must wait for the mortar to set before putting more
weight on, otherwise the work will bulge and twist. Now, mortar
made with pozzolana, such as the Romans used, though it eventually
gets extremely hard, does not in the first few days set appreciably
faster than good lime mortar; and the Romans used it in large quan-
tity. If one may venture to guess, it was this slowness that led after
a time to the introduction of false work to support walls while in
course of erection. It seems nearly certain it was unknown in the
early years of the reign of Augustus, but it may have been intro-
duced soon afterwards. The building activity of that reign was
unprecedented, and would probably have demanded methods quicker
than the old. On the other hand, most of the remains of the time
are of squared stone or very neatly executed opus reticulatum, which
can not have been built behind false work (pl. 2). Middleton’s
G Wate IDS th Be
O Walt, IO i de
¢ The way in which a contrast is set up between the two, sufficiently excuses
Doctor Middleton, as an amateur of building, for the mistake he makes in
regarding incertum as applying, like reticulatum, to the facing of the wall
only. There can be no doubt about the real meaning of the passage.
656 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
earliest dated example of the evidence of false work is part of the
foundations of Caligula’s palace,* and he mentions” also a facing of
opus reticulatum and brick, which may very well be of the same
period, as being very roughly executed, which would be natural if
an attempt had been made to apply the new discovery to a purpose
to which it was not suited.
In the matter of arches and vaults, the later Romans believed that
they had learned the art of building them from their old neighbors
and enemies, the Etruscans; and probably they did, though it is easy
to see that the character of the materials they had at hand was such
as to favor an arched system, while the nature of the site of Rome
and the surrounding country suggested the construction of drains
and aqueducts, in which arching, to say the least, came in very use-
fully. The history of Roman architecture in early and Republican
times may, perhaps, never be recovered. The difficulties in the way
of excavations are great, while, owing to the continuous occupation
of sites, the results rarely throw much light on early work. There
are some remains of early walls of that squared and bonded masonry
which Vitruvius seems to have thought was one of the things Roman
architects had borrowed from the Greeks,’ and we may assume as
certain that, like the Etruscans, the Romans early used the arch to
span gateways. But we do not know how soon they began to put
the arch to other uses, and the extent to which vaulting was de-
veloped, before it was taken up by the architects of the imperial
period, is not altogether clear. The little dome over the ancient sub-
terranean chamber, called the Tullianum in Rome, is built of cut stone
in horizontal courses, and M. Chedanne declared? that the dome
of the Pantheon is built entirely of brick in the same way—that is,
in horizontal courses. If he was right, it would seem to indicate that
even in the reign of Hadrian the Romans had not arrived at our con-
ception of domes as developments of the arch and dependent for
their stability on much the same forces, but they regarded them as
systems of corbelling. The chamber above the Tulhanum, called the
Mamertine prison, is, however, roofed with a small barrel vault neatly
built with stone voussoirs (pl. 1, fig. 1). Its date is uncertain except
that is very early Republican. If Vitruvius knew how to build a
vault at all, it is surprising that he did not give instructions in the
art in a work which he evidently intended should cover the whole
field of building and in which he deals with so many smaller mat-
ters. In the chapter on baths’ he twice mentions Camere, that is,
@Remains, I, 196. @Op. cit.
ob Tbid., II, 149. CNV. Vey 0:
G\ Waites, JOS sh. Le
Smithsonian Report, 1909,—Baggallay. PLATE 2.
OPUS RETICULATUM IN THE MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS, SAID TO HAVE BEEN BUILT IN
28 B. C.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 657
arched ceiling, over the hot rooms and twice the hemisphere over
the semicircular recess in which the labrum was placed. But he im-
plies that the arched ceilings would not usually be structural ones.
He says “ they will be more serviceable if built,” but not how that is
to be done, and proceeds to describe? as an alternative a ceiling of
“roofing tiles without margins” laid on iron rods or arches hung
to a timber framing.
The still existing barrel and hemispherical vaults over some of the
rooms in the public baths at Pompeii are often quoted as of the re-
publican period, but their date is very uncertain. From illustra-
tions it would appear that they are entirely of concrete or rubble
without brick, but the walls of the rooms are shown as having brick
piers and lacing courses, which, according even to Doctor Middle-
ton, would make them not earlier than the last years of the reign of
Augustus.’ The oldest important Roman vaults to which a date can
be assigned with tolerable certainty are those in the building called
the Tabularium, erected against the face of the Capitoline Hill, on the
Forum side, probably in B. C. 78. These are narrow barrel vaults
of tufa concrete strengthened in one part at intervals with arches
constructed with stone voussoirs, and partly, perhaps, resting on
them. The next are those of the substructures of Caligula’s palace,
which, if not quite so old as Caligula’s reign, must be older than
those of the Colosseum. Middleton says they are cast concrete.¢
Then come the vaults behind the two lower ranges of arches of the
Colosseum (pl. 4), which must have been erected between A. D.
70 and 80. These are barrel vaults constructed with brick arches at
intervals, between which they are of concrete, on the lower surface of
which the marks of boarding are still visible. All the more elabor-
ately constructed vaults illustrated by M. Choisy are of the second
century or later.
To turn from the history of construction to other matters: There
is other evidence, besides that of Vitruvius, for the fact that the
Romans acknowledged their indebtedness to the Etruscans for the
form of their early temples, which appear to have had tree trunks for
columns, widely spaced, and carrying wooden architraves. The cella
walls were of rubble or unburnt brick, stuecoed over, and no doubt
terminating opposite the columns of the prostyle portico in timber
ante. The roof was of timber, covered with terra-cotta tiles; a
terra-cotta cornice and ornaments were fixed round the eaves and
sometimes, at least, terra-cotta or bronze statues ornamented the
tympanum and the apex of the pediment. All was crudely painted
in bright colors. Judging by a custom of later times, which must be
ON Gite VareL Oss ’ Remains. I, 54. €Tbid., p. 196.
658 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
mainly due to tradition, the whole structure was probably raised on
a high base or podium, perhaps to lift it above the marshy ground
common in Roman and Etruscan territory, perhaps because the first
Roman temple had for some reason to be built overhanging the edge
of the Capitoline mount on a substructure built upon the hillside.
Vitruvius mentions three temples ® still standing in Rome in his day
as specimens of what he calls the old Tuscan order, describing them
as “clumsy, heavy roofed, low and wide,” and in another place? he
gives his usual set of pedantic rules for reproducing such temples.
These run to some length, and are chiefly interesting because they
appear in the main to describe the most important temple in Rome,
that of Jupiter Capitolinus, as it existed in his day—that is, as it
was rebuilt by Sulla after the fire of 83 B. C., and remained until
again destroyed by fire in the faction fight that ushered in the reign
of Vespasian in A. D. 70. We learn that the temple was not far from
square on plan, the width being to the depth as 5 to 6; that it had only
one pediment, the back of the roof being hipped; that the eaves were
very wide; that half the depth of the temple was taken up by the
portico; that the cella, which occupied the back half, was divided
into three in width; that the columns were of pseudo-Doric character
with bases; and other interesting particulars. Vitruvius specifies
wooden architraves, but does not say anything about the material
of the eolumns. We know, however, from Pliny ¢ and the researches
of Penrose,? that the shafts of the columns of this particular temple
were colored marble monoliths, stolen by Sulla from the temple of
Olympian Zeus at Athens. We know, too, that the pediment was
crowned with a huge terra-cotta quadriga, reputed to have been
brought in ancient days from Veil.
But the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, of which we thus get a
fairly complete and detailed view, was not typical of the buildings,
nor even of the temples, of the later Republican period, but was
obviously peculiar. Although it had been rebuilt only about half a
century before Vitruvius wrote, a great conservatism had presided at
the reconstruction. of a fane reputed the oldest and most sacred in
Rome, and the light thrown upon it is chiefly of use to illuminate
what may be called the first period of Roman architecture, before it
came under the direct influence of Greece, or was stimulated by the
broader outlook, the new requirements, and the wealth arising from
foreign conquests and ever-increasing commercial activity. Some of
these influences began to be felt soon after 200 B. C., between the end
of the second Punic war and the final destruction of Carthage. In
that period at least three basilicas were erected in Rome to accom-
OWitt. JODIS By fy ¢ Pliny, XXXIV, 45.
OW tig, IOS We @ Athen. Arch., edit. 1888.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.—Baggallay. PLATE 3.
Fic. 1.—ONE OF THE PIERS OF THE AQUEDUCT
OF CLAUDIUS, SHOWING THE COURSES IN
ROMAN CONCRETE.
2OBFS.6 iS Mee
“Tan
oanere
Fic. 2.—REMAINS OF THE LOWER ARCADE OF THE TABULARIUM, FACING THE ROMAN
FORUM.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 659
modate the increasing legal business arising from her position as
mistress of all Italy and suzerain of most of the known world. They
were probably the first of the long line of public civil buildings which
distinguish Roman architecture. Before their erection the Forum
and the temples seem to have sufficed for all public business except
ordinary meetings of the Senate, which took place in the Curia, itself,
however, merely an old temple enlarged for the purpose.* Nothing
remains of two of these basilicas, and even their sites are matters of
controversy. One, the Basilica Aimilia, is pictured on a coin, where
it is represented as a small two-storied porticus of columns, roofed,
but with open sides. Professor Lanciani believes he has discovered
its remains.” The earliest triumphal arches—three or four at least—
were also built in this period; but again all we know for certain of
their appearance or construction is that they were adorned with statues
of gilt bronze. Two more bridges over the Tiber (there was already
one) were also built, one of which was reputed to be the first stone
bridge. But for some time the piers only were of stone, the arches
not being added until 142 B. C., whether from lack of skill, or because
there were superstitious objections to the use of anything but wood
for bridges, is not clear. Meanwhile many Greek works of art and
educated slaves were finding their way to Rome, and after 146 B. C.,
when Greece became a Roman province, we are told that Roman art
and literature fell entirely under Greek influence. One could wish
there were more evidence of the extent and effect of that influence
on architecture, for the last century of the Republic was one of con-
siderable building activity, and it would help greatly toward a com-
prehension of the laws, if such there be, that govern architectural
development if we had but a few well-authenticated remains of the
many old temples rebuilt, and of the others and the public buildings
erected in Rome and elsewhere in that century. But for temples we
have to rely on a single small example, the so-called Temple of For-
tuna Virilis at Rome, which, on the evidence of the building itself,
is attributed to this time, probably correctly; and, for public build-
ings, on the so-called Tabularium, the main evidence for the date of
which is a little shaky, but is borne out by that of the structure; and
finally, the lower part of the theater of Marcellus, which was begun
by Julius Cesar. Of the Temple of Fortuna Virilis (or Fortuna
simply) Doctor Middleton says:° “ What the real date of this very
interesting building may be it is impossible to guess, except that it is
probably earlier than the middle of the first century B. C. Its early
date is indicated by its pure Hellenic style, free from any Roman
ONoiviye WoO, and) SXeXaIe) 55;
o “Architectural results of the latest excavations in the Forum at Rome,” by
Professor Lanciani. [Journal R. I, B. A., 24th Nov., 1900.]
© Remains, II, 190.
660 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
modifications (except perhaps the form of its elevated podium), by
the absence of any marble, and by its being mainly built of tufa,
travertine being used in a very sparing way, though much care and
labor have evidently been spent on the construction and decoration
of the building.” The temple is a very small one, pseudo-peripteral
with a prostyle portico, and of the Ionic order. It was stuccoed all
over with marble-dust cement, in which all the moldings and orna-
ments were finished. The moldings were cut in the stone, but in
the cornice, at any rate, the finished cement moldings differ in several
respects from the stone ones. The proportions of the plan are Greek,
the length being just twice the width. But the ornaments of the
frieze, garlands hung from candelabra and ox skulls, are essentially
Roman. The attached columns are only half columns. The strong-
est items of evidence for early date are the Greek simplicity of the
moldings, the absence of marble, and the proportions of the building,
with regard to which the Romans, a little later on, were not in the
least particular. The sparing use of travertine proves nothing; as
a matter of fact it was more sparingly used in many later buildings.
The principal evidence for the exact date when the Tabularium was
erected is an inscription discovered in the building in 1450, now only
known from a quotation and which Doctor Middleton describes as
very vague and puzzling. But its purport is that substructures and
a tabularium were erected by Quintus Lutatius Catulus, who was
Consul in 78 B. C., and Doctor Middleton’s hesitation about it seems
to rest mainly on the fact that, while many tabularia, or record offices,
existed in Rome, this is not known to be one of them. It is not,
however, known to have been anything else; it appears to be suited
by position and arrangement to such a purpose; it has extensive and
conspicuous substructures; the character of the masonry shows it to
be of early date; and, finally, Doctor Middleton himself points out ® a
very interesting fact which appears to prove conclusively that the
substructures, at any rate, were built between 121 B. C. and about
6 A. D.—that is, during the existence of the second Temple of Concord.
He says that the only part of the facing of the tabularium wall not
neatly dressed is that which was concealed by that temple, which can
hardly mean anything but that the wall was built up against it.
Altogether the evidence of date is nearly conclusive, and far better
than in the case of the Temple of Fortuna or any other conspicuous
building except tombs supposed to be of the Republican period. I
have already described the vaulting. The walls and arches are all of
very neatly wrought masonry, with fine joints, mostly of the native
tufa (probably the rock that was cut away to make room for it), faced
with the harder peperino, in which the arches are of travertine. The
4 Remains, I, 366. 6 Tbid., I, 336.
PLATE 4.
Bagegallay.
Smithsonian Report, 1909.
VAULT IN COLOSSEUM.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 661
blocks of peperino are all cut to the same size—4 feet by 2 feet. The
upper part of the structure consisted on the front of an open arcade,
said to have been once two stories high, though now only part of the
lower story exists, mostly built up and surrounded by other buildings
(pl. 3, fig. 2). The architectural interest of this arcade is that it is
probably the earliest, or the earliest extant, example of the famous
Roman facade, namely, a series of constructional arches and piers,
like those of an aqueduct, ornamented with a framework of columns
and entablatures planted against them. It may be the first attempt
to endow a native arched structure with what was considered Greek
architectural grace. The engaged columns in this case are Doric—
the Roman variety—and parts of the architrave still exist, but all
above that is gone. If there were really two stories and the second
had Tonic columns the design must have been very like what we have
left of the outside of the Theater of Marcellus, only built straight
instead of circular, and raised on a lofty basement. Pompey’s Thea-
ter, the first stone theater in Rome, built 55 to 52 B. C., seems to have
been similar. The Theater of Marcellus was begun by Julius Cesar,
but, as it was not finished until 13 B. C., the works had probably not
got very far at his death. It is too well known to need description.
The whole of the outer wall is built of solid travertine masonry, as we
are told was that of Pompey’s Theater. It was all stuccoed over, but,
as in the case of the Temple of Fortuna, the moldings are carefully
cut in the stone beneath and, except the impost molds of the arches, are
good. The voussoirs of the arches are of great size and no archivolt
molding is worked on them. One may, of course, have been formed
in the stucco covering, but probably was not, for had it been in scale
with the heavy impost moldings it would have needed a core and
would also have been very ugly. The substructures of the cavea or
auditorium, much of which still remain, can hardly be coeval with
the outside wall; they may be part of the restoration undertaken by
Vespasian or of a later one.
A good deal might perhaps yet be learned concerning the history of
architectural details and construction from a critical comparison ot
tombs, and even of sarcophagi. They are more often dated by in-
scriptions than buildings, and very little liable to extensive restora-
tion. There are several large tombs near Rome known to be of the
later Republican period; for instance, that of Cecilia Metella, and the
curious baker’s tomb, close to the Porta Maggiore. Both of these are
built of wrought masonry with a backing of concrete or rubble, and
were once covered with the usual hard stucco. Neither brick nor
marble entered into their construction. The drum of Cecilia Me-
tella’s tomb has false V joints cut in the masonry, and a frieze of ox
skulls and garlands which seems characteristic of the time.
662 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The most interesting architectural development in the last century
of the Republic was the birth of a domestic architecture properly so
called, a domestic architecture nourished by the immense private for-
tunes which became common. The rapidity with which it grew up
may be gathered from the difference between the state of affairs in
125 B. C. and sixty or seventy years later. In the former year Sulla,
afterwards Dictator, was paying 3,000 sesterces—say £25—a year in
rent,* which is said to mean that he was living in two rooms; and
Lepidus, the augur, was called to order by the censor, for luxury,
because he paid twice as much.’ At the later time Cicero, besides his
town house, for which he had paid a sum equivalent to about £30,000,¢
owned no fewer than seven country ones—that is, for his own use—
and though we do not know the exact numbers of the houses kept up
by other rich men, it is quite clear Cicero was not singular in that
respect. These houses were of immense size. Sallust speaks of them
as like cities,? and they were adorned with marble columns, paintings,
statues, and works of art of all kinds. They covered large areas, the
greater part being but one story high; moreover, even in Rome they
were often surrounded by extensive gardens. One such house
changed hands for fifteen millions of sesterces°—say £132,000—
which probably did not include the movable works of art. It is re-
corded that as early as 92 B. C. Crassus erected in his atrium columns
of the marble of Mount Hymettus 12 feet high, for which piece of
luxury Brutus nicknamed him “ the Palatine Venus.”/ By 78 B. C.
Lepidus was using Numidian marbles not merely for columns, but for
thresholds.7_ Marble slabs for lining walls seem to have been intro-
duced rather later, in Ceesar’s time. Before that, all walls, internally
as well as externally, were covered with hard plaster and painted.
No remains are known of the large country houses or villas of the
time; and the impossibility of finding out much about them from
the allusions in ancient literature may be judged by the various inter-
pretations that have been put upon the fuller descriptions of his own
villas by Pliny 1 in the next century.
Passages in the sixth book of Vitruvius indicate, however, that
country ere of the better class in his day did not differ materially
as regards their domestic arrangements from town houses except that
the peristyle was the first court entered, with the atrium beyond it,
and that they had baths and various farm buildings attached to them.
After several chapters devoted to describing private dwellings gen-
erally, the several apartments, and the modifications of size and ar-
rangement required for different classes of owners, he says: “ But the
@Plut. Sall., ¢«. 1, éPlin.,. FL Ns XOXVi, dad.
6 Vell. Pat., II, 10. T Tbid:, XXX Vi, fe
oCier ad Att, I! 13:6. Olbid.. XXXVI: 48:
Cat. 12.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 663
same things are true, not only of buildings in the town, but also in
the country, except that in town the atriums are usually next the
gates, but in the country and suburbs uniformly the peristyles, then
at once paved atriums
having porticos around
and looking on_ the
palaestras and walks.” ¢
The object of the coun-
try arrangement was
obviously to get this
view of the grounds
from the common dwell-
ing room of the house.
It would seem not to
have held at a later
date in the larger villas
of the Imperial period,
when atrium had _be-
come less a dwelling
room than an entrance
hall, for Pliny says that ’
in his Laurentine villa == ooh
the atrium was the first eae ae
apartment entered. In
the suburban villa at
Pompei, called the villa
of Diomed (fig. 1), the
description of Vitruvius
holds good; for the long
apartment, called the
gallery, which looked
onto the terrace round
the palaestra and to
the country beyond, no Fig. 1.—Plan of the villa of Diomed. (From August
enibin a 1 : f f Mau’s Pompeii.) 1. Steps. 38. Peristyle. 8. Tablinum.
ou served most o 10. Exedra. 12. Dining room. 14. Sleeping room,
the purposes of the with anteroom (13). 15. Passage leading to a garden
t : : t 1 at the level of the street. 17. Small court with hearth
atrium In a town house, (e) and swimming bath (¢). 18. Storeroom. 19-21.
though its form differs Bath. (19. Apodyterium. 20. Tepidarium. 21. Cal-
ntic itv, i tl f tl : darium.) 22. Kitchen. 26. Gallery, facing a terrace
e rely oth trom those (28) over the front rooms of the lower part. e,f,9,h.
described by Vitruvius Colonnade inclosing a large garden. i, k, 1, m. Rooms.
elsewhere and from ™ "8! Pond. &. Arbor.
others in Pompeii. Unfortunately there are no means of dating the
building. For a wealthy man’s house it is not large, and the decora-
tion, though it is described as tasteful, was inferior to that of many
2468 PH KH -
eed it.
ONE WHS 1} Gh
45745°—sm 1909——43
664 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
other Pompeiian dwellings. One can hardly accept it as a specimen
of the spacious and sumptuous habitations we hear of even under
the late Republic.
In his chapter especially devoted to country houses® Vitruvius is
evidently describing only what we should call farmhouses. He
speaks of the several aspects and the arrangement of farm buildings,
stables, kitchens, wine presses and baths—which he says should be
placed so that they can be used also by the farm hands. And then
he adds: “ If something of luxury is to be introduced into country
houses they are to be built according to the proportions that are laid
down above for those in towns, on the fixed condition they are to be
so arranged as to be without impediment to country uses.”® In
Diomed’s villa this part of the problem seems to have been solved
by putting the farm buildings at the side of the house, separated from
it by a narrow court, probably as a safeguard against fire or noise;
and one may take it that in a gentleman’s villa some such arrange-
ment is so obvious that it would be the usual one. Of the better class
of Roman house at the end of the Republic, that is, the separate house
of the wealthy called a domus, as distinguished from the insula or
block of flats inhabited by poorer folk, we can obtain a very clear
idea from the descriptions of Vitruvius, which necessarily refer to
this time, because they are illustrated by considerable remains of such
houses at Pompeii. These agree very closely with the descriptions,
and many date no doubt, at any rate as regards plan and the lower
parts of the walls, from soon after 64 B. C., when the town was
Romanized and became a fashionable resort of the wealthy. One of
Cicero’s seven villas was at or near Pompeii; he calls it his Pompeian
villa. It would be wearisome to repeat the oft told names and uses
of the various apartments of the Roman or Pompeian house, though
a comparison of description with example is exceedingly interesting,
both in itself and in the light it throws on the life of the period. But
it may be worth while to repeat once more that the Pompeian houses
are essentially Roman, and not Greek in their arrangements. They
do not agree with the contemporary description’of a Greek house by
Vitruvius, and they do agree both with his description of a Roman
house and with what has been discovered of the plans of houses in
Rome; it is not very much, unfortunately, but adequate for the pur-
pose of comparison. The decorations of the Pompeian houses cer-
tainly appear to owe something to Greek influence, but similar
decoration has been found in Rome. The Greek names which Vit-
ruvius gives to many of the principal apartments he applies to Roman
houses generally and not to those in Pompeii alone. If the architec-
ture of Pompeii owes anything to Greek influence it is the influence
Wi Wate Wills (ey Oats.) WaAl,.0:
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 665
which for a long time dominated all Roman art, and can not be due
to the Greek origin of the city, as has been assumed. Pompeii had
ceased to be a Greek colony for many centuries before it became a
Roman one, and had passed successively, it is said, through the hands
of Oscans, Etruscans, and Samnites. The Greek tongue had long
been extinguished, and any Greek blood left in the inhabitants can
have been neither sufficient nor sufficiently important to inspire its
architecture.
If you compare Pompeian ruins with those of the immense struc-
tures in Rome, the walls seem to be but slightly built, but they are
quite as thick or thicker than we should erect now under similar cir-
cumstances. They are mainly of the so-called Roman concrete, really
rubble. Many quoins, most isolated piers, and some walls are of
wrought masonry. A certain amount of burnt brick is used, espe-
cially for patching and in the upper parts of the ruins. It probably
indicates work of the Imperial period, and generally, no doubt, the
repairs and restorations after the earthquake of A. D. 63, before
referred to. That upper stories over parts of the houses were com-
mon is shown by the considerable number of staircases and traces
of staircases found, although most appear to have been of wood and
many would leave no trace. The small remains of the upper stories
recovered indicate that they were constructed with wooden framing
and, sometimes at least, overhung the footways. The existence of
upper stories at Pompeii is interesting because a remark of Vitruvius
might have led one to suppose that in his day upper stories were
peculiar to Rome. He says: “The immense population (of Rome)
makes it necessary to have a vast number of dwellings, and as the
area is not enough to contain them all (on the ground story), the
nature of the case obliges us to raise them in the air.”* It hardly
seems likely that all the upper stories in Pompeii were additions sub-
sequent to the time of Vitruvius, and one must suppose he was re-
ferring only to an exceptional number of stories in Rome. It is diffi-
cult to guess how many these were. On the one hand no Latin author
ever mentions more than four, and Juvenal, a century after the time of
Vitruvius, speaks of the dwellings of the poor “in the fourth story
under the roofs.”® Besides, Vitruvius tells us that walls next a
public way might not be more than a foot and a half thick.“ On the
other hand Augustus thought it necessary to mit the height of
buildings to 70 feet.?
CVaiien Le (8S Le.
> Juv. Sat., III, 199 et seq.
ON. e Le. 8:
@Strab., V, 235. The houses in Carthage when it was destroyed are said to
have been eight stories high.
666 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The only existing remains of a house of Republican date in Rome
are those of the so-called house of Livia, under Domitian’s palace on
the Palatine. It contained a small atrium with the alae formed by
a long, narrow recess on each side of the tablinum, and not in the
position of those in the Pompeian houses. The walls are of wrought
masonry and the arches of stone voussoirs. From the plans of the
three houses found on a fragment of the celebrated “ Marble Plan”
of Rome, it would seem that alae were not essential in the atriums of
the Imperial period. In two cases they are altogether absent, and in
the third they have been separated from the atrium and turned into
a sort of gallery by a wall built across it. There are, too, several
cases in Pompeii where there are no alae or only one.
A number of ancient writers distinguish between the insula, or
group of small dwellings, and the domus or separate house, as we dis-
tinguish between a house and a block of flats. But in Pompeii, at
any rate, the domus as often as not formed part of a group which
included habitations of various sizes. The typical example is the
insula called the house of. Pansa, where around the domus are
grouped, besides shops that must have been separately occupied, at
least five small houses, three containing some five or six rooms, and
two of one room each and a staircase leading to an upper one, now
gone. There is, besides, a separate staircase from the street, which
probably led to other dwellings on the upper floor. It is said that
such an arrangement would have been impossible in Rome, where the
insule were built four or more stories high, because the light would
have been shut off from the main domus. But with internal courts as
large as the atria and peristyles of Roman houses, and the little value
evidently attached to light in the bedchambers and other small apart-
ments, there can have been no such objection. It can only be raised
to give the distinction between insula and domus too strict a
meaning. No doubt many a domus in Rome and the suburbs, as else-
where, was (in the language of the auctioneer) a “ desirable detached
residence,’ but probably many others formed parts of insule, as
in Pompeii. Shops on the principal street front, both communicat-
ing with the house and separated for letting off, are characteristic
of the Pompeian houses. Those belonging to the house were nomi-
nally for selling the produce of country estates, and illustrate a pas-
sage of Vitruvius in which he says: “For those, again, who have
to deal with country produce; at their entrances shop inclosures, and
among the buildings cellars, granaries, storehouses, and soon .. . are
to be made.” @
The construction of the houses in Rome must have made it a some-
what unpleasant place to live in. The streets must have been as nar-
CG \Wahign WAG 2c
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—BAGGALLAY. 667
row and dark as those in the worst of medizval cities. The stories
overhung one another, and, in addition, balconies projected so far
that in some cases at least it was possible to shake hands across the
street. [Even after Nero had enacted that all external walls were to be
of fireproof materials the upper stories continued to be of wood, and
were so badly built that they frequently fell. One writer declares
that people were driven out of Rome by the fear of falling houses.
Many speak of the danger of tiles slipping from the roofs or thrown
by persons in the upper stories. Of course bad fires were frequent.
A very old law directed that two and a half feet should be left clear
between the buildings,* but it fell into abeyance and does not seem to
have been observed even after it had been reenacted by Nero.” Prob-
ably “ vested interests” were too strong by that time to be overcome. °
T will only add an apology for referring so often to Vitruvius, a
writer who seems to me to receive less attention and respect than he
deserves; from scholars, because he wrote indifferent, or at any rate,
rather obscure Latin, and from architects, because, unfortunately,
few show any profound curiosity to know what he says, and conse-
quently do not find out how interesting he really is.
4A law of ‘‘ The twelve tables.”’ See Festus, pp. 5, 11, M.
bTac. Ann., XV, 43.
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Nala
THE RELATION OF SCIENCE TO HUMAN LIFE.*
By Prof. ADAM SEpDGwICcK, F. R. S.
In casting about for a suitable introduction for my address this
afternoon, I came across some words written by a great Englishman,
which, with your permission, I will read to you:
Remember the wise, for they have labored and you are entering into their
labors. Every lesson which you learned in school, all knowledge which raises
you above the savage and the profligate—who is but a savage dressed in civil-
ized garments—has been made possible to you by the wise. Every doctrine
of theology, every maxim of morals, every rule of grammar, every process of
mathematics, every law of physical science, every fact of history or of geog-
raphy, which you are taught, is a voice from beyond the tomb. Either the
knowledge itself, or other knowledge which led to it, is an heirloom to you from
men whose bodies are now moldering in the dust, but whose spirits live forever
and whose works follow them, going on, generation after generation, upon the
path which they trod while they were upon earth, the path of usefulness, as
lights to the steps of youth and ignorance.
They are the salt of the earth, which keeps the world of man from decaying
back into barbarism. They are the children of light. They are the’ aris-
tocracy of God, into which not many noble, not many rich, not many mighty
are called. Most of them were poor; many all but unknown in their own
time; many died and saw no fruit of their labors; some were persecuted, some
were slain as heretics, innovators, and corruptors of youth. Of some the very
names are forgotten. But though their names be dead their words live, and
grow, and spread over every fresh generation of youth, showing them fresh
steps towards that temple of wisdom which is the knowledge of things as they
are; the knowledge of those eternal laws by which God governs the heavens
and the earth, things temporal and eternal, physical and spiritual, seen and
unseen, from the rise and fall of mighty nations to the growth and death of
moss on yonder moors.
So spake Charles Kingsley, and his words I make use of as an in-
troduction which strikes the keynote of what I have to say to you
to-day.
The subject which I have chosen for my address—the relation of
pure science, and especially of biological science, to human life,
and inferentially the relation which ought to exist between pure and
“Address delivered at the Imperial College of Science and Technology on
December 16, 1909. Reprinted, after author’s revision, from Nature, London,
No. 2095, vol. 82, December 23, 1909.
669
670 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
applied science in a college of science—is naturally of great interest
to us in the Imperial College, which is a college of science and tech-
nology, and the purposes of which are, in the words of the charter,
“to give the highest specialized instruction and to provide the fullest
equipment for the most advanced training and research in various
branches of science, especially in relation to industry.” Particularly
do I desire to set forth as clearly as I can the justification for in-
cluding in a college which deals, not only with science, but with
science in relation to industry, those branches of science which deal
with organisms.
As industry forms the principal occupation of human life, and as
the phenomena of organisms constitute the science of life, it may seem
absurd to set out solemnly to justify the inclusion of the biological
sciences in a college which deals with science especially in its relation
to human life. Nevertheless, having regard to the fact that I have
heard some doubt expressed as to whether the cult of the biological
sciences properly falls within the scope of the Imperial College, it
may not be out of place to bear the matter in mind on this, the second,
occasion of the prize giving of our new college.
What is the meaning of the word science? As in the case of so
many words, its meaning has become confused by its partial applica-
tion, 1. e., by its application to a part only of its contents, and this has
often led to a misapprehension of the relation of science and of the
scientific man to life. Science simply means knowledge, and to speak
of scientific knowledge, as opposed to ordinary knowledge, is to use a
redundant phrase, always supposing that we are using the word
knowledge in its strict sense. Huxley defined science as organized
common sense, by which, I take it, he meant knowlege of things as
they are—knowledge the reality of which can at any time be checked
by observation and experiment—for common sense, if it is anything,
is the faculty by which we are made aware of reality. Science is
sometimes spoken of as exact knowledge, but I am bound to say that
I do not like the phrase exact knowledge; it seems to imply an insult
to the word knowledge. Its use reminds me of a friend of mine who,
when he was offered one morning at breakfast a fresh egg, mildly
asked, “ In preference to what other kind of egg?” It recalls those
regrettable phrases one so often hears, I honestly believe, or I hon-
estly think; one wonders how the people who make use of them
usually believe and think.
It must, I think, be admitted that science simply means knowledge,
and that there is nothing peculiar about the knowledge of scientific
men by which it differs from other knowledge.
Scientific men are not a class apart and distinct from ordinary mor-
tals. We are all scientific men in our various degrees. If this is so,
how comes it that the distinction is so often made between scientific
RELATION OF SCIENCE TO HUMAN LIFE—SEDGWICK. 671
men and nonscientific men, between scientific knowledge and non-
scientific knowledge? The truth appears to lie here: Though it is
true that all men possess knowledge, i. e., science, yet there are some
men who make it their main business to concern themselves with some
kind of knowledge, and especially with its increase, and to these men
the term scientific has been technically applied. Now, the distinctive
feature of these men, in virtue of which the term scientific is applied
to them, is that they not only possess knowledge, but that they make
it their business to add to knowledge, and it is this part of their busi-
ness, if any, which justifies their being placed in a class apart from
other possessors of knowledge.
The men who make it their main business to add to knowledge may
be divided into two classes, according to the motive which spurs them
on: (1) There are those whose immediate object is to ameliorate the
conditions of human life and to add to its pleasures; their motive is
utility, and their immediate goal is within sight. Such are the great
host of inventors, the pioneers in agriculture, in hygiene, preventive
medicine, in social reform and in sound legislation which leads to
social reform, and many other subjects. (2) There are those who pur-
sue knowledge for its own sake without reference to its practical ap-
plication. They are urged on by the desire to know by what has been
called a divine curiosity. These men are the real pioneers of knowl-
edge. It is their work which prepares the way for the practical man
who watches and follows them. Without their apparently useless
investigations, progress beyond the limits of the immediately useful
would be impossible. We should have had no applied electricity, no
spectrum analysis, no aseptic surgery, no preventive medicine, no
anesthetics, no navigation of the pathless ocean. Sometimes the re-
sults of the seeker after knowledge for its own sake are so unique and
astounding that the whole of mankind stands spellbound before
them, and renders them the same homage that the child does the tale
of wonderful adventure; such is the case with the work on radium
and radio-activity, which is at present fixing the attention of the
whole civilized world. Sometimes the work is of a humbler kind,
dealing apparently with trivial objects, and appealing in no way to
the imagination or sense of the wonderful; such was the work which
led to and formed the basis of that great generalization which has
transformed man’s outlook on nature—the theory of organic evolution;
such was the work which produced aseptic surgery and the great doc-
trines of immunity and phagocytosis which have had such tremendous
results in diminishing human pain. The temper of such men is a
curious one; no material reward can be theirs, and, as a rule, but
little fame. Yet mankind owes them a debt which can never be
repaid. It is to these men that the word scientific has been specially
applied, and with this justification—they have no other profession
672 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
save that of pursuing knowledge for its own sake, or, if they have a
profession, it is that of the teacher, which, indeed, they can hardly
avoid. Ought such men, working with such objects, to find a place
in the Imperial College?
It is a curious thing, but it has only comparatively recently been
realized, that a sound and exact knowledge of phenomena was neces-
sary for man. The realization of this fact, in the modern world at
any rate, occurred at the end of the middle ages; it was one of the
intellectual preducts of the Renaissance, and in this country Francis
Bacon was its first exponent. In his “Advancement of learning ” he
explained the methods by which the increase of knowledge was pos-
sible, and advocated the promotion of knowledge to a new and in-
fluential position in the organization of human society. In Italy
the same idea was taught by the great philosopher, Giordano
Bruno, who held that the whole universe was a vast mechan-
ism of which man, and the earth on which man dwells, was a
portion, and that the working of this mechanism, though not the full
~ comprehension of it, was open to the investigation of man. For pro-
mulgating this impious view both he and his book were burned at
Rome in 1600. You will find the same idea cropping up continually.
in the written records of that time; Copernicus gave it practical
recognition when he demonstrated the real relation of the earth to
the sun, and it was thoroughly grasped by our own Shakespeare, who
gave it expression in the dialogue between Perdita and Polixenes in
the Winter’s Tale:
Perdita. The fairest flowers o’ the season
Are our carnations, and streak’d gillyvors
Which some call nature’s bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden’s barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.
Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden, do you neglect them?
Perdita. For I have heard it said
There is an art which, in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.
Polisenes. Say there be: |
Yet nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean: so, o’er that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock and make conceive a bark of
baser kind
By bud of nobler race: this is an art
Which does mend nature,—change it rather; but
The art itself is nature.@
“This is an intensely interesting passage, for it shows that Shakespeare had
grasped the idea of evolution, the idea, that is to say, that nature contains
within herself the power of altering or “mending” herself. The interest is
RELATION OF SCIENCE TO HUMAN LIFE—-SEDGWICK. 673
It is not difficult for us, though it may be difficult to our descendants,
to understand how hard it was for man to attune himself to this new,
this mighty conception, and the intellectual history of the last three
hundred years is a record of the struggles to make it prevail.
Trained through long ages to believe that the heavens were the
abode of the gods, who constantly interfered in the daily affairs
of life and in the smallest operation of nature, it seemed to men
impious to maintain that the earth was in the heavens, and to peer
into the mysteries which surrounded them, and the endeavor to do
so has been stoutly resisted; but the conflict, in so far as it has been
a conflict with prejudice, is now over. It vanished in the triumphs
of the modern views on the origin of man which will be forever
associated with the names of Lamarck, Spencer, and Darwin.
The triumph of these views does not mean that they are correct or
that we know anything more about the great mystery of life than we
did before. He would be a bold and a prejudiced man who made
that assertion. What it means is this, that man is grown up, that he
has cast off the intellectual tutelage under which he has hitherto
existed, that’ he has attained complete intellectual freedom, and that
all things in heaven and earth are legitimate subjects of investiga-
tion. But it means even more than this; it means that he has at last
come to realize the true significance of the injunction of the old
Hebrew teacher: “ Fear God and keep His commandments, for that
is the whole duty of man; ” and of the psalmist when he said: “* Make
me to go in the path of Thy commandments, for therein do I delight.
In keeping of them there is great reward.” But in order to keep
them he must first ascertain what they are, and this he is determined
to do, so far as his capacities permit, by the only method open to
him—that of minute and arduous research.
Let us hear then the conclusion of the whole matter. We claim for
science no less a scope than this, the discovery of what God’s com-
mandments are. Some of these we already know, for they have
been handed down to us in our sacred books or have been discovered
for us by our forefathers. To discover others is our whole duty; but
the task is endless, and to the end of time man’s prayer must ever
be, in the words of that splendid old collect now being read in our
churches, “ Give us grace that we may cast away the works of dark-
ness and put upon us the armor of light.”
increased by the opening lines of Perdita’s next speech, in which is implied the
modern doctrine that acquired characters are not inherited, for he makes
Perdita reply:
T’ll not put
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;
No more than were I painted, I would wish
This youth should say, ’t were well, and only therefore -
Desire to breed by me.
674 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
We hear a great deal nowadays about the humanities and the
humane studies—the study of “ancient elegance and historic wis-
dom ”—and I should be the last to minimize in any degree the value
and intense interest which is attached to the study of the writings
and utterances of the mighty dead. They will always retain un-
dimmed their attraction and inspiration for man, and man will
always think with gratitude and affection of their authors; but
surely the humanities consist of something more than the study of
the writings and philosophy of the ancients. To limit them to that
is to take the view of the schoolmen, the death blow to which was
given by Bacon and Bruno.
We have got beyond that; we claim that the true study of the
humanities is a far wider thing—it is the study of the stupendous
mechanism of the universe of which man forms a part, and the under-
standing of which is necessary for his happiness. That is the true
humanity of which the other forms only a small portion. The time
_is coming when the principal preoccupation of man shall be the
gradual disclosure of this mechanism and his principal delight the
contemplation of its beauty.
In spite of the work and writings of such men as Bacon and
Bruno in the end of the sixteenth century, the progress of science was
at first but slow and the workers few. We have, of course, the im-
mortal achievements of Newton and Harvey, and the foundation of
the Royal Society, and the tremendous outburst of scholarship as
typified in this country by Bentley and his coworkers; but the eight-
eenth century was, on the whole, characterized by intellectual
quiescence both in scientific output and in literary creation. The
quiescence was apparent rather than real. To borrow a metaphor
from the garden, though there was little growth above ground, active
root formation was going on. Linnzeus (1707-1778) was at work in
Sweden creating the framework which rendered future work in
botany and zoology possible; Buffon in France was cautiously feeling
his way toward a theory of organic evolution; Henry Cavendish
(1731-1810), Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), and Antoine Lavoisier
(1743-1794) were laying the foundations of modern chemistry;
Albrecht von Haller (1707-1777), Kaspar Friederick Wolff (1733-
1794), and John Hunter (1728-1793), those of anatomy and physi-
ology. The spade work of these men, together with the improvement
of the microscope was necessary for the great outburst of scientific
investigation which characterized the nineteenth century. Ushered
in by the work of Cuvier (1769-1832), Lamarck (1744-1829), St.
Hilaire (1772-1844), in biology, Thomas Young (1773-1829) , Laplace
(1749-1827), Volta (1745-1827), Carnot (1758-1823), in physics, it
was adorned in its middle and latter period by the names of Davy,
RELATION OF SCIENCE TO HUMAN LIFE—SEDGWICK. 675
Faraday, Dalton, Arago, Richard Owen, Darwin, Lyell, Joh. Miiller,
Agassiz, Helmholtz, Stokes, Kelvin, and Pasteur.
The advance of knowledge is yearly becoming more rapid; if its
steps were slow and hesitating in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and if it quickened to a rapid walk in the nineteenth, we
now hear the sound of a trot, which at the end of the century will be
a gallop, and as the centuries succeed one another its pace will become
ever faster. Where will it lead us and what will be the upshot for
man ?
But it is no part of my purpose to-day to give you an historical
summary of scientific progress. The point I wish to illustrate is the
vast increase in the scientific army and in the results achieved by them.
My thesis is that pure research into the sequence of natural phe-
nomena is in itself of the greatest importance to the progress and
welfare of humanity, and that a great statesman can have no higher
aim than to solve the problem of how it may best be fostered. To
what extent can such a thesis be justified by experience? |
I might begin by examining the origin and progress of our knowl-
edge of what is called current electricity, to which modern life, from
a material point of view, owes so much. In illustration of what we
owe to workers in electrical science I need only mention land telegra-
phy, ocean telegraphy, wireless telegraphy, telephones, electric light,
electric traction, and our knowledge of radio-activity. The history of
this science forms perhaps the best example of the importance to man
of pure, apparently useless, scientific research, for at every stage of it,
from Galvani’s original observation through the discoveries of the
Swede Oersted and of the Frenchman Ampére to those of our own
Faraday and to the theoretical adumbrations of Clerk Maxwell and
to the researches of Crookes on the passage of electricity through
vacuum tubes, we meet with the investigation of phenomena which
were apparently perfectly useless, and which to most practical men
must at the time they were made have appeared as little more than
scientific toys provided by nature for the harmless amusement of the
queer people who meet in the rooms of the Royal Society and such-like
places where unpractical oddities resort. And yet I ask you to reflect
upon the astounding results which have arisen from Galvani’s ob-
servations made to discover the cause of the twitching of the frog’s
legs, and of Faraday’s discovery of induction, and to indulge your
imaginations in an endeavor to predict what may issue for man from
Crookes’s investigations of the glow without heat of the vacuum tubes.
But I have neither the knowledge nor the time to dwell upon the
physical side of science. As in private duty bound, I must devote
the short time at my disposal to examples culled from the biological
sciences,
676 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The great Frenchman, Pasteur, in making a thorough examination
of the process by which alcohol was obtained from sugar, discovered
the part played by the organism known as yeast, and established the
idea of organized ferment bodies. He extended his observations to
other micro-organisms, and, in conjunction with his coworkers,
among whom must be included those who were looking into the
question of the spontaneous generation of living matter, definitely
gave us the idea that putrefaction was caused by micro-organisms
acting upon organic matter, that these micro-organisms are capable
of resisting drought, and when dried float freely in the air and are
distributed everywhere. When they fall upon a suitable material,
their vital activity is resumed, and they increase with incredible
rapidly and set up putrefaction. It was reserved for our distin-
guished countryman, Lister, then a surgeon in Edinburgh, to recog-
nize the importance of these discoveries for surgery. Knowing of
the researches of Pasteur and his fellow-workers, he conceived the
-idea that suppuration was due to putrefaction in the organic matter
of the wounds caused by micro-organisms. Acting on this, he intro-
duced his method of antiseptic surgery, by which his name has been
rendered immortal. I think we may say that no single application
of the results of pure research has done more to preserve human life
and to diminish human suffering than this linking up by Lister of
the putrefaction of suppuration with the work of his predecessors
on the effects of the actions of micro-organisms upon organic matter.
It is well to notice, in passing, that this discovery of Lord Lister’s is
a good illustration of the difficulty which the human mind has of
conceiving even the simplest new idea. To us, now, how simple
seems the step which Lister made; yet there were thousands of sur-
geons in the world who failed to make it, though they were continu-
ally dealing with suppurating wounds and wondering why they
suppurated, and when it was-made it was stoutly discredited by many
quite able men.
T must now turn to another subject which is closely connected with
the preceding, and well illustrates my thesis that pure scientific re-
search, without reference to practical utility, is of the highest im-
portance to mankind.
Tt will doubtless have occurred to many of you to ask the question,
How is it, if the air contains floating in it the dried spores of multi-
tudinous micro-organisms which only need a suitable medium for
their development and increase, how is it that they do not obtain a
lodgment in the healthy animal body, which one would think offers
all the conditions necessary to their growth? It can easily be shown
that the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, every-
thing that we touch, swarms with these microscopic creatures; that
they enter our lungs, that they germinate in our skin, that they occur
RELATION OF SCIENCE TO HUMAN LIFE—SEDGWICK. 677
in countless numbers in our alimentary canals, in short, that they
are found everywhere on our body surfaces. How is it that they do
not increase and turn our organs into a seething mass of putrefying
corruption? One would expect that even if the skin and the mem-
brane bounding the internal organs to which they obtain entrance
incurred the slightest lesion, even a pin prick, that they would have
been able to enter. We know that after death they at once obtain
complete dominion, and we therefore infer that in life there must be
some protective mechanism in the body capable of dealing with them.
The discovery that there is such a mechanism was made in the
early eighties by the distinguished Russian zoologist Elias Metschni-—
koff, though the need of its existence was not recognized by biologists
in general until later. The result of this was that his remarkable
discoveries were at first pooh-poohed and discredited by many, but
ultimately they gained acceptance, and their further development in
his own hand and that of others has wrought a revolution in the art
of preventive medicine.
The mechanism consists of the small amceboid cells found in the
blood, lymph, and body fluids generally, and called leucocytes, or
white blood corpuscles. Though long known to exist, very little had
been ascertained as to their function until Metschnikoff, working at
such remote subjects as the embryology of sponges, the structure and
digestion of polyps, the blood of water fleas, realized that these small
amceba-like cells, which exist in all organisms, actually swallow,
digest, and so destroy small foreign bodies which have invaded the
organisms. He called them the phagocytes, and all his subsequent
work has been directed to the elucidation of their mode of action.
It is to Metschnikoff’s work, prompted solely by the scientific
spirit, that we owe our knowledge of phagocytosis and the great
theory of immunity which has proceeded from it. It is impossible
at the present moment to estimate fully the value to man of Met-
schnikofi’s discoveries. Suffice it to say that they have already led
to important practical results, and have revolutionized treatment.
I must now turn for a moment to another subject of the greatest
importance to mankind, and one which has been brought into notice
by the researches, perfectly useless so far as our material welfare is
concerned, which were undertaken with the view of elucidating the
great question of organic evolution. I refer to the study of genetics,
which deals with the question mainly of the transmission of the
properties of the organism; but it deals with even a larger subject
than that. It looks into and tries to determine the laws which
govern the origin of the characters of individuals, whether plants
or animals, whether those characters have been acquired by inheri-
tance or in some other way. The subject is of the utmost interest
and practical importance to man from three points of view. It has
678 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
a bearing on philosophy of a most important and far-reaching kind
through the theory of organic evolution. That theory largely de-
pends for its proof upon the science of genetics. Secondly, it has a
most important bearing upon practical questions affecting breeders
of animals and raisers of plants, and also upon man himself in con-
nection with practical legislation. This brings me to the third point,
in which this subject specially appeals to us, and that is what I may
call its bearing upon ethics. This is, of course, closely connected
with the last.
We are constantly confronted with questions in which we have to
think, not only of the advantage and happiness of those alive at the
present moment, but also of those not yet born who will succeed us
on the earth. The decision of these questions is one of the most im-
portant and burning subjects which can be put before us. They often
crop up in legislation, and yet we are quite unable to answer them
because of the very little knowledge we possess of the laws which
govern the transmission of characters from generation to generation.
The interests of future generations often appear to be in conflict
with the immediate pleasure and happiness of the living, and we are
confronted with the question whether we ought to give way to our
own humane and benevolent feelings or whether we ought to set our
teeth and deal ruthlessly with a number of people who must appeal
to our pity, lest by saving them from elimination we should bring
about an increase in the number of people who are unable to hold
their own, and so weaken the nation and increase for the next genera-
tion the difficulties which we set out to cure. Ido not pronounce any
judgment on these questions; I merely wish to emphasize the im-
mense, the transcendent importance, from the human point of view,
of the investigations which the study of the question of evolution has
caused biologist to carry out into that most difficult of all subjects,
heredity, and of obtaining clear ideas upon the subject. These, I
admit, are elementary examples, and probably familiar to most of
you—and they might be largely added to from other branches of
zoology, such as entomology, marine fauna, and physiology—of the
great practical achievements which have followed from the recogni-
tion of the fact, possibly appreciated in some ancient civilizations,
but in modern times first understood by Bacon and his compeers,
“There are, as is well known, indications that research into natural phe-
nomena was practiced and esteemed in some ancient civilizations which have
been destroyed by the inroad of barbarians or by other causes. One of the
most striking of these indications is the record in one of the sacred books of
the Hindus, which can not be less than 1,400 years old, and is probably much
older, that malarial fevers are directly caused by the bite of mosquitoes.
Attention was first directed to this record by Sir H. A. Blake, G. C. M. G., in
1905, while he was governor of Ceylon (vide Journal of the Ceylon Branch
of the British Medical Association, vol. 2, Pt. 1, 1905),
RELATION OF SCIENCE TO HUMAN LIFE—SEDGWICK. 679
that natural phenomena are in themselves, and without reference to
immediate utility, proper subjects of man’s inquiry, and that all
progress must be based on their thorough and accurate investigation.
- The genesis of a new idea is so difficult, and the amount of work
necessary for its complete elucidation and development so vast and
detailed, that many eminent men, taking only a short period of time
and not realizing the minute steps by which the advance of knowl-
edge takes place, have been led to doubt the value of scientific investi-
gation in the higher realms of pure knowledge, even to the extent
of speaking of the bankruptcy of science. Others, again, perceiving
the apparent aimlessness of many investigations and undervaluing
the motive which urges them on, have come to look with a certain
contempt upon the man of pure science and his slow and plodding
progress. What is the good of all this work at unimportant details?
What do you get out of it, and what pleasure do you find in it? they
ask, and when they are told that the humble worker usually gets
nothing out of his work except the pleasure of doing it, and that
his motive is nothing more elevated than the satisfaction of his
curiosity, there does appear to be, it must be admitted, some justifi-
eation for the contemptuous indifference with which the poor re-
searcher is regarded by a considerable section of the population, as
is shown by the almost entire absence of support of pure scientific
research on the part of the Government. With the exception of an
annual grant of £4,000 a year given to the Royal Society, I think T
um correct in stating that the Government affords hardly any sup-
port to science save to such as is concerned with teaching or with
some practical problem; and when one remembers the composition
of governments and the manner in which, and the reasons for which,
they are chosen, one can not unreservedly blame them for this atti-
tude. The best method of fostering research is a difficult problem, .
and I can well understand that a modern democratic government,
depending as it does upon popular support, with its attendant popu-
lar mandates, should shrink from dealing with it. To do so would’
bring them no popularity and no votes, and too often they are not
really aware of its immense importance to human progress, and when
they are they have great difficulties to face.
For it is impossible to organize research on a commercial basis.
“All attempts,” says Professor Nichols, of Cornell, “at a machine-
made science are doomed to failure. No autocratic organization is
favorable to the development of the scientific spirit. No institution
after the commercial models of to-day is likely to be generously
fertile. You can contract for a bridge according to specifications.
No one, however, can draw up specifications for a scientific discovery.
No one can contract to deliver it on a specific day for a specified
price, and no employee can be hired to produce it for wages received.”
45745°—sm 1909——44
680 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
This it is impossible to get the public to understand even when it
has undergone the process which we call education. You may estab-
lish paid posts for scientific research, but you can not be sure that
you will get research, for science is ike the wind that bloweth where
it listeth, and that is what our educated public do not like. They
want something for their cash, and they will not wait.
Even those who are aware of the immense value of pure research
forget the fact that the aptitude for scientific investigation is as rare
as the gift of poetry, to which in many respects it is allied, for both
are creative gifts, rare and precious. They forget that it is impos-
sible to ascertain without trial whether a man possesses it or not, and
that this trial can only be made when he has passed his student days
and looks to support himself by his own exertions. To provide for
this support money is needed, and studentships must be established
in considerable numbers, from the holders of which those who show
that they possess the gift of research can be selected and promoted
to higher posts in which their gift can find full opportunity; but we
“want more than this—we want compensation for those whom we
have encouraged to make the trial and who have failed to show that
they possess the gift, and an outlet by which they can emerge and
find work in practical life.
This has been and is a difficulty in all schools of science, for many
are called but few are chosen. ‘The situation is this: It is desirable
that a large body of able young men should be encouraged to take
up scientific research, but as experience has shown that only a small
proportion of them will possess the qualities by which success in re-
search can be attained, and as it is undesirable to encumber the pro-
gress and the literature of science by a host of workers who have no
real capacity for research, it results that a time will arrive when a
great proportion of those whom we have encouraged to give some of
the best years of their life to this unremunerative work should be in-
vited to find other occupations. What is to be done? We can not
throw them into thestreet. Some compensation must be given. There
are two ways in which this can be done. One is.the system of prize
fellowships, which has for long been in vogue at the old universities,
and which it has of late been the custom of those who have not really
studied the matter to decry. Nevertheless, it is a good system, for
it provides an income by which those who have given some of the
best years of their life to this trial of their capacity can support
themselves while they qualify for taking part in a_ practical
profession.
A prize fellowship system, or something like it, is a necessary
accompaniment of a university which induces a large number of young
men to follow for a time the intellectual life; it acts both as an in-
ducement and a compensation, and it would be a mistake and an
RELATION OF SCIENCE TO HUMAN LIFE—SEDGWICK. 681
injustice, in my opinion, to abolish it; but there is another way in
which the difficulty can be met, and that is the way which has been
adopted by the wise and farseeing founders of the Imperial College,
namely, by the combination of a school of science with a school of
technology. If you have incorporated in your school of science a
school of applied science, and if you at the same time take care that
none but able men are allowed to enter the research grade, and if you
establish, as you must do if you honestly work your school, a con-
nection with the great industrial interests of the country, you have
all that is necessary for the disposal of those men who, for whatever
reason, find themselves unable to follow a life of pure science. As
is well known, the faculty for pure, apparently useless, research in
science is often possessed by men without any aptitude for practical
application of science or desire of practical success and the wealth
which practical success brings, while, on the contrary, many minds of
the highest order can not work at all without the stimulus of the
thought of the practical outcome of their labor.
In our college there is room both for those with the highest
gifts for pure scientific research and for those with the inventive
faculty so important in the arts, or with the knowledge and ability
for controlling and organizing great industrial enterprises; and,
what is more, the combination of the two types of mind in the same
school can not but be of the greatest advantage to both, not only on
account of the atmosphere which will be created, so favorable to intel-
lectual effort, but also because good must result from the contact in
one school of minds whose ultimate aim is to probe the mysteries of
nature and to acquire control over her forces.
As Professor Nichols has well said in pointing out the dependence
of technology on science:
The history of technology shows that the essential condition under which
useful applications are likely to originate is scientific productiveness. A coun-
try that has many investigators will have many inventors also. * * *
Where science is, there will its by-product technology be also. Communities
having the most thorough fundamental knowledge of pure science will show
the greatest output of really practical inventions. Peoples who get their knowl-
edge at second hand must be content to follow. Where sound scientific con-
ceptions are the common property of a nation, the wasteful efforts of the half-
informed will be least prevalent.
These are sound conclusions, and experience has shown that if the
terms are interchanged the same remarks may be made with equal
truth of the good influence which results to a school of science from
its association with a school of technology.
Before concluding, it may be well to say a word as to the origin of
the great imperial institution in the interests of which we are met
here to-day. It may justly be described as the natural and necessary
outcome of the scheme for scientific instruction which was originated
682 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
by that great Prince whose memorial stands near the end of Exhibi-
tion road, and to whom science and art in England owe so much.
He dreamed a dream which his untimely death alone prevented him
from realizing. Had he lived, who can set a bound to what he would
have achieved for science and education in England? It is a most
happy circumstance that the final stages of the realization of that
dream should have been entered upon in the reign, and have received
the sympathy, patronage, and active support of his great son, our
most gracious King, who is working in so many directions for the
welfare and happiness of our race.
There is one further point I must touch upon. In the few remarks
which I have had the honor to make to you, I have endeavored, how-
ever imperfectly, to embody in words certain thoughts which bear
upon a great subject. I thank you for the patience with which you
have heard me. Whether I have produced the effect I desire I know
not, but I know this, that even if I had the tongue of men and angels,
no words of mine could have been so apt, so expressive as the magnifi-
‘cent deed of Mr. Otto Beit recorded in to-day’s newspapers.* It is
impossible for me to pass this over in silence, so closely is it connected
with the subject of my address. There are two ways of manifesting
thought, by word and by action. Mr. Beit has chosen the latter and
far more effective way. We can only express our respectful admira-
tion and gratitude for his generosity, and our thankfulness that a
man should exist among us with the power, the insight, and the true
humanity to do such a splendid deed.
@JTt was announced in the Times of December 16, 1909, that Mr. Otto Beit
had given the sum of £215,000 to establish a number of fellowships of the an-
nual value of £250, the holders of which would devote themselves to medical
research in all its branches.
INTELLECTUAL WORK AMONG THE BLIND.*
By PIERRE VILLEY.
Searcely two months have passed since the little world of the blind
was en féte. They celebrated the centennary of the birth of Louis
Braille, who is, aniong the blind, the object of great veneration and
deep gratitude. Blind himself from the age of 3 years, professor
after 1828 at the Royal Institution for Blind Youth, where he was
educated, he devoted his thoughts and his entire hfe to the amelio-
ration of the lot of his unfortunate companions, and it is to him that
they owe the method of reading and writing which is employed to-day
throughout the whole world. His memory is not less cherished than
that of Valentin Haiiy. Although Hatiy conceived the idea of in-
structing the blind, Louis ‘Braille discovered the means by which this
could be made to bear fruit.®
Their united efforts have transformed the life of the blind. Before
their time only a few blind persons who were in favorable circum-
stances succeeded in developing their faculties. To-day all are invited
to take advantage of intellectual culture; all may lead a useful life in
society. In spite of this transformation, the prejudice against blind-
ness exists everywhere. It gives place but slowly. In nearly all
minds the word “ blind” always evokes the same pitiable and false
image. The first inclination is to suppose that behind these sightless
eyes, this lifeless countenance, everything is quiet—intelligence, will,
sensations—that all the faculties are torpid and, as it were, be-
numbed. Furthermore, habituated as are those who can see to do
nothing without the use of their eyes, it is quite natural that it should
appear to them that if they should lose their sight they would at once
become incapable of any activity. It is not easy for them to imagine
that the blind, deprived of the resources of sight, find in exchange,
4 Translated, by permission, from Revue des Deux Mondes (Paris) of March
15, 1909. The author, Mr. Villey, lost his sight when 44 years old.
> Regarding Valentin Haiiy, Louis Braille, and the Institution for Blind Youth,
see the articles published by Maxime Du Camp in the numbers of the Revue
des Deux Mondes for April 15, 1878, and March 1, 1884.
683
684 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
in the remaining senses, other resources, neglected by the greater part
of mankind whom the prodigality of nature renders heedless, but
precious to those who know how to make them fruitful. They
ignore or forget the fact that benefactors have invented special proc-
esses and methods which enable the blind to diminish the gulf
which blindness has fixed between them and others. The world at
large regards the blind man as a peculiar being and a stranger to
ordinary life. Contact with an adroit and distinguished blind person
sometimes abolishes this abstract image, but it soon returns again
and triumphs over contradictory experiences. It is perhaps neces-
sary to be associated with blind people for a long time to be freed
from it altogether, and, after all, this is natural enough when one
considers how methods of action among the blind differ from those of
persons who have their sight. It is difficult to persuade oneself that
in perpetual obscurity our faculties can develop with perfect freedom.
If we had to do here merely with an unimportant psychological
error, even then it would be of interest to note it. But it has grave
consequences for the majority of the blind—musicians or piano
tuners and workmen of all kinds, who endeavor to gain their liveli-
hood by their labor. The distrust of the public paralyzes them. It
is therefore a duty to denounce it on all occasions.
I.
Asa result of seeing blind persons going to and fro, one becomes in
the end convinced that in many of the acts of everyday life, the
senses of hearing, touch, and smell, being substituted for that of sight,
of which they are deprived, permits them to dispense with the aid
of the latter. There are blind persons in nearly all towns. We know
that they are able to dress themselves, to go into places which are
known to them, to look after certain details of housekeeping, to pre-
pare simple meals, in a word to engage in a great variety of occu-
pations, of which one would at first believe them incapable. How-
ever, their dexterity in these affairs of material life varies much from
individual to individual, and it is always quite limited. From a
physical point of view, the best endowed blind man can never equal
one who sees; he need not be entirely dependent on the latter; that is
all. This is freely granted, but from the point of view of intellect and
morals the blind man has the highest pretensions. He declares him-
self the equal of other men. There is little inclination toward belief
on this point, for various reasons. In the first place, intellectual
capacity is difficult to measure and can not be judged by mere in-
spection like physical capacity. Furthermore, since in our age intel-
lectual culture presupposes very extensive knowledge, it does not
seem possible that this can be acquired in the obscurity of blindness.
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 685
Notwithstanding, one should reflect that sight is not necessary to
the free action of thought. If the disease that destroys it is confined
to the eye and its immediate adjuncts, and does not reach the brain,
the integrity of the intellect is secure. There are in the world very
few ideas that the blind man (I mean, blind from birth) may not
acquire, because there is very little that comes to us through the
eyes alone. If we analyze the elements of visual sensation, we per-
ceive that nearly all of it is within the reach of the tactile sense. Let
us suppose that you look at a ruler which is in front of you on your
table. The color strikes you first. That is a sensation which a
person born blind never has. Although he may feel carefully all
the surfaces of the ruler, his fingers will never tell him that it is
black. But all the rest—its length, breadth, thickness, the form of
the extremities, the sharpness of the angles and the edges, the polish
of the surfaces, the place which it occupies on your table, the dis-
tance which separates it from you—all these other ideas will be given
him by his exploring hand. Everything is, in fact, brought back to
the elementary ideas, extension and solidity, which touch furnishes as
well as, and even more exactly than sight. There are without doubt
objects too far removed from us and of too small dimensions to be felt,
but all the ideas regarding them which sight gives to man go back
to those which we have indicated. All things, therefore, except the
idea of color, are conceivable to an individual who is endowed with
the sense of touch. In order to construct an idea of an object, and
produce an exact image of it, it suffices to multiply and combine the
ideas of space and extent given by touch. Sight is a kind of touch
of long reach, with the sensation of color added. Touch is a kind of
sight minus color and plus the sensation of roughness. The two
senses give us sensations of the same order.
Those who see are not able to compass the earth in a single glance.
For all that, however, they construct an idea from the data given
them by geometers. In the same way the blind form ideas of objects
they can not touch from the accounts of those who see, which can
always be translated into tactile language.
The person born blind is, however, deprived of the notion of color.
It is an elementary notion which no other sense can give, no lan-
guage can render comprehensible, and no analogy can make intelli-
gible to those who can not see. I will add also the idea of light,
which is similar. These ideas, however, are of very slhght im-
portance from an intellectual point of view. They concern only the
surface of objects. They do not enter at all into the composition
of the essential ideas of human thought, such as space, time, cause, ete.
The blind man is without those impressions of pleasure or pain
which certain combinations of form and color cause the mind. He
686 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
does not have the sensation of visual beauty. I do not know of a
person born blind who has formed a precise idea of the beauty of a
countenance, of a landscape, or of a statue, and I recognize that
what he lacks here is very considerable. Many powerful emotions
are denied him. But his loss can not properly be called intellectual.
These relations do not give birth to any clear and distinct idea.
They arouse only subjective impressions. When we speak of a
blind artist, it is necessary to notice this capital defect, but in the
study of his intelligence it is of little consequence.
I believe that I have enumerated all the blanks in mentioning light,
color, physical beauty, and adding thereto perspective, which mani-
festly is connected with the function of sight alone. These defects
are found only among those blind from birth and those individuals
who have been affected at a very early age, which is not ordinarily
the case. Only allow one a few years and he will acquire all these
notions, and to the end of his life his memory will reproduce them
in the darkness.
‘Let it be granted, then, that nearly all ideas can find lodgment in
the brain of a blind person. But, it will be said, if it be not impos-
sible for a blind man to conceive them, at all events he will have
great difficulty in acquiring them. The obstacle is not in the nature
of the ideas, but in the paucity of the means which the blind man
has at his disposal for assimilating them. The person who can
see owes them for the most part to his sight, and there is no other
route by which they can be conveyed to the mind with equal rapidity
and precision. It will be seen, therefore, that the stock in trade of
the intellect must necessarily remain rudimentary. This is the capi-
tal objection, that which is at the bottom of all the wonders of which
we speak. To those who mention it to me I always propound the
same question, “ Do you know Helen Keller? ”
Helen Keller, as everybody knows, is a young American, who,
from the age of 18 months, as the result of a severe illness, became
blind and deaf, and dumb also in consequence of her deafness. Her
little soul seemed, then, to be completely closed to impressions from
without. Her intellectual equipment, it would seem, must be lim-
ited to a few rare ideas, ideas within the reach of her hands. It
would be doubtful, furthermore, whether in the thick darkness she
could ever have distinct conceptions of them. Notwithstanding,
Helen Keller, to-day 28 years old, still deaf and still blind, is a very
distinguished and cultivated person, who has followed the course of a
university, passed examinations with brilliant success, and speaks
many languages. It was only necessary to make certain signs on
her hand while she touched some object to enable her in twenty
days to comprehend the complete idea which a special sign repre-
sented, and, thanks to this convention, persons could communicate
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 687
their thoughts to her. A month and a half later she recognized the
letters of the alphabet by touch. After another month she wrote a
letter to one of her cousins. At the end of three years she had
acquired a stock of ideas’ sufficient to enable her to converse freely, to
read with intelligence, and to write good English. The idea was then
conceived of having her feel the movements of the pharynx, the lips,
and the tongue which accompany human speech, and, by imitating
these movements, she reproduced the sounds which were articulated
in her presence. A month sufficed her in which to learn to speak
English correctly, and by merely placing her hands on the lips of
her interlocutor she commenced to read with her fingers the words
which were spoken. Thus, by the aid of touch alone, Helen Keller
procured three openings into the external world, three routes which
brought her ideas from without—the manual alphabet, reading in
relief, and human speech. By these three means of acquisition she
placed herself within that small intellectual aristocracy comprised of
the very highly cultivated. Finally, not content with speaking her
native language, she studied French—which she writes correctly—
Latin, and even Greek.
If Helen Keller was able to do these things why should one be
astonished that the blind, who hear and talk, progress daily toward
a complete development of their intellectual faculties? Her example
shows us how our brains come to us rich in hereditary endowments
centuries old, fashioned for life, eager to receive ideas, and to develop
them. It proves to us that sometimes a faint ray of light suffices to
illumine the covering of darkness which envelops- these endow-
ments, and to fructify them. The intellect of the blind, which we
readily look upon as entirely overcast, is illuminated through and
through by light from without. Leaving out of account taste and
smell, which, though rich in sensations, convey only elementary ideas,
he has the sense of hearing and that of touch, the former for spoken
thought and the latter for written thought—both precious as means
of knowing external objects. Through these two large windows
open on the world a flood of ideas enters. What matters that before
the third a blind remains lowered? The daylight penetrates abun-
dantly enough into the interior to rouse full activity within.
By the sense of hearing, not less than by that of sight, man is,
as it were, plunged into a world of sensations which stimulate him.
He is enveloped by them. However passive one may suppose him
to be, he is aroused from his torpor and is led on to the common
life. Excited without pause by the talk of his parents, his brothers,
and his sisters, who mingle continually in the external life, the
mind of the blind infant can not remain inactive. There is no reason
why he should remain enervated by idleness. Provided that some
care is shown him, that the things which are beyond the reach of his
688 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
senses are explained to him, he will not remain behind other children
of his age. Later, when he becomes a man, conversations with per-
sons around him draw him constantly away from himself as if they
were spectacles, prevent his thought from becoming isolated, turned
upon himself, or confined like a silkworm in its cocoon. Montaigne,
who understood this, said, “ I should rather lose my sight than my
hearing;” and he doubtless said this because he enjoyed conversa-
tion more than any other pleasure. But this inquiring spirit, always
in search of new ideas, and who found so much delight in the free
play of the intellect, well understood that the ear feeds and stimu-
lates our thought more than the eye. He found that conversation
was the most fruitful of exercises. Is it paradoxical to think that
the sense of hearing is a sense more intellectual, in a way, than sight ?
I do not believe so. The eye, after all is said, furnishes the mind only
with images of external objects, the ear carries ideas to it—all the
work of reflection which thought ingrafts on these objects. It is
‘hearing which serves as a real bond between minds. In manual
work a deaf person who can see is superior to a blind person, but
from the intellectual point of view I am convinced that the position
of the blind man who hears is preferable to this deaf man.
The sense of touch has been explored methodically by the blind
for scarcely more than a century and a quarter. Valentin Hatiy
in 1784 established the first special school for their use, and it is this
methodical utilization which has transformed their condition and
permits them to-day to assume their role in society. The education
of touch is the essential part of that which may be called the special
pedagogy of the blind. It is reclaimed and domesticated in such a
way as to make it fill the offices abandoned by sight, and this sub-
stitution is very important as regards intellectual development. In
all times it has been touch alone which has given to the blind the
notions of form, resistance, etc., from which are constructed those
ideas of the external world, which sight conjointly with touch gives
to those who can see. Spontaneously and without the need of study
it has entered the ordinary domain of sight and brought to the mind
of the blind the knowledge of objects which, in general, are beyond
its reach. The ®@fforts of the educators consist at first in systematically
developing this tendency. It is necessary to cause a blind person to
touch as many objects as possible, and to feel as often as possible the
objects which men know ordinarily from sight, such as large animals,
implements of all kinds, and the ike. As far as possible objects of
the natural size are placed in his hands. In their absence one has
to be content with miniatures. Thus, for poor representations, always
abbreviated, and often reduced practically to a single word, are sub-
stituted concrete and precise images. Lessons on objects are for the
blind child a prime necessity.
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 689
But the principal office of this pedagogy by touch is to substitute
tactile means for the visual means which ordinarily serve in studies
and the transmission of ideas. Flat geographical charts are re-
placed by maps in relief; geometrical figures are also traced in relief,
etc. Of all the exercises, reading is that which is most profitable to
the intellect. Reading by touch is the most important of all its adap-
tations. It has made considerable progress during the last 125 years.
Valentin Haiiy was content to have the ordinary characters of the
alphabet traced in relief, but these characters are composed of lines,
and lines, though easily perceptible to the eye, are only slightly felt by
the finger. Furthermore, writing and reading were so slow that
they were of very little service. The idea was then conceived of sub-
stituting for the system of signs borrowed from those who see, an
entirely different system adapted to the special conditions of tactile
sensibility. The line was succeeded by the point, which the finger
perceives much more easily, and the system of Braille came into
existence, in which each character is represented by a number of
points, not exceeding six in all. Reading then became rapid, less
rapid, of course, than reading by means of the eyes, but sufficiently
so to enable one to read aloud, and very agreeable for reading to
one’s self.
But the printing of books is expensive, and the demand for them
insufficient to cover the cost. Scarcely more than the really essen-
tial books could be printed, those which were necessary for the instruc-
tion of the blind and for the practice of their professions. The ben-
efit to the reader by touch still remained too limited. Another step
in the direction of progress was necessary. It has been realized by
the foundation of the Braille library, a library composed of manu-
script works in the Braille system, which, although it has not been
in existence for more than a score of years, already numbers 25,000
volumes. Nearly all of them have been written by various persons,
and especially ladies and young girls, who each week, sometimes every
day, devoted some hours of leisure in preparing reading matter for
the blind. These volumes, masterpieces of patience and. charity,
are sent in all directions to all those who desire to learn from them.
They carry everywhere sound and beneficent diversion, a glow of joy
in the darkness, a ray of light which illuminates the intellect and
warms the heart. The Braille library also disseminates journals and
reviews in relief, no doubt rather brief, but sufficient, not only to
inform the readers regarding all which is of interest in the special
world of the blind, but also to make them acquainted with the polit-
ical, literary, and artistic news which no one should ignore.
Thanks to this library, one may say that an abundant intellectual
nourishment has been placed within reach of all educated blind per-
sons. Considerable progress has been made in this direction. Before
690 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the library was established, when school days were over only those
could continue to read daily who could command the services of a
reader, and those fortunate persons were very rare who could afford
so expensive a luxury. In consequence no reading was done. To-
day it is only necessary to write to the library in order to have books
sent, or to draw on the branch libraries which circulate in the larger
towns of France. Upon leaving school one is invited to maintain
the knowledge acquired and to cultivate one’s mind. A character-
istic fact witnesses the progress gained. The blind who are more
than 40 years old nearly all read very badly, while nearly all good
readers who are blind are less than 40 years old. The latter belong
to the generation which has profited by the Braille library. The
former were read to when they had the means; the latter hkewise
were, no doubt, read to, but they also read by themselves, and hence
they read better and read more.
One can appreciate the benefits of such a work. They are such that
’ we never cease to solicit all philanthropists in its favor. It needs to
be much extended. All grades of intellectual culture are represented
among the blind. To satisfy so many tastes, so many different needs,
we require a large and constantly increased number of volumes. On
this account we continue to ask authors who desire to manifest their
sympathy, to send us copies of their works, so that we may have them
copied; and to ask philanthropic persons to transcribe their favorite
authors by the Braille method, which is learned without effort. Ata
small expense all can assist in a work which brings to the disinherited
blind much prized diversion as well as instruction.
Intellectual recreation is, indeed, especially dear to the blind, as
one can readily conceive. Ordinary men get the greater part of their
pleasures through their eyes. Deprived of these pleasures, the blind
ask, in exchange, for others for their other senses. They ask not to be
cheated of their share. Here, as elsewhere, we find the substitution
of active functions for those which refuse to serve. They ask com-
pensations especially through the sense of hearing, and everyone
knows how numerous are blind musicians. They also ask much from
the exercise of the intellect and of reflection. “I am so happy,”
writes Helen Keller, “ that I could live always, because there are so
many fine things to learn.” In general the blind are very fond of
reading, much more so at least than those of the same intellectual
level who can see. In the schools for the blind the hours spent in
reading in common are greatly enjoyed. I know blind persons who
are occupied all day who devote a part of their nights to books.
Letters of thanks which readers address to the Braille brary are
often full of singularly touching gratitude, well calculated to en-
courage those who labor to help them.
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 691
This taste for reading, this need of mental diversion, constitutes, if
I am not mistaken, an intellectual advantage of much importance for
the blind and favors their development. They are besides often well
endowed as regards memory, and how great a prize that is everyone
knows. In truth, it seems to have a tendency to decline among the
blind from the time when they begin to write with ease, though it
remains good, nevertheless, on the average. Shall I also take into
account that their infirmity protects them from the invasion of the
magazine? ‘The substitution of the magazine for the book, of mis-
cellaneous facts and patchy articles for the long matured work, seems
in our age to be one of the obstacles to intellectual progress. The
periodicals in “ braille” are reviews rather than magazines, and the
part devoted to miscellaneous news is very much condensed. If the
blind are not coached by some person with sight who is in their circle,
and who reads to them every day from a newspaper, they escape the
contagion. They are able to give to books all the time for reading
which is at their disposal. As I have done this much toward an
endeavor to recognize their advantages, I must lay stress on the
principal one, namely, as I believe, a tendency to reflection, to the
concentration which is noticeable among so many of them.
I do not exaggerate at all nor do I, of course, pretend to lay down
universal rules. We are not concerned at all in determining the
character of the intelligence of the blind man as if this intelligence
were a fixed quantity. Among the blind, as among those who can
see, there are as many forms of intelligence as there are individuals.
There are some who are dissipated, some who are capricious and
inconsiderate. Among the best endowed, however, a certain poise
is often observed. Intellectual culture being equal, there is often,
I believe, more of equilibrium and judgment among the well-endowed
blind than among those who see. This is not astonishing, because
sight, as we have already said, is the sense of distraction. The less
one is distracted, the less the internal reverie is interrupted by
accidental happenings without, the more one is concentrated on him-
self, the more one takes time to mature one’s reflections, to weigh the
pros and cons of one’s deliberations.
I have encountered in the world of the blind some of the most
sympathetic intelligences that I have been privileged to know. I do
not speak here of eminent scholars, but of men living wisely and
intelligently, of men who perform feelingly their daily task, what-
ever it may be, and who constantly, in the practical affairs of life,
give evidence of good sense and wisdom. Often their intellect has
great steadiness joined to extreme flexibility. I will not mention
any living person, but scarcely a month ago a man died who has left
behind an ineffaceable memory among all those who associated with
him. M. Bernus was professor of grammar and literature in the
692 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Institution for Blind Youth in Paris. He lost his sight when he was
very young. Educated in this school, where he later became an
instructor, he had received an elementary education, quite insufficient
for the needs of his mind. He was also seized with that thirst for
reading of which I have spoken. He listened eagerly to reading and
developed his faculties by himself. Appointed professor on leaving
school, and almost without preparation, he owed to his reading the
solidity and originality of a very personal instruction. He had a
singularly delicate literary taste. He wrote nothing, partly from
modesty and partly because from his point of view execution was
much inferior to conception. Simple, courageous, he taught a pri-
mary class for eight years, and up to the time of his death. A little
slow in mind as well as in body, he responded feebly to impressions
from without, but he had singular powers of concentration, and his
meditation was intense. When one had penetrated his rather cold
exterior, one encountered a very active mind—a man of great pene-
.tration and original thought. He was also an excellent adviser. I
dwell on this example because M. Bernus, whom so many of his blind
pupils have loved, appears to have united in himself so many of the
most salient characteristics which are ordinarily found in the mind
of the blind.
Louis Braille, we are told, was of the same type of mind. His
manner was reserved, his conversation was not brilliant, but the
solidity of his thought caused all those who knew him to seek his
opinion. From his youth he was able to concentrate his mind with
so great tenacity on an idea that at the age of 17 years, after long
groping and many fruitless combinations, he had already fixed on the
marvelously simply alphabet with which his name will always be
associated.
A goodly number of blind persons seem to have achieved a certain
notoriety by their intellectual culture. Unfortunately, we are gen-
erally in ignorance of the conditions under which they developed and
the means which they employed, and we lack precise data regarding
their psychology. Many represent scarcely more than names to us.
Among them are certain of the ancient Greeks and Romans, such as
that Diodotus and that Aufidius of whom Cicero speaks in his Tuscu-
lanes. Didymus of Alexandria, who lived in the fourth century of
our era, is a little better known. Toward the end of the middle ages
various scholars of remarkable memory, Nicaise, of Malines or of
Verdun; Fernand, of Bruges, and Pierre Dupont, of Paris. Regard-
ing Ulrich Schomberg (1601-1648) we have the testimony of Leibnitz.
“He taught philosophy and mathematics at Konigsberg,” says Leib-
nitz, “to the admiration of the whole world.” Although he did not
lose his sight until 24 years of age, he did not retain any remembrance
of light or of colors, so that visual impressions counted for nothing
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 693
in the formation of his intellect. In the eighteenth century the Swiss
Huber obtained some reputation through Voltaire and, thanks to
Diderot, we have become acquainted with the Englishman Saunder-
son. The former studied the habits of the bee, but it should be
remarked that having enjoyed the use of his sight until the age of
15 years, he had received the greater part of his education while he
could see, and that he was able to make use, without interruption, of
the visual imagination. Saunderson, on the contrary, became blind
in his early infancy, but it appears nevertheless that he carried his
mathematical studies to a great length. Like Saunderson, who was
a professor at the University of Oxford, many of the blind whom we
have mentioned taught those who could see. It was the same with
Penjon, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century was pro-
fessor of mathematics at the college at Angers. As we have seen,
mathematics and philosophy predominated in these cases. Among
poets we can scarcely cite anyone but Malaval, who achieved a cer-
tain notoriety, for we can not name the great poet Milton, since he
did not lose his sight until after he was 30 years old.
Though these names do not shine with a great luster, they suffice to
prove that blindness does not contravene the full development of the
intellectual faculties. Furthermore, any one who desires to assure
himself on this point has only to visit a community of the educated
blind. They can be found in all countries, and especially in the great
institutions for the blind. In all countries also one encounters blind
students, who perform various tasks with success. In France we
know a doctor of philosophy, a master of literature, and a doctor of
laws.
If, moreover, in the past such a number of blind men as we have
“mentioned and many others also whom we do not know, left to their
own resources, without the aid of any method or tradition, have suc-
ceeded in cultivating their intellect, why should we be astonished that
to-day, when they find institutions ready to receive them, when a.
complete system of pedagogy and methods of work have been devised
for their use, if a large number reach the same result? All this does
not prevent there being much labor wasted, as one may say, or many
blind persons who are incapable of a normal development. As ex-
perience shows, blindness is not the cause of this. There are maladies
which often accompany blindness. This waste will even, perhaps,
increase in the future. In certain quarters, already, it 1s believed
(incorrectly, perhaps) that a decline in the average intellectual de-
velopment among the blind is perceptible. Recently, the progress
made in the prophylaxis of blindness has rendered it possible to save
some invalids who at another time would probably not have escaped
disaster. Probably more will be saved later on. The territory.thus
gained will all be that of localized affections which involve only the
694 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
eye—in particular, the horrible ophthalmia of infants. In the gen-
erations of blind persons who will rise to the intellectual life doubt-
less a larger and larger proportion of unfortunates will be found
whose sight will be obscured by some one of those deep-seated mala-
dies which affect the brain and the nervous system. Far be it from us
to complain of this intellectual decline, if such be the cause. With all
our hearts we long for the time (alas, far off) when the oculists will
permit only idiots to lose their sight. If that time should ever come
it would be necessary to understand that it is not blindness which
produces imbecility, but that imbecility and blindness both pro-
ceed from a deeper cause. To-day it is important not to forget this
and if one meets a blind man of low mentality to resist the temptation
of judging others by him.
Without doubt one great difficulty exists, and as we have pointed
out the advantages which the blind, perhaps, enjoy, it is necessary
to mention it in turn. Documentation is always much more difh-
cult for the blind man than for the person who sees, and it is always
* lable to be rather deficient. Books are to a less degree at his disposal.
They invite him less to reading. Many are inaccessible except by the
intervention of a person who can see. Formerly this difficulty was
less evident, because it was much less necessary to read than it is to-
day. The transmission of knowledge was effected to a larger extent
by means of speech. At present in most cases this inferiority does
not appear to me to be of very great moment. The musicians trained
by the Institution of Paris are certainly not inferior, from an intel-
lectual point of view, to those with whom they associate, and the
workmen are in general superior as to culture to the workmen who
see. In average conditions, the evil is not a great one, although, of
course, it becomes a much more serious obstacle to those who have pre- —
tensions to a great intellectual development. Provided, however,
that the conditions are favorable, there is no doubt that the methods
which for a century have been at the disposal of the blind, joined to
those which they could command previously, enable them to triumph.
Even for the advanced intellects there is nothing that is isur-
mountable.
‘BE
In an article in which he spoke very graciously of my books on
Montaigne, M. Victor Giraud remarked“ that it would be interesting
to know the methods of work which a blind person employs when
engaged in the minute inquiries which such works presuppose. . I am
very glad to respond to his suggestion, and the more so because it will
enable me to show the marvelous services which we can derive from
the method invented by Louis Braille, and its adaptability for our
«See the Revue des Denx Mondes for February 10, 1909, p. 628.
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 695
needs. In the lines which follow I am less concerned than Braille,
because it is Braille who has enabled me to accomplish things, and
others as well as myself. From a psychological point of view, or a
typhlological point of view, as we say, the only interest which my
books on Montaigne have is that owing to our special methods philo-
logical researches and works of erudition are not prohibited to the
blind.
T lost my sight when 44 years old. From my earliest years no clear
visual remembrance has remained with me, perhaps because heedless
infancy scarcely fixes its attention on anything. or, what is more
likely, because in the total darkness in which I have lived since no
visual impression could enter to wake the sleeping memories. In a
large sacred history which was opened before me I remembered
vaguely a picture of Abraham slaying his son, while an angel de-
scends from heaven to stay his arm. Is it perhaps possible that the
wings of the angel, which struck my childish fancy, may have left
some traces in my memory? All is so vague, however, that I scarcely
dare believe it, and especially because if I attempt to grasp my remem-
brance it vanishes immediately. It is more a remembrance of vision
than a visual image. I have quite exact ideas of color, but for
lack of means of comparison I do not know whether they are exact.
When I lost my sight I did not know how to read. My education
has therefore been entirely the education of a blind man.
I received my first lessons by listening to my brothers read aloud.
It was found that I had a good memory. At the age of 8 years, an
age when the sense of touch is still acute, I commenced to study
Braille’s alphabet, which costs a child less toil than the ordinary
alphabet. Also while quite young I familiarized myself with the
two methods of work which I should have to make use of later—
reading aloud and reading by touch. A sojourn at the National
Institution for Blind Youth at Paris initiated me more fully into all
the special methods of the pedagogy of the blind, which are better
taught in this school than in most others, and thus prepared me for
the studies which I should have to make in the different colleges of
Paris. There, even for Latin, Greek, and often even for French, I
lacked books in relief. J transcribed and had transcribed those which
were indispensable to me. The Braille library placed many at my
disposal. In addition, my devoted friends aided me in this task.
But more frequently than otherwise I learned my lessons through a
secretary, or a comrade, who read them to me. I used continually
the Braille system for all that I wished to preserve for writing rough
drafts of my lessons, and especially for taking notes on the course
given in the class room. In consequence of this continual exercise
I managed the stiletto with rapidity, and by means of stenography,
45745°—sm 1909—45
696 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
which I enriched little by little with new signs, no sentence of the
course escaped me. As for the papers which I had to submit to my
professors, I wrote them with a writing machine, the same which I
am making use of at the present moment. It is a typewriter which
differs in nothing from the ordinary model. Of course I am unable
to see the letters inscribed on the keys which I strike, but memory
very easily supplies this defect. Moreover, typewriters who can see
always write without looking at the machine.
For some years the blind have made much use of typewriting, and
the process is so simple that less than an hour after I received my
machine I wrote my first paper without assistance. The only dif-
ficulty consists in the fact that I am unable to read over what is
written. For that I am obliged to call on a person who can see.
Owing to these methods, and also to the exceilent teachers, some of
whom have shown toward me an unlimited devotion, I had no diffi-
culty in keeping pace with my comrades, and I passed my classes with
_ success. At the same time, I have accustomed myself to make the
most of the conditions under which I labored, to profit by reading
which I heard as much as by reading which I did for myself; to
multiply my notes in “ braille,” and to classify them in a methodical
and practical manner. All this was of service to me later.
When I entered the higher normal school I felt at once that a
change was effected in my studies. The work of assimilation, which
was that of the secondary schools, was succeeded by the work of pro-
duction, scientific work. I confess that at first [ was disquieted by it.
It was necessary to go to the sources, to handle a mass of books with-
out any guidance. My tastes led me toward literary history, and in
no kind of studies does documentation present so many difficulties as
in history. I regretted at times not being of a philosophical turn of
mind, because I was aware that a philosopher demands less from
books and draws more from his own resources. Necessity also im-
posed on me the task of learning to use bibliographical aids as
methodically as possible in order to guide with more certainty a
secretary, who, moreover, became inseparable from me, who supplied
me constantly with eyes, but eyes more and more passive in propor-
tion as the needs became more personal and more complicated. Be-
fore leaving school I applied myself to the study of Montaigne.
In order that one may understand in what my task consisted, I am
under the necessity (and for this I ask the pardon of my readers) of
recalling briefly the point at which the study of Montaigne had
arrived when I first took it up, and the object which I set before me.
It is generally the custom to read the essays of Montaigne as if they
constituted a homogeneous work and form an entity. One sought in
his philosophy a single idea, almost a system, and as one frequently
encountered contradictory judgments, some contended that they were
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 697
stoical, others that they were epicurean. Some regarded them as
skeptical, while others attributed them to dogmatism. Those who
were religious affirmed that they were atheistical. In his style one
ran against equally great contrasts. By the side of jejune chapters,
devoid of originality, one found admirable essays, rich and full of
personal feeling, as everybody knows. It seemed to me that all these
apparent contradictions and these differences could be explained, that
they corresponded to differences of date in the composition of the
essays, and that the thought of Montaigne varied from time to time in
the same way that the style of an artist changes. Retracing, as far
as possible, the successive stages which his thought had traversed, the
layers deposited one on another in his mind by the transformations
of his work; in a word, to retrace the evolution of Montaigne as a
philosopher and as an artist—such was my plan.
In order to realize it, the first thing to do was to determine the
chronology of the essays. It was necessary to investigate the allu-
sions to contemporary events which they contained, to identify these
often obscure events, and to fix the date, often at the expense of ex-
tended research. Without a firmly established chronology there can
be no historical studies. But to fix this chronology and to make
clear the evolution which it should reveal to us, it was important to
recover Montaigne’s reading. Indeed, various chapters inspired by
the same book were likely to be contemporaneous. His series of read-
ings might reveal much concerning his series of compositions. I was
obliged, therefore, to commence by reconstructing what could be found
of Montaigne’s library, his “ libraire,” as he called it, and, as fast as I
replaced the books on the shelves, to examine each for the material
which it had furnished.
This detailed and very extended inquiry was, then, the necessary
point of departure of my task, and it constituted the most difficult
part. In order to comprehend how it was possible, and how it fur-
nished a solid foundation for the edifice which I wished to construct,
it is important to recall that Montaigne usually quoted with much
accuracy the authors who inspired him. One finds in the essays
phrases copied almost verbatim from the books which he admired;
in other places there are only allusions, but allusions so precise that
one can sometimes trace the source with certainty. As besides, Mon-
taigne spoke with pleasure of his reading, and has given us his im-
pressions regarding much of it, such an enterprise has a good chance
of success. It was begun by annotators of the essays, such as Coste
and Victor Leclere. It was only necessary to continue with more pre-
cision and more patience.
My first care, then, was to transcribe in braille Montaigne’s entire
work. My collection of the essays comprised twenty volumes. I
was able, then, very easily and without any extraneous aid to study
698 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
them at first hand, to make myself thoroughly familiar with them,
and to put on memoranda. My memoranda, written out in braille
were divided, properly speaking, into two catagories. On those
of the first group were written all the ideas which were expressed in
the essays. On those of the second group, all the images, character-
istic expressions, and figures—in a word, all the peculiarities of style.
For the last group were reserved the historical examples, the anec-
dotes, and narratives of all kinds which swarm throughout the essays.
Then, the three lots of memoranda were classified, each separately,
in alphabetical order, and placed in a large box, which for many
years remained constantly within reach of my hand.
All these memoranda were written out in relief in braille char-
acters. The characteristic word of each of them, that which served
to give it its place in the alphabetical classification, was written at
the bottom. Thus, all being placed upside down on a slightly in-
clined plane it was only necessary for me to run my fingers rapidly
over the edge which they presented toward me in order to imme-
diately discover in these rather high piles the memorandum which
I needed. The search did not take any more time, I believe, than
would have been demanded of a practiced eye. Seated before my
boxes, I had only to read over again the books with which Montaigne
might have been acquainted. Every time that I was struck by an
idea, an image, or an example which I had encountered in the essays,
I extended my hand toward the memorandum on which this par-
ticular was written. This having been found, referred me to the
exact page of Montaigne and permitted me to verify my recollection.
If, as I supposed, there was a citation or allusion, I wrote my dis-
covery, always in braille, on the memorandum, where several lines
had been reserved for the purpose.
T should have read also, in order that my inquiry should be fruitful,
nearly everything that had chanced to interest Montaigne—and his
mind was one of insatiable curiosity. In his time Latin and Greek
literature were almost entirely vulgarized, and his education inclined
him particularly to borrow from the ancients. In addition, he read
many French and Italian books. It was necessary for me, therefore,
to pursue my inquiries in the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian works
then published. The first point was to discover their titles by means
of bibliographical aids which I had collected. The second was to
search in the public libraries for books which might interest me, for
these books were often very rare. Many of them have not been re-
printed since the sixteenth century. For those which have been, it
was necessary to have recourse to editions of that time, which some-
times differ materially from those which have been put out since.
It is not necessary to remark that all these were not transcribed in
braille. I was not able, therefore, to read these works, but had
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 699
them read aloud to me. The practice which T had had, as already
remarked, made this method of work so familiar to me that for
works which are not of an artistic character, I prefer reading aloud
to reading by touch.
However, as regards inquiries of this kind, I will not endeavor to
deny that they present real difficulties. In the first place, and be-
fore all else, the impossibility of running over the matter is the
great drawback to being read to aloud. The eye is quick to scruti-
nize a page, eliminate the whole of a useless chapter, and make sure
that it contains nothing of any interest. Nothing can replace the
eye for this purpose. It is necessary to resolve to listen carefully to
useless developments for fear of imprudently skipping over an im-
portant idea. When I risked skipping passages, it was necessary
that they should be short. It was necessary, indeed, to know all
the different directions which the argument took.~ When one direc-
tion was sterile it could be abandoned, but it was important not to
pass the exact point where the thought entered on a new path.
Sometimes I employed a signal (a stroke of a ruler on the table, for
example) for interrupting an introductory sentence, and it was
understood that my reader was to begin further along, according to
the character of the book, either at the beginning of the following
sentence or at the next line, or five or six lines below. But these
expedients were only moderately successful and had to be used very
conservatively. Another difficulty is that borrowed eyes have never
the docility of those which are under the direction of one’s own
will. A secretary, however devoted, grows weary of an extremely
monotonous task, the interest of which escapes him. I do not at-
tempt, therefore, to minimize the difficulties which a blind person
encounters in such work. Taking all in all, however, they are
difficulties only and not insurmountable obstacles. To succeed, it is
necessary to have a little more patience, a little more perseverance,
that is all.
Chronological researches can be made in the same way, and when
the investigations of sources and chronology were completed, nothing
remained to be done except to concentrate the results, assemble and
condense them, and to make clear by their hight the evolution of
Montaigne’s thought. This was merely a matter of reflection, the
most agreeable task of all, because it was carried on without the use
of books or any extraneous aid, and because it was all mental and
depended on myself alone. ;
For the easy maturing of this reflection my memoranda in “ braille
were both necessary and sufficient. I have already shown how easy
their handling was to me. I believe that in this regard the blind
man does not suffer from any inferiority, and the more he exercises
his faculty of concentration the easier his task becomes.
”
700 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
Finally, we come to the work of editing. So many blind persons
have published and are publishing remarkable articles and works
that I have nothing really new to say on this subject. The editing of
a work of erudition scarcely presents more difficulties than for a
popular work. It merely requires more precision as concerns num-
bers, masses of dates—all things which require scrupulous care. It
presupposes above all a mass of notes at the bottom of the pages,
references to texts, and documentary proofs. All that may take one
by surprise at first, but, by means of the notesin “ braille,” itis always
possible, without too much labor, to attain a rigorous exactness. My
volumes are studded with figures and exact references. My extracts
having been made methodically, and the results drawn from them
carefully recorded with all the indications arranged in proportion to
and in accordance with the circumstances, it was easy for me to sup-
port my assertions with the critical proof which they demanded.
There again it sufficed for me to refer to my memoranda, where every-
thing was noted.
As to the mechanical execution and the actual composition, two
methods were open to me. I could write out the work in “ braille ”
in such a way that I could read and correct the matter myself, and
turn the copy over to a typewriter to put into type, or I could copy
my rough draft again on my own typewriter. I have used both
methods, sometimes preferring the one and sometimes the other, ac-
cording to circumstances. When I had to do with particularly
difficult pages, requiring special accuracy, it seemed to me better to
make a rough draft in relief, in order to be able to consider and
compare it freely. For ordinary passages I much preferred the
typewriter from the first.
One may be surprised that the rough drafts in “braille” were not
always preferred. The writing, in spite of numerous abbreviations,
was rather slow, and, furthermore, required a certain expense of
physical energy. These two circumstances lessen the buoyancy of the
mind and divert attention from the work of composition toward the
details of mechanical execution. I am aware that some blind persons
are less sensible of these inconveniences, but I know that there are
others like myself who find themselves disconcerted by them. Type-
writing, on the contrary, is quick and easy. It accompanies but does
not interfere with the flow of the mind, which is scarcely conscious
of its very flexible mechanism. Doubtless a person who can see finds
it difficult to understand how anyone can write without being able
to read over the paragraphs that are finished. TI find that habit
triumphs over this difficulty—at all events, with me it was a triumph
without labor. The care involved in a methodical and rather rigid
composition is in part the cause. When one has his plan well in mind,
with even the details in order, one does not lose the thread of its
INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 701
development, however lacking in exactness one’s memory may be.
It was very rarely that I found it necessary to seek the aid of other
eyes to find my place, or to recall the form which I had given to any
preceding sentences. Frequently I suspended the editorial work
in the midst of the development of an idea. I left the sheet in the
machine and sometimes after an interruption of forty-eight hours,
or even more, took up the thought again without hesitation at the
point at which I had left it. Moreover, I did not deprive myself
of the opportunity of correction. The editing over, I had the matter
read to me as many times as was necessary, dictating to my secretary
modifications and sometimes very numerous additions, and adding
everywhere a thousand finishing touches. I believe that I can say
that my style was not less imperfect when I wrote the first draft
in “braille.” On the contrary, if it was perhaps a little more
vigorous, it was also rather stiffer.
Finally, and this is what I particularly wish to note, the elabora-
tion of these 1,250 very compact pages did not by any means cause
me the prodigious labor that one might naturally expect. The one
part which was long and tedious was the extensive preparation, all
that which did not appear, the documentation which served as the
basis of the work. I retain the hope that anyone who has followed
my exposition is convinced that the undertaking can be carried
on without any great difficulty and that thes methods which are
open to the blind lend themselves perfectly to its accomplishment.
They have given me, I believe, means of conforming exactly to the
course that any person who can see, desiring to treat of the same sub-
ject with accuracy, would be compelled to follow. In all my pro-
ceedings I have invented nothing. Any person with sight would,
I think, be compelled to use some form of memoranda analogous to
mine. I simply adapted a common and almost necessary method, I
may say, to the special conditions of the blind. This adaptation
was a very simple one and did not demand any great effort of the
imagination. It was developed little by little, by successive steps, in
accordance with the needs. It sprang in a certain way from
circumstances.
My design, as one may suppose, is not to incite the blind to engage
in the production of works of erudition. To succeed in this it is
absolutely necessary to have the taste, the passion for learning, and
most fortunately few persons are afflicted with this malady. What
a strange life it would be if we were all metamorphosed into book-
worms! Very fortunately, too, there are other works more accessible
to the blind in which they have less trouble in rivaling those who
can see. In all that I have recounted it is not necessary to see an
example, but an experience—an experience which, certes, will not
surprise the blind (who, at least, will see that everything here men-
702 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tioned is quite simple), but may, perhaps, suggest to them some
useful observations on certain applications of their own peculiar
methods of work. It is, however, addressed especially to those
who have sight. With so many other experiences which are
renewed every day, it will contribute, perhaps, its little part to
inspire them with more equitable judgments on the blind. It re-
quires such an unending array of facts to combat a prejudice and to
cause it to retreat step by step that we can never have enough. This
will serve as one among many. Let us also hope that it will make an
impression on the ranks of the enemy and work for the common
welfare.
In conclusion, it remains for me to excuse myself for having
spoken at such great length about my own affairs, but if the “I”
(that of Montaigne excepted) is nearly always objectionable, the
reader will pardon me when he notes that, in spite of appearances,
I have mentioned much less regarding my own personal work than
_regarding that of the blind in general. What I have done any other
blind person might have done in my place. Our methods of work
are common to all. I have wished, by means of one example, to
show the flexibility of our methods. Perhaps, after having read
the foregoing, all will understand better how much we appreciate
the inventor of an alphabet to which we owe the major part of our
culture and our intellectual pleasures.
THE RELATION OF MOSQUITOES, FLIES, TICKS, FLEAS,
AND OTHER ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY.
By G. MAROTEL.
It is a matter of common knowledge to-day that while there are
many arthropods which live a free life, there are also many others
which are parasites, causing in man and also especially in the do-
mestic animals many and varied diseases, the origin and nature of
some of which have been known for a long time. It would be banal
to recall that phthiriasis is caused by lice, and that certain larve of
Diptera, such as the cestrids, may occasion the disease called myasis.
This old pathogenic role, which has been taught to all the medical
and veterinary generations of our time, is quite true. But it is not
of this that I wish to speak. It is of a new role, brought to light only
within the last ten years, the importance of which now grows greater
every day, for scarcely a month passes, I might almost say not a week,
that some work does not appear which adds some unknown fact or
new theory relative to it.
It has to do with one of the questions which in the whole range of
parasitic pathology can, with the greatest right, claim to be of prac-
tical importance. The danger from the arthropods is a direct con-
sequence of their habits. It only exists in connection with those
whose habits are to seek association with men and domestic animals,
to bite them and to suck their blood.
Everyone knows that a number of species, such as mosquitoes
and gadflies, pass a considerable part of their time in flying from one
victim to another, in the same manner that bees wander from flower
to flower. Let us suppose, then, that in the course of these wander-
ings one of them happens to fasten itself on an individual affected by
a parasitic or bacterial disease, the agent of which lives in the blood.
In sucking the blood it absorbs also the germs which are contained in
it, and thus is infected. Should it then attack a healthy person there
is danger that it will inoculate him with the disease. This is why
@Translated by permission from Annales de la Société d’Agriculture, Sciences
et Industrie de Lyon, 1906, pp. 279-802.
703
704 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
the biting and sucking arthropods (I insist on these terms) recently
considered as being simply troublesome, vexatious, uncomfortable,
and disagreeable, have to be looked upon to-day as capable of becom-
ing carriers of infection, agents for the propagation and dissemina-
tion of disease. This is why it will be understood henceforth that
man and the domestic animals are exposed to certain affections, the
germs of which are introduced by invertebrate blood-suckers which
they have previously drawn from the sick vertebrate.
Such is the method of this new role, which I wish to try to ex-
plain here and which modern researches have shown to be of more
consequence, especially in warm countries, than could have been
suspected previously; so much so that the value of our colonial
domain is subordinated (the word is not too strong) to the discovery
of the proper means of neutralizing the pathological action of these
animals.
Thus, these arthropods, which ten years ago had only an ordinary
_and purely zoological interest for us, have assumed prime importance
both from a medical and a hygienic point of view, and especially in
tropical countries. The principal forms connected with the latest
discoveries belong to the order Diptera, or to the family Ixodide. It
has now been established that they are the sole agents of inoculation
of seven different maladies, namely, malaria, filariosis, yellow fever,
trypanosomiasis, plague, piroplasmosis, and spirochaetosis.
A, PALUDISM, OR MALARIA.
Commonly called malaria, intermittent fever, swamp fever, or
simply ‘ fevers,” paludism is, according to unanimous opinion, the
one human disease which more than any other prevents the acclima-
tization of Europeans in warm countries. It is due to the invasion
of the blood by extremely small sporozoans lodged in the red blood
corpuscles, whence is derived the name of endoglobular heematozoans,
which it is the custom to give them. They belong to the genus Plas-
modium and comprise many species, such as Plasmodium malaria,
the agent of quartan fever; Plasmodium vivax, the agent of tertian
fever; Plasmodium precow, the agent of irregular, or spring and
fall fever.
For a long time it was not known to what these fevers were due.
Some said that they were due to marshes, whence the name paludism.
It was also said that they were derived from the air, whence the name
malaria, which means “bad air.” Finally, it was said that- they
eame from the soil, whence the name tellurism, which was also
applied to the disease.
None of these was correct. All the etiological conceptions were
wrong, and yet mankind for twenty centuries rested on these false
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—MAROTEL. 705
theories of which to-day nothing remains. The first ray of lght
appeared in 1880, at which date one of our members, Laveran, dis-
covered at Constantine the hematozoan which to-day bears his name
(fig. 1). But the veil of obscurity which enveloped this important
question could not be completely dissipated until 1898.
It was at this time that a group of students, at the head of whom
should be placed Grassi and Manson, demonstrated in an irrefutable
manner that the parasite of malaria was intro-
duced into man by mosquitoes; that is, passed
from man to the mosquito and from the mos-
quito back to man again, and thus on indefi-
nitely, without being for a single instant, even Pants Re sce
the thousandth of a second, liberated into the zoan of human ma-
external environment. Consequently, in spite aie ie a
of what was thought for centuries, none of these
mediums, neither the air, the water, nor the soil, can cause ma-
laria, and these beliefs become henceforth a part of the history of
medicine.
There is one extremely important fact: Not all species of mosqui-
toes can propagate malaria; only those which, in the family Culicide,
belong to the tribe Anopheline can assume
this role, and the most dangerous of the
species from this point of view are first of
all the Anopheles maculipennis, which is
by far the most redoubtable; then A. pseud-
opictus, A. superpictus, A. bifurcatus, A.
funestus, and finally a last species, Pyreto-
phorus costalis.
The proofs which one can give to-day of
the mosquito theory are three. The first is
that of Grassi, who, in 1898, in association
with Bignami and Bastianelli, was able to
follow the evolution of Plasmodium day by
day in the bodies of mosquitoes which had
been made to suck blood affected by ma-
laria, showing thus that the parasite could
me al he. eres les! penetrate the insect, remain there a certain
(After Neveu-Lemaire.) t, time, and then leave to pass immediately to
etn pa- man. These students have also established
oa a the fact that while in the Anopheles, the
hematozoan undergoes profound transformation, constituting a veri-
table evolution, and that the intimate mechanism of the transmission
was as follows: The parasites sucked in with the blood lay eggs in the
stomach, which eggs encyst themselves in the walls of the stomach, and
produce a multitude of little vermicular spores. These, set at liberty
706 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
by the breaking open of the cyst,are carried by the blood toward the
head, then into the proboscis of the insect, which inoculates them with
every bite. The second proof is this: One can voluntarily produce
malaria by causing healthy mdividuals to be bitten by Anopheles
intentionally infected. This experiment was carried out by Patrick
Manson on his own son. The third proof is as follows: Malaria can
be avoided by taking the single precaution of protecting one’s self
from the bites of mosquitoes.
This results from the experiments of Sambon and Low, who, with-
out the least accident, were able to pass an entire summer in one of
the most insalubrious places of the Roman campagna, by simply cov-
ering the openings of the house with wire netting of sufficiently fine
mesh to prevent the access of the Culicide.
In order to remove all doubts Sambon and Grassi undertook, in
1900, a series of experiments which showed absolutely -the réle of
the Anopheles in the propagation of fevers. They were made on the
disciplined personnel of the railroad companies south of Naples, in a
region where the disease is so endemic that it is called “piano di
pesto.” They consisted exclusively in protecting all the inhabitants
of a given zone from mosquitoes, while those of the neighboring
localities, who were not protected, served as proofs. The results
furnished by these experiments were marvelous. In 113 individuals
of the protected zone not a single case was produced, while the persons
in the neighboring unprotected zone fell sick in the proportion of
49 to 50. The proof could not have been more striking.
As regards the objections which have been made to the mosquito
theory, the most serious is that in certain marshy lands there is no
trace of Anopheles. In order to verify the truth of this observation
Laveran organized, around the entire earth, a vast inquiry for the
purpose of establishing a list of the mosquitoes peculiar to every
marshy region. Thus far the inquiry has shown, first, that there are
Anopheles in all insalubrious countries; second, that nearly always
abundance is in direct ratio to the frequency of fevers; third, that
the pretended absence of these dipterous insects was due simply to
inadequate collecting, often undertaken but once and at a single point
in the region.
Another objection is, so to speak, an inversion of the last. In
certain salubrious localities there are Anopheles in abundance. That
is readily explained, however, because it is evident that mosquitoes
can not become dangerous until after they become infected—that is,
after having sucked the swamp blood. But if there be no malaria
in the country they can not become contaminated, and hence remain
inoffensive.
To summarize, one can affirm to-day, without fear of being mis-
taken, that the doctrine of anophelism triumphs everywhere, and
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS-TO PATHOLOGY—-MAROTEL. 707
that the law formulated in the beginning by Grassi, namely, that
there is no malaria without Anophelines, is always true. At present,
if one wishes to deny the rdle of mosquitoes in the propagation of
fevers, it is necessary to deny the evidence.
Alongside the malaria of man, we place the malaria of birds, not
that it is of great medical importance, but because, although it occurs
in quite a large number of wild birds (sparrows, birds of prey, etc.),
it has scarcely been noticed thus far in a single domestic bird except
the pigeon, and in one game bird, the partridge. It has had a
scientific interest of the first rank, however, because through it was
first discovered the inoculation réle of mosquitoes. It was this which
opened the door to the important researches which we have men-
tioned on human malaria.
Malaria in birds is almost always due to an
endoglobular heematozoan very closely allied to
that occurring in man—the Plasmodium danil- wR. 3—Rea corgeaere
ewskyi (fig. 3). of a pigeon infected
k = oO. 2 > : ; by the parasite of
Some months before Grassi’s investigations avian. malavisleprae
were undertaken, Ross showed that this parasite — medium danilewskyi.
5 ° Oe ae : n, Nucleus of the cor-
was introduced into birds by mosquitoes be- mance: Pete
longing to the genus Culex, and especially b hematozoan, contain-
5 > 9
CG ie ‘ poh tyes tl n ' : s b nd: t ing its own nucleus
Culex pipiens, the common species so abundan ant pienette nee
in our part of the world. By this remarkable
discovery, Ross became the real originator of the studies which fol-
lowed relative to the role of insects in the transmission of disease.
For this reason, I must mention his name in this review. in order to
give him the credit that is due him.
B. FILARIASIS.
The filarias are round, filiform worms whose habitat, both as re-
gards the organ and the species, varies extremely. Thus, one may
find them in the blood, the lymph, the serous membranes, the glands,
the connective tissue, etc., both in man and in the domestic animals.
That which should be remembered from the outset is that whatever
may be the location of the adult, the embryoes of many of these forms
live in the blood. This is the case, notably, with a filaria of man,
the Filaria bancrofti, which in adult age is found in the lymphatic
vessels of the skin, while its embryoes spread through the blood.
Now, it is singular that these embryoes remain hidden during the
day in the large, deep vessels, and that they pass out into the periferal
circulation in the night, or strictly speaking, during sleep. This.
circumstance led Manson to think that the agent of transmission
must be a bloodsucking insect of nocturnal habits, and to recall the
mosquitoes. The mosquito hypothesis, put forward more than twenty-
five years ago, could be completely verified only in 1900 by the simul-
708 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
taneous labors of Bancroft on the one hand, and of Manson and Low
on the other.
These indefatigable investigators proved that if a man bitten by a
mosquito was affected by filariasis, the embryoes taken in with the
blood reached the stomach, the walls of which they at once traversed
in order to lodge in the mass of the thoracic muscles. They remained
twenty days in this situation, and were there transformed into larve,
and then passed into the pharyngeal cavity of the insect. Thence
they proceeded one by one into the proboscis, which inoculated them
with every bite, in the same manner, conse-
quently, as it inoculated the malarial plasmodium.
The Culicidz responsible for this transmission
belong to the genera Anopheles and Culex. The
same thing happens in the case of the filaria of
the dog, Filaria immitis, which lives in the heart
(fig. 4). Grassi and Noé established the fact
that this worm was, like the preceding, conveyed
by Culex and Anopheles, in which it accom-
plished an evolution comparable to that of the
Filaria bancrofti, except that the embryoes were
transformed into larve not in the thoracic
muscles but in the malpighian tubes.
The same course is pursued by the following
species: F%laria recondita, which lives in the
fatty perirenal tissue of the dog, and is propa-
Fic. 4.—Embryos of 22ted by fleas and also, it is true, by a tick, RAd-
Filaria immitis of the picephalus siculus; Filaria perstans of the con-
Baa Wee ees nective tissue of the base of the mesentery of man,
. ~ which is common in Guiana and West Africa, and
which, according to Feldmann, may be transmitted also by a tick
which has been described but not named; Pilaria labiato-papillosa
of the peritoneum and eye of cattle, eh is inoculated by flies
closely allied to the common fly, the Stomox; Filaria medinensis,
which lodges in the subcutaneous connective tissue of man, the horse,
ox, and dog, and which is not conveyed by an insect, but by small
crustaceans, the Cyclops.
C. YELLOW FEVER.
Yellow fever is a disease of man which belongs to the category of
maladies called diseases due to invisible, or ultra-microscopic, mi-
crobes, because the latter are so small and attenuated that often
they can not be discerned by the aid of the most powerful objectives.
The most extraordinary suppositions have been made regarding the
origin of this terrible disease. The celebrated experiments made in
RELATION.OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—-MAROTEL. 709
1901 by the American commission in Cuba have shown that it is
exclusively due to the bite of a mosquito, Stegomyta calopus. In
fact, by forty different repetitions this commission was able to re-
produce yellow fever experimentally by causing healthy individuals
to be bitten by infected Stegomyia. In addition these results, which
constitute a striking confirmation of the mosquito theory, already
advanced twenty years earlier by Finlay, were verified almost im-
mediately in different places at the same time. In 1902 by Guiteras
in Havana, in 1903 by Ribas and Lutz at St. Paul, as well as by a
second American commission which worked at Veracruz; finally,
in 1904, by a French commission sent to Rio de Janeiro. As a result
the transmission of yellow fever by mosquitoes is no more doubted
to-day than that of malaria and certain forms of filariasis.
D. TRYPANOSOMIASIS.
Trypanosomiasis, as one may guess, is a disease caused by the try-
panosomes, that is to say, by miscroscopic infusorians with a fusi-
form, sinuous, or arched’ body, possessed of an
undulating lateral membrane and a terminal fila-
ment, called a flagellum (fig. 5).
These parasites live also in the blood of their
host, but with the difference, as compared with
Plasmodium (which are lodged within the cor-
puscles), that they swim in the plasma. They
therefore are exoglobular hematozoans.
At present, nine species of trypanosomes are
known which are capable of attacking man and
domestic animals. They cause, on almost the pe 5, trypanosoma
whole surface of the globe, the epidemics, the brucei of Nagana x
: : - 2,000. After Laveran
cause of which long remained a mystery, and of fa Mesnil. n, Neu-
which the prophylaxis is one of the major prob- cleus; ¢, centrosome ;
lems of colonial expansion. pnegelinny:
The most dangerous forms are: 7rypanosoma brucei, the agent of
an African trypanosomiasis, the “nagana,” which attacks chiefly
cattle; Trypanosoma evansi, which causes “surra” among horses
and Asiatic cattle; 7rypanosoma equinum, the agent of “ caderas”
among American horses; 7rypanosoma equiperdum, agent of “ dou-
rine;” Trypanosoma gambiense, which causes in man an affection of
which the two periods, the initial and the final, were quite recently
still described as two absolutely distinct diseases, having nothing in
common between them. The initial period was called Gambia fever,
while the final stage was the famous “sleeping sickness,” well known
to the African colonists.
In addition to these principal species, there are others, less impor-
tant, and also less studied, such as 7rypanosoma theilert, which causes
710 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
in Transvaal cattle the “ galziekte;” Trypanosoma transvaliense, of
South African cattle; Trypanosoma dimorphon, of Gambian horses;
Trypanosoma nanum, of the Soudanese cattle. The greater part of
these parasites are transmitted by the bites of insects.
The 7’. brucei of “nagana” is inoculated by the redoubtable flies
known in the country in which they are found by the name of “ tsetse,”
but of which the scientific name is Glossina. <A little larger than our
common fly, Afusca domestica, these tsetses are known by their
enormous proboscis, which is longer than the head and is placed in
prolongation of the axis of the body, as well as by their wings, which
are twice as large as the abdomen. (fig. 6).
These insects, of which eight species have been described, are
peculiar to tropical Africa, where they abound in forests located
near water (streams, marshes, ponds, etc.), and where they remain
concealed in the shade of trees and shrubbery, preferring certain
kinds, such as the mimosa, for example. Eager
for blood, they seize upon men and animals, which
during the day traverse these wooded regions, and
bite them unmercifully. These tsetses are an ob-
ject of terror to the natives, and in fact they con-
stitute one of the most serious scourges of the
African tropical zone. All the explorers of the
country, and Livingston in particular, have agreed
in declaring that it was impossible to traverse a
tsetse country, because the energies of men and
oe eee beasts are destroyed almost certainly by most epi-
tans X 24. After zootics due to the bites of these Diptera. This
Bruce & Pre suffices to show that the Glossina renders vast ter-
ritories of Africa absolutely uninhabitable for
cattle, and hence unsuitable for colonization, which are otherwise
fertile and well-watered, and have a mild climate.
For a long time the nature of this inoculated disease was unknown.
It was said that the tsetses were dangerous because of a poison which
they secreted, but no one was able to isolate this-poison. It was also
said that the tsetses were dangerous because they inoculated a bac-
terial virus, and charbon was spoken of. As in the case of malaria,
there is nothing true in all this. It is known to-day, thanks to those
memorable researches, the remembrance of which brings to my lips
the name of the man who was the chief investigator, Bruce, that the
tsetses are dangerous not because of a virus, or of bacteria, but of
trypanosomes. To man they give the 7rypanosoma gambiense, which
is conveyed by a particular species, the Glossina palpalis; in animals
they inoculate the 7vypanosoma brucei, which is carried by all the
other species of Glossina, notably by G. morsitans, pallidipes, and
longipennis.
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—MAROTEL. ‘TJ11
Many other trypanosomes are propagated by similar means. 7ry-
panosoma evansi of “surra” is carried by fleas (Tabanus tropicus
and 7’. linzola) and by the stomoxes (Stomowis nigra). It is the same
with 7rypanosoma equinum, which is also carried by fleas and
stomoxes; with 7’. thedleri, inoculated by the hippoboses (Hippobosca
rufipes and H. maculata). On the cther hand, “ dourine ” seems to
evade this rule, for up to the present it is considered as propagated
entirely by sexual union of the insects.
EK. PLAGUE.
Tt is known that the bubonic plague of man is due to a bacterium,
the Bacillus pestis, and that for some time there was an agreement
of opinion as to the importance of the role played in the propaga-
tion of this disease on board ship by the rats. The discussion centered
around the essential mechanism of this transmission, when in 1898
appeared the famous theory of Simond, ac-
cording to which the plague virus was carried
from the rat to man, not by the rat itself, but
by the intervention of its fleas (fig. 7).
Numerous attacks were made on this manner
of explanation, and the special objection was
brought forward that the fleas of the rat never
bit men. This allegation was, however, false.
Fic. 7.—Head of Pulez irri-
It has since been recognized that fleas of rats = tans_ of )=man x 30.
and mice may, from the point of view of their
relation to man, be classified in two categories.
Those of the first group do not bite men even
After Railliet. m. Man-
dibular lancet; J, lin-
gual lancet; m’, jaws;
p, labial palpi; p’, max-
mee illary palpi.
after a fast of three or four days. This is
the case with Pulex fasciatus, Ceratophyllus italicus, and Ctenopsylla
musculi. But others condescend voluntarily to attack human beings.
These are Pulex irritans, the ordinary flea of man, which sometimes
lives on the bodies of ship rats; P. serraticeps, the dog flea, which
agrees with the preceding; then two other forms peculiar to the rat,
Pulex pallidus (closely allied to P. irritans) and P. murinus. It is
established, then, by observations made simultaneously in Italy,
France, and Australia, that ship rats can harbor at least four species
of fleas capable of attacking men.
It remained to ascertain whether these insects were able to carry
the bacillus of plague. The experiments of Gauthier and Raybaud
have, since 1902, answered this question in the affirmative, as they
establish “ that the plague could be inoculated from rats to rats by
the intervention of their fleas.” The experiment, it is true, has not
been repeated from man to man, but this is really unnecessary.
Proust did not hesitate to declare, with all the authority which at-
45745°—sm 1909——46
712 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
taches to his name, “ that the necessary and sufficient condition for the
experimental transmission of the plague was the biting of a man by
the fleas of an infected rat.” .
What precedes cgncerns the present importance of insects in med-
icine, and I have endeavored to show how in recent years the ideas
relative to the pathological power of these animals has been singu-
larly improved. But there is in parasitology another subject of
which the practical importance is just as great as that of the preced- :
ing one. This is the rdle played by ticks in the dissemination of cer-
tain diseases. Like the first, this subject has been so changed by
recent work that if, in order to compare them, one should place side
by side two of its classical expositions, the one made to-day and the
other ten years ago, these expositions would not be in anywise similar-
I shall endeavor to prove this in the lines which follow.
It is superfiuous to recall here the old condition of the question,
known to everyone; my shorter and simpler task should be confined.
to an indication of the actual state of the subject.
First, I desire to say a word or two to bring to mind certain neces-
sary points of biology. The ticks, as everybody knows, are arthropods
familiar to all, and especially to hunters, who call them by the name
of “racins,” or ‘“ wood fleas.” They constitute in the order Acarina
the family Ixodide, of which. the principal genera are Jzxodes,
Rhipicephalus, Dermacentor, Haemaphysalis, and Argas. The most
of them, so far as domestic animals are concerned, are essentially only
temporary parasites, for they attack them only during one phase of
their evolution, that of the adult female. But, in exchange, these
females can attach themselves almost indifferently to any of our
larger mammals, and it is an error to believe, as is frequently done,
that each species of animal has its peculiar species of tick. Indeed,
there is not a dog tick, a cattle tick, a sheep tick, or a human tick, and
if this be so, it is because, far from choosing their victims, the
Ixodide cast themselves on the first vertebrate that comes their way.
These parasites fix themselves on the body of their hosts, in the
integuments of which their beak is firmly implanted. They remain in
this situation for a fortnight, during which they constantly suck
blood, and they are then found under the double influence of the
nourishment imbibed and the progeny which develops, swollen
progressively to such a degree that an individual measuring 3 or 4
millimeters long at the outset ends by becoming from 12 to 15 milli-
meters long.
At the end of this period the female is ordinarily satiated. She
detaches herself spontaneously, owing to inflammation and gangrene,
which softens the borders of the place of implantation. She tumbles
to the ground, reaches a hiding place, such as the base of a tuft of
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—-MAROTEL. als
n
grass, and there lays thousands of eggs for a month, when she dies.
At the end of four to six weeks these eggs produce little hexapod
larve about as large as the point of a pin, which as soon as possible
pass to the body of a vertebrate of small size (reptiles, birds, or small
mammals, such as moles, mice, or rats). There they grow and are
transformed into eight-footed nymphs; then into adult males, or
females, which mate together. From this time the fertile females
leave their first host, fall on the ground again, climb the shrubbery,
and from thence attach themselves to the first large animal that comes
within reach. They then make their way into the hair and fix them-
selves in place by implanting their beak in the skin.
In tracing this course of development we return again to the stage
of the female fixed and immovable; that is to say, to our starting
point. Of this summary, let us remember two things which we shall
need to recall a little later, namely:
First. The adult females alone are parasites of man or the domestic
animals; the males, nymphs, and larve remain ordinarily on the
small wild vertebrates, and only occasionally pass to the bodies of
our large mammals. When they do so, it is simply to move about,
and never to fix themselves or to suck blood.
Second. These females have during their whole life only a single
large mammalian host, and never two, as when they detach them-
selves from this host and drop to the ground it is to lay eggs and
die, and not to pass to a second host. They do not go from one to
another, and can not, therefore, be carriers of virus in the manner of
biting flies.
But it is necessary to say at once that all kinds of ticks do not
develop exactly in this manner. ‘There are some which in the nymph
stage are parasites of a domestic animal. At the moment of becoming
nymphs they leave their first host to secure a second, so that the
species of this group have among the large mammals two successive
hosts, one for the nymph and one for the adult. Others are parasites
of domestic animals in the larval stage. They have, therefore, three
successive hosts, one for the larva, one for the nymph, and a third for
the adult.
It is established, in consequence, that from the point of view of
their parasitism as regards man or the domestic animals the different
species of the Ixodide group themselves in three catagories, accord-
ing as they seek one, two, or three hosts. As we shall see in a moment,
it is a biological fact of the first importance in that which concerns
the explanation of the pathogenic role of the ticks.
This zoological preface being finished, it is necessary now to go
to the foundation of the subject, which comprises two parts. In the
one, we shall indicate the facts. In enumerating the inoculated dis-
714 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
’
eases we shall show the magnitude of the réle of the pathogenic ticks.
In the other we shall seek the explanation of these facts; that is to
say, the mechanism by the aid of which this réle can be played.
THE PATHOGENIC ROLE OF THE TICKS.
It was believed for a long time, and many persons still believe,
that the ticks are inoffensive parasites. This is an absolute error.
It has been completely established, indeed, that they are the necessary
agents in the propagation of many parasitic diseases—for example,
piroplasmosis, spirochetosis, and ‘“ water-heart.”
A. Piroplasmosis——The piroplasmoses are contagious affections
due to an invasion of the blood by sporozoans allied to the plasmodii,
the species of Péroplasma. Composed of a small mass of protoplasm,
globular, or pyriform, of from 2 to 4 microns in
oe diameter, surrounding a minute nucleus (caryo-
(or. O some), these parasites are inclosed in the red cor-
Nia (2) puscles, where they are generally grouped by
@)
Fie. 8.—Six red cor-
twos. Sometimes, however, they are single, or,
on the other hand, united in groups of 4, 8, or
puscles of an ox af-
fected by piroplasmo-
sis. Two corpuscles
are sound, while the
16 (ig: SNE
At present six different species of Piroplasma
are known: Piroplasma bigeminum, the agent
of bovine piroplasmosis; P. canis, the agent of
canine piroplasmosis; P. equi, the agent of
four others are in-
vaded by one or two
round or _ pyroform : ; :
parasites. Enlarge. equine piroplasmosis; P. parvum, the agent of a
ment: 000. After special bovine piroplasmosis, called tropical or
Ligniéres,
bacilliform (East Coast fever) ; P. donovani, the
agent of human piroplasmosis (Kala-azar and, according to Mesnil,
probably also of bouton d’Orient, or tropical ulcer; Biskra carbuncle,
Aleppo carbuncle, Delhi carbunele, etc.). But this parasite differs
sufficiently from the other piroplasms to cause certain authors to make
it the type of another genus, Leishmannia. At all events, all these
heematozoans are inoculated into their hosts by the punctures of ticks.
This fact has been more than abundantly proven, especially by
Smith and Kilborn, and confirmed by Koch and Lignieres, for the
ordinary bovine piroplasmosis; by Lounsbury for the canine piro-
plasmosis; by Motas for the ovine piroplasmosis; and by Theiler,
confirmed by Laveran and Vallée, for the tropical piroplasmosis.
These experimenters have shown that one can voluntarily produce
the piroplasmosis by causing healthy animals to be bitten by ticks
intentionally infected. The species concerned, however. vary accord-
ing to the piroplasm employed, and also according to the region in
which it is examined.
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—MAROTEL. 715
Thus, bovine piroplasmosis is inoculated by Rhipicephalus sanguin-
eus, R. annulatus (fig. 10), and R. decoloratus; canine piroplasmosis
by Ixodes ricinus, I. hexvagonus (fig. 9); Dermacentor reticulatus
(fig. 12), and Hemaphysalis
leachi. Ovine piroplasmosis is
transmitted by Lhipicephalus
bursa; equine piroplasmosis by 2.
evertsi (Theiler, 1904); tropical
piroplasmosis by 2. appendicula-
tus and fF. simus (Lounsbury,
Theiler, 1904); and, finally, hu-
man piroplasmosis may be con-
veyed, at Madras, by an ixodid
allied to Argas, the Ornithodorus
savignyt (Christophers and Dono-
van, 1905).
B. Spirochetosis—The spiro-
chetes are spiral micro-organ-
isms, the excessively slender body
of which possesses a filiform nu- Fic. 9.—Iwodes hewagonus. Male. Ven-
cleus and a lateral, undulating tral aspect. After Salmon and Stiles.
membrane, without a flagellum (fig. 11). Classified to-day among
the bacteria, consequently in the vegetable kingdom these microbes
have been quite recently associated with the trypanosomes by Schau-
dinn and others; that is
to say, are regarded as
animals. The greater part
of them live a free life,
being aquatic animals, but
some are parasites of the
blood, where they swim in
the plasma. These are,
therefore, exoglobular
heematozoans.
But it is known already
that many diseases caused
by them are propagated by
Fig. 10.—Rhipicephalus annulatus. Male. Ventral , the ixodids. Thus, recur-
surface. After Salmon and Stiles. rent fever in man, due to
Spirocheta obermeieri, which in Europe is transmitted by bedbugs
(Acanthia lectularia), is transmitted in West Africa by certain ticks
which are still unidentified (Wellmann, 1905). Tick fever, another
spirocheetosis of Central Africa, due to a spirochet very closely
716 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
allied to, if not identical with, S. obermeieri, is inoculated by punc-
tures of Ornithodorus moubata (Ross and Milne, 1904, confirmed
experimentally by Dutton and Todd).
Karapatti, a third human spirochetosis,
which afflicts the basin of the Zambesi,
is carried by the “kufu,” a tick which is
not well identified.
The spirochetosis of fowl, due to S.
: gallinarum, is disseminated among Bra-
ailian fowl by Argas miniatus (Mar-
choux and Salimbeni, 1903). Bovine
spirochetosis, due to S. theileri, which
Fic. 11.—Two spirochwts of a Was observed in the Transvaal by Theiler
bat. Phe rounded Geurcs'rep’ and in the Cameroons) by \Ziemanusae
resent blood corpuscles. En-
largement : 2,000. After Nic- carried by Rhipicephalus decoloratus
Cen ote (Theiler, confirmed by Laveran and
Vallée, 1905). It is probably the same for S. ovina, which has been
~found in the blood of sheep in Erythrea and in the Transvaal
(Theiler).
O. Heartwater.—Finally,
to close this list, which is
already too long, it is
necessary to add a disease,
the origin of which is quite
different from that of the
preceding ones. This af-
fection, which afflicts South
African ruminants, is due,
like yellow fever, to an in-
visible microbe, and Louns-
bury, the expert entomolo-
gist of the Cape govern-
ment, showed in 1905 that
it is propagated -by a tick
allied to the ixodids, Aim-
Biyorma ‘hebroum. Sach," 7?~ Darna seuouetey Ate Ai
in its entirety is the patho-
genic work of the Ixodide., Let us now see the minute mechanism
of this action.
THE MECHANISM OF THE PATHOGENIC ACTION.
The role of the ticks in the transmission of piroplasmosis and
spirochetosis is to-day irrefutably demonstrated as much by fact as
by observation and experience. Notwithstanding, it is contested by
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—MAROTEL. leg
some biologists, at whose head is an indefatigable practitioner, Még-.
nin, who, to the time of his death, remained one of the most ardent
and persevering adversaries of the ixodid theory. It is necessary to
confess that this hesitation is comprehensible, because a goodly part
of the history of the intimate mechanism of this transmission still
escapes us, while another part is very strange.
However, here are some of the peculiarities which are observed :
(a) The study of the evolution of ticks has shown us that in species
having a single large mammalian host the adult female alone sucks
blood. Consequently, they alone can inoculate the parasites which
this fluid contains. The males, nymphs, and larve remain ordinarily
on small wild animals. At all events they never bite men nor domes-
tic animals. They are, therefore, inoffensive, and the females alone
are dangerous. That the noxiousness is confined to one sex is the first
peculiarity; the second is as follows:
(6) A priori, the role of a carrier of virus seems to necessitate
for ticks, as for insects, successive transfers from one host to another.
Thus it can easily include the species of groups 2 and 3, which, in
turn, are transferred to two or three hosts. One can conceive, for ex-
ample, that equine piroplasmosis may be carried by hipicephalus
evertst, which has two successive hosts, and which, consequently, may
be infected as a nymph and inoculate as an adult. Thus, also,
Piroplasma parvum may be inoculated by Rhipicephalus appendicu-
latus and R. simus, which have three successive hosts, and may be
infected as larve, or nymphs, and in consequence transmit the
infection in the succeeding stage; that is, when nymph or when adult.
But for the species of the first group, which during their whole life
have only a single large-mammal host, and consequently never pass
from one to another, the role of necessary carrier which is attributed
to them is in direct contradiction to their habits. However, this
role is an incontestable reality, but it. is carried out by an indirect
process of a most singular nature. It is known to-day, owing to ex-
perimentation, that the young female ticks of an infected mother are
themselves infected, and that they can inoculate their parasites when,
having become adult, they in their turn, like their mother, pierce the
skin of an animal. The proof is furnished from different quarters
so far as piroplasmosis is concerned. For example, Lounsbury writes
that the progeny of adult ticks (Temaphysalis leachi) fed on sick
dogs can transmit the disease when they become of adult age, but at
this age only. In the larval and nymph stages they are absolutely
innocuous. The same has been established for bovine piroplasmosis
by Smith and Kilborne and for ovine piroplasmosis by Motas.
It results, therefore, from these researches that the ixodids of the
first group can only transmit the germs of disease by the interven-
tion of their descendants when the latter arrive at adult age. These
718 . ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
parasites can only be inoculated by the young female ticks of those
which are infected, and the propagation of piroplasmosis affords the
particular information that the piroplasm passes from invertebrates
to vertebrates, not by the invertebrate itself, but by its progeny.
In order to understand this it is necessary to admit that the dis-
ease germs gathered by the young acarian progeny of an infected
mother have been transmitted to them by their parents, which is
equivalent to saying that among ticks piroplasmosis is hereditary.
This, then, is the peculiarity in the mode of action of ticks, that the
transmission of the parasites is effected not by the acarians which
have sucked blood, but by their descendants as the result of heredity.
How is this heredity produced? This is a question which science has
not yet answered.
One may believe, however, a priori, that it is due to the fact that
the infection of the body of the tick by the piroplasms affect, among
other organs, the ovary and in consequence the embryos. In return
the eggs derived from these ovules are themselves parasitized, as the
infection may then be transmitted from the egg to the larva, from
the larva to the nymph, and finally from nymph to adult.
If this supposition be correct, all the individuals born of an infected
mother should be infected, but as among these individuals the adult
females alone bite domestic animals it results that they alone are
dangerous. This is a fact which we have already noted, and which
here finds its explanation. The hypothesis of an infection of the
eggs received valid support from the observations made by Siegel in
1903 on an hematozoan allied to the piroplasms—//emagregarina
stepanovt. It lives in the blood of the marsh tortoise, and its imme-
diate host is a leech, Zementaria costata; for Siegel found the germs
of this parasite in the esophageal glands and in the embryoes of the
leeches, which proves that there was an infection of the egg.
Similar facts were pointed out by Schaudinn in the same year, as
regards the hemogregarine of the lizard, but they are more con-
vineing, because this time the intermediate hosts, as far as observed,
are not only leeches, but ixodids like the piroplasms. The strong
light thrown on the subject by these discoveries clearly permits us to
suppose that for the piroplasms, as for the hemogregarines, heredity
is due to an infection of the egg.
The question may be asked, Is it the same for the spirochets? No
one knows at present, but at all events it is indicated by the researches.
Already in 1905 Borrel and Marchoux showed that spirochetosis of
Brazilian fowl indicated a generalized infection of the tick by the
spirochet, and that this infection involved especially the ovary, so
that it is probably hereditary, like all the piroplasmoses. However
that may be, the heredity of piroplasmosis among ticks is of prime
importance, as without it these diseases would not be contagious,
——
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—-MAROTEL. ‘1719
being produced by ixodids of the first group, which attack only a
single domestic animal and do not pass from one to another, conse-
quently being unable to carry the virus. It is, then, alone due to the
heredity of infection among arachnids that piroplasmosis is trans-
missible from a sick animal to a healthy one, and this heredity appears
to us, therefore, as the necessary condition of the propagation of
infection.
Piroplasmosis is the best type of hereditary diseases, in the proper
sense of the word; that is to say, those which are transmissible from
parents to offspring by means of infection of the eggs, an infection
sufficiently limited, of course, not to arrest the development of the
eggs, cause their death, and hence produce a parasitic castration. On
the contrary, many of the diseases considered as hereditary—tuber-
culosis and syphilis, for example—are transmissible from mother to
child only through an accidental lesion of the placenta, permitting
passive passage of germs. ;
(c) Finally, a third point in the ixodian theory will detain us,
namely, Under what form is the parasite transmitted by the ticks?
Is there a simple inoculation of germs, as by a lancet, in the same
form in which they have been received by the acarian, or rather is
there a veritable development of the Plasmodia in the mosquitoes ?
This question is.still one of those which it is impossible for us to
answer, because in spite of. the most assiduous efforts it has not yet
been possible to find the least trace of piroplasms in the body of ticks.
Quite recently, it is true, the celebrated German microbiologist Koch
announced that he had seen “ something,” but the description which
he gives is so vague that really nothing positive can be gathered from
his communication.
Simple inoculation, that is, the mechanical transportation of the
virus is perhaps possible in certain cases, notably for the ticks of the
second and third groups, which transmit as nymphs, or as adults, the
germs taken in in the preceding stage, but it is not probable as regards
the ticks of the first group. Lounsbury, indeed, has shown that adult
ticks, transferred from a sick dog to a healthy one, never transmit the
disease. On the other hand, we have seen that the inoculation of
piroplasms by the progeny of an infected tick is possible only in adult
age. It is true that this is not altogether general. Theiler, confirmed
by Laveran and Vallée, showed that bovine piroplasmosis and
spirochetosis are, in the Transvaal, inoculated by Rhipicephalus
decoloratus, which are the progeny of infected mothers when they
reach the larval stage. Further, the limitation of danger to the adult
females may, as we have already shown, be explained by the fact that
normally these females alone are parasites of domestic animals.
Nevertheless, this peculiarity leads one to suppose that there is an
evolution and permits one to ask whether in the course of its migra-
720 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tion through the different evolutionary stages of the ticks (egg, larva,
nymph, and adult) the sporozoan does not itself undergo a series of
transformations more or less comparable to those undergone by the
paludic plasmodium in the body of the mosquito. Probably, then,
this evolution can only reach the final stage (which is the formation
of spores that are still hypothetical because they have not been seen)
in the organism of the adult ticks. It could thus be explained
why the larvee and nymphs are incapable of inoculating the disease.
They contain only the piroplasms at an intermediate stage, in which
their inoculation into vertebrates would be insufficient to reproduce
the affection.
Here, again, the hypothesis of a development is rendered more
probable by comparison with the facts regarding the hemogregarines
of the tortoise shown by Siegel. As we have already said, the
sporozoans perform a true evolution in the leeches with the forma-
tion of eggs and spores, and this scarcely leaves any further doubt
regarding the reality of a similar evolution of the piroplasms in the
-body of the acarian,.
To summarize, we ought, indeed, to recognize that it is stijl un-
known how the young female ticks of infected mothers propagate the
disease. It is probable that the spores exist in the salivary glands,
but it has not been possible to establish this so far. As we said at the
beginning of this chapter, the intimate mechanism of the ixodian
transmission still remains mysterious in many respects. Nevertheless,
there is not a single reason to deny this transmission itself, which is
demonstrated by so many facts, as some still do.
Such is the real relation of the arthropods to pathology. Without
doubt, unfortunately, the list of dangerous species is far from being
complete, and the redoubtable faculty of propagating diseases does
not belong exclusively to those animals in’ which it has been recog-
nized thus far. |
In closing, I would inquire whether the discoveries which I have
recalled, and which have so great an interest from the point of view
of pure se ience, have not already had some practic: al effect on prophy-
laxis. Fortunately, one is able to say that it is due to them that
protection against diseases can be turned entirely in another direc-
tion than has been done. Owing to them, one can understand that,
in order to be established on a rational basis, the combat againgt
these affections should take note of two thingss first, the destruction
of biting arthropods wherever it is possible, and to as great an extent
as possible; second, the protection of man and the domestic animals
against the attacks of those which escape this extermination.
To give an idea of the results which can be obtained by the system-
atic practice of these two principles we will recall in a few words
RELATION OF ARTHROPODS TO PATHOLOGY—MAROTREL. 121
what has been done against mosquitoes. In order to develop, these
dipterous insects have absolute need of still, stagnant water. It is
on the surface of these waters that the females lay their eggs and
that the larvee and nymphs live. The presence of quiet waters, such
as lakes, swamps, ponds, pools, or puddles is necessary for the evolu-
tion of the Culicids: and this necessity is felt by them all. Thus, it is
well known that there are certain towns which have an abundance of
water have also the doubtful advantage of being literally overrun
by mosquitoes so that they are rendered almost uninhabitable. This
is the case with Venice, Mantua, and Livourne. It is also well
known that at Majunga, Madagascar, for example, which lacks fresh
water, there are few mosquitoes and the place is very healthy.
Nossy-Bé, on the contrary, possesses an abundance of fresh water and
beautiful, luxuriant vegetation, but also an abundance of mosquitoes
and constant malaria. It is also, for the same reason that in our
great African island the presence of rice plantations causes a recur-
rence of fever. Soon after the rice is cut these plantations are
flooded with stagnant water intended to hasten the decomposition
of the roots. The whole region is then transformed into a veritable
putrid marsh, very favorable to the development of mosquitoes. The
_insalubrity of rice culture has always been recognized and it is this
which caused Vivarelli to say, “the rice plantations produce two
things—rice and fever. The crop of rice may be deficient, but that
of fever is always abundant.”
Consequently, there is no doubt that the presence of standing
water is indispensable to the development of mosquitoes, and it is
no longer doubtful that in principle the exclusion of such waters
results in the suppression of Culicide. This suppression is possible
in a number of cases in which ponds, pools, wells, and reservoirs are
unnecessary. When it is not possible because the reservoirs are neces-
sary, the mosquitoes can still be destroyed by a simple process. It
suflices to pour a little kerosene on the water, This substance kills
the larvee and nymphs as they come to the surface for respiration,
The two measures which we have mentioned, the suppression of the
stagnant waters and the use of kerosene, cause the extermination of
the mosquitoes. They should be supplemented by a third, the pro-
tection of individuals against the bites of those that remain.
The Culicide are nocturnal insects which conceal themselves during
the day and fly only after sunset. It is only necessary, then, to pro-
tect one’s self against them during the night. This protection can be
obtained mechanically by closing the openings of houses by means
of metal screens sufficiently fine to exclude the insects, by covering
the face by an ample veil attached to the hat, and by covering the
hands with thick gloves. Wherever this triple means of protection
is used thoroughly, the diseases caused by mosquitoes have disap-
722 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
peared. Havana, which was overrun with yellow fever, is to-day
healthful. Entire regions of Italy where malaria was endemic,
are entirely freed from it. One can thus judge of the enormous
progress realized by the prophylaxis resulting from this single zo-
ological discovery, the rdle of mosquitoes in the propagation of dis-
eases. It is true that equally brilliant results have not been obtained
in connection with diseases transmitted by other insects, but the
example of the mosquitoes justifies great hopes, and it is only proper
to remember that the biological study of tsetse flies and fleas is
hardly more than begun.
Much remains to be done in a branch of medicine where progress
is necessarily slow, for it is specially concerned with exotic tropical
diseases, which can only be well studied on the spot by the aid of
missions, not only dangerous, but also very expensive.
In closing, I can affirm that the friends of science can never put
too much money at the disposal of those students who devote them-
selves to the study of colonial medicine.
=
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND
ITS REINFORCEMENT.2
By Simon FLexner, M. D.,
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.
Common observations early indicated that individuals of all animal
species, and of the human species especially, were very unequally sub-
ject to disease. This elementary fact is impressed every, day upon
the thoughtful and has been, from the earliest times, the object of
much ingenious speculation. Even to-day, and in spite of the ac-
quisition. of a wealth of new facts in physiology and pathology, we
are not able to define fully the conditions that make for or against
disease. However, the new knowledge which has been acquired en-
ables us to see much more deeply and clearly into the complex mech-
anisms of disease than could be seen half a century ago; but unfor-
tunately our insight has not been strengthened as regards all diseases,
but almost exclusively in relation to the infectious diseases. In re-
spect to the other class, or noninfectious or chronic diseases, among
which are Bright’s disease, vascular disease, malignant tumors, the
gains in fundamental knowledge are far less great.
It may be axiomatic to state that all actual progress in unraveling
the complicated conditions of disease depends upon precise knowledge
of its underlying causes; and yet in an age in which comparative
ignorance still requires that a certain amount of practice shall be
empirical, it is well to bear in mind this notion, so that what is under-
taken through knowledge ‘may be kept distinct from what is adven-
tured through ignorance. It has been to the lasting credit. of the
medical profession of an early period, when actual knowledge of the
underlying causes of disease had not, ade in the then state of develop-
ment of the physical sciences could not, have yielded a single concrete
fact, that one ehadee nation ia the most perfect one yet dis-
covered of preventing a disease, and two drugs—quinine and mer-
cury—specific for two other infectious diseases, should havé been
“Read at the university lectures on public health at Columbia University,
New York City, March 1. Reprinted, by permission, from The Popular Science
Monthly, July, 1909.
723
724 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
found and so successfully applied. But in contrast to this slow, pain-
ful, and halting advance in practical means for the relief of suffering,
is to be placed the body of robust facts, acquired in a quarter of a cen-
tury, during the present or bacteriological era in medicine, which
enables us to view in some measure the mechanisms of disease and
defense against it, and which has pointed the way to efficient modes of
prevention, and, in a few brilliant instances, to the production of
biologically perfect means of combating certain infectious maladies.
To produce a means, as has been done through the perfection of cura-
tive sera, that shall strike down myriads of living parasitic organisms
within the interior of the body, amid millions of sensitive and even
sentient cells of the organs, without inflicting on them the smallest
injury, is Indeed a great accomplishment. And if I am successful
to-day in placing before you the main facts, now revealed, of the
body’s manner of defense to parasitic invasion, you will, I think, come
to see that it has been by imitating nature’s methods and by augmen-
tation of the natural forces of defense that good has been achieved.
The facts laboriously acquired, on which this presentation will rest,
have been drawn from the study of spontaneous disease—so-called
natural disease—among man and animals, and from experimental
diseases produced in animals. I need scarcely point out that there is
really no unnatural form of disease any more than there is a really
natural one; in all instances we are dealing with natural laws of
health and disease, the difference merely being that in one case we are
often ignorant of the time and manner of entrance of the infecting
germs into the body, and in the other they are purposely introduced,
in a predetermined efficient manner, in a pure state into the animal
body. Since we are so often: ignorant of the precise manner of in-
gress of the germs in the nonexperimental forms of disease, we con-
clude from the identity of the conditions present in the experimental
and nonexperimental forms of the disease that in effect they are
identical. This power exactly to reproduce at-will, by pure bacterial
cultures, infectious disease in animals has been of inestimable bene-
fit in investigating disease.
To escape disease is not merely to remain without the zone of in-
fluence of the germs of disease. To do this in all cases is impossible,
because with certain germ diseases—tuberculosis, for example—the
germs are ubiquitous; and with several other diseases the germs are
constant if not naturalized inhabitants of the body. Thus we carry
on our skin surfaces constantly the germs of suppuration; on the
mucous membranes of the nose and throat the germs of pneumonia,
and sometimes those of diphtheria, tuberculosis, and meningitis. The
intestinal mucous membrane supports a rich and varied bacterial flora
among which are several potentially harmful species and sometimes,
even under conditions of health, the bacilli of typhoid fever, of
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO DISEASE—-FLEXNER. (As
dysentery, and in regions in which cholera is endemic, or during its
epidemics, of cholera bacilli.
It is obvious, therefore, that it is practically impossible to escape
the dangers of bacterial infection, and withdrawal absolutely from
other human beings and from all human habitations would be power-
less to accomplish this result. It is equally obvious that with such
constant and universal exposure to bacterial infection the body must,
for the greater part, easily defend itself against this class of its
enemies. It is now known that this defense is not merely by exclu-
sion of the bacteria from the interior of the body, although in itself
this is an important means of protection for which special mechan-
isms are provided, but that constant small escapes of bacteria into the
blood are taking place from the mucous membranes chiefly, and that
there rarely ensues disease from this cause.
On the other hand, there is another class of disease germs that do
not regularly inhabit the body and whose influence is occasional only.
Some of these germs are exquisitely infectious, as, for example,
those causing smallpox, measles, and scarlet fever; and others require
an intermediate agency to inoculate them as in malaria, yellow fever, ,
and possibly bubonic plague. And yet, excluding smallpox, which in
ante-vaccination days overlooked few if any persons in infected re-
gions, a great diversity of susceptibility to infection has been noted
again and again among exposed persons and animals. This variabil-
ity of infectivity affects difference in species, race, and individuals
and constitutes one of the fundamental problems of disease. Certain
diseases are naturally limited to certain species and can not at all, or
can only with great difficulty, be transferred to another, although
related species; other diseases appear among: several species widely
separated from each other; still other diseases choose by preference
or are quite restricted to certain breeds of a species; and finally,
individuals of a homogeneous species exhibit wide differences of
susceptibility to infection. A worked-out theory of infection to and
immunity from disease would include and explain all these and
many more diversities which have been observed. I need not offer
an apology for this at present unattained ideal. :
It was early apparent that bacteria must sometimes escape into the
blood and yet that infection did not follow. It was observed that
frequently at death the interior of the body was free of bacteria and
might remain so for many hours and until signs of putrefaction began
to be apparent. The deduction from this observation was to the
effect that the blood and organs must’ protect themselves during life
and for a period after death from bacterial development. The re-
markable antibacterial power of the blood was demonstrated directly
by injecting putrescent fluids into the veins of rabbits and noting that
not only might they survive the infections and remain quite normal,
726 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
but that the blood drawn soon after the injection was made need not,
when carefully collected, undergo putrefaction. This fundamental
experiment, performed before pure cultures of bacteria were avail-
able, left no doubts that the body possesses internal means of ridding
itself of large numbers of bacteria.
It is apparent that the body possesses two possible distinct ways of
freeing .itself of these bacteria: It might remove them through the
excretory organs—the kidneys or liver; it might rid itself of them by
destroying them inside the body. It was with the rise of modern
bacteriology that proof was brought that the blood and certain other
body fluids—peritoneal, pleural, pericardial transudates—possess a
remarkable power of destroying bacteria. This power resides in shed
blood, in the other fluids withdrawn from the body, and even in the
fluids deprived of all their natural cellular constituents. Here was
then a concrete fact—the fluids of the interior of the body are capable
of killing large numbers of bacteria. It could now be shown that the
bacteria introduced in large numbers into the blood of a living animal
“are not excreted, but are destroyed within the body. This power of
the blood is, however, not indefinite and is not exercised equally
against all kinds of bacteria. Even with bacteria that readily sue-
cumb a very large number may exceed the blood’s capacity to destroy,
so that survival and multiplication would result ; and certain bacterial
species proved highly resistant to this blood destruction. Moreover,
it was observed that the blood of all animals tested did not produce
the same effects on given kinds of bacteria, that this power to destroy
bacteria was lost spontaneously in a few days by the fluids removed
from the body and was destroyed immediately by a temperature of
60° C. It is, therefore, a highly labile quality.
Apparently the way was opened up for the detection of the con-
ditions which underlie infection and immunity and the various
peculiarities determined by species, race, and individual. Unfor-
tunately, there proved to be no sharp relation between the bactericidal
powers of shed blood and immunity from or susceptibility to infec-
tion. And important as these blood phenomena proved to be in
accomplishing protection from infection, they do not in themselves
account for all observed conditions.
The factors upon which the bactericidal properties of the blood
depend have now been clearly ascertained. The chief substance has
been called alexin or defensive substance, but in reality the alexin is
a compound and consists of a sensitive body—complement—and a
more stable substance—intermediary body. Bacteria are killed and
disintegrated when the intermediate body can attach itself to them
and bring them under the influence of the cOmplement—a digestive
enzymotic element, to which the intermediary body also attaches
itself,
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO DISEASE—FLEXNER. Ton
Moreover, it is now quite certain that of the two principles the
intermediary body alone is a fixed, native element of the blood
plasma, and the complement is subject to considerable fluctuations
in quantity. The origin of the intermediary body has not been de-
termined, while it is quite established that the complement is yielded
by the white corpuscles, or leucocytes, of the blood. This matter of
the origin of the complement is very important because the protective
value of the blood fluid is determined by the quantity of comple-
ment available at any one time and not so much by the more constant
intermediary body which is usually in excess of the complement.
The complement would appear to arise from the leucocytes partly as
a secretion; but the quantity derived in this way would not appear
to be considerable. It also arises from leucocytes which are brought
by any cause to degeneration and disintegration, and this would
seem to be a richer source than the other. Leucocytes are constantly
being worn out by physiological use and as constantly yielding up
their complement to the blood as they go to pieces. It would appear,
then, that the very essential complement which exists in the circulat-
ing blood and passes from the blood into the lymph and serous
‘avities, will be more or less determined in quantity by the number
of blood leucocytes and the conditions to which they are exposed,
and as they are brought to slower or faster degeneration; and it is
extremely probable that the secretion of complement is influenced
also by the nature of the stimuli to which even the living leucocytes are
exposed. It has been shown beyond peradventure that the blood
plasma contains less complement than blood serum, as would now be
expected since the origin of complement from degenerating leucocytes
has been abundantly shown, and because in the clotting of the blood
the leucocytes are so greatly disintegrated. But I do not think that
even the most ardent adversaries of the view that the fluids of the
interior of the body do not exert direct bactericidal effects have been
able to show that the plasma contains no complement. The comple-
ment is such a labile body that doubtless it is constantly used up
physiologically and must therefore as constantly be renewed, and it
is highly probable that the balance between production and destruc-
tion may not always be maintained, whence a considerable fluctuation
may occur even in health. Whether the fluctuations ever synchronize
with intending infections in such a manner as to promote them is
not really known, but is not impossible.
It is, however, patent that the naturally operative defensive mech-
anisms against bacterial invasion must contain other factors than
these humoral ones. We are all now prepared to admit that in the
phagocytes, or the devouring white corpuscles of the blood, the body
possesses another defensive system of high efficiency. The motile
nature of these cells and their presence in the circulating blood ac-
45745°—sm 190947
728 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
cord them a high degree of mobility, so that they can be quickly
dispatched to any part of the body threatened by invaders, and are
hardly behind the fluids of the blood in this ability to be massed
or delivered where needed. The phagocytic mechanism of defense
operates through all the orders of the metazoa; and while it can
hardly have been developed originally as a protective system against
parasites, and doubtless represents a mechanism for disposing of
effete and useless particulate matter in the body by a process of in-
tracellular digestion, yet it has reached through evolutionary selec-
tion a high state of perfection and must have exercised no small
influence in protecting from extinction certain living species.
There is good reason to believe that in the final disposal of bacteria
intruded into the body the phagocytes play the terminal role—i. e.,
under favorable conditions they are attracted through chemical
stimuli furnished by the bacteria to which they respond to englobe
them, after which the bacteria are often disintegrated. But there is
_ equally good reason to believe that, with few exceptions, this engulf-
ing can not take place until the bacteria have been acted on by certain
plasmatic constituents that prepare the bacteria to be taken into the
body of the phagocytes. The further the phenomena of bacterial
destruction in the body are probed the more certain does it become
that there is no single and uniform process of their disposal. The
humoral doctrine of bacterial destruction contains much of fact, the
phagocytic doctrine much of fact, and it is quite certain that the
practical defensive activities of the body constantly imply the use of
both mechanisms.
And when we push the analysis of the manner in which bacteria
injure the body and enumerate the various bactericidal substances
which have now been determined as existing in the plasma and in the
cells, we find that this interaction must be supposed to take place.
Plasmatic bactericidal action and phagocytic inclusion are coopera-
tive functions; plasmatic antitoxic action and phagocytic detoxica-
tion are cooperative functions; plasmatic opsonization and phagocytic
ingestion are complemental functions; plasmati¢ agglutination and
phagocytic engulfing are also complemental, although less essential
functions. And although in intending infections the toxic action of
the bacteria to be dealt with is less a matter of great consequence, yet
in principle the disposal of a few bacteria is not different from the
disposal of many; and in dealing with the poison or toxic elements of
bacteria, the plasma possesses distinct power of direct neutralization
as the phagocytes possess distinct ability to transform poisonous into
nonpoisonous molecules.
I desire now to refer again to the subject of racial and species
immunity for which the the humoral factors of bacterial destruction
afforded an imperfect explanation, in order that I may point out that
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO DISEASE—FLEXNER. 729
the introduction of bacteria, incapable of causing infection, into im-
mune species is followed by immediate phagocytic ingestion and
destruction of the microorganisms. The rapidity and perfection of
the phagocytic reaction in insusceptible animals are very impressive
and might readily lead to the decision that they suffice to explain the
resistance or immunity. However, the matter does not permit of such
summary disposal, since there appear to be other factors that enter
into the phenomena. The frog that does not become tetanic when in-
oculated with tetanus bacilli or poison, develops tetanic spasms when
the temperature is raised somewhat; the hen that does not respond
to an anthrax inoculation develops the infection when the tempera-
ture is lowered somewhat. Even for the final ingestion of bacteria
by the phagocytes of alien and insusceptible species the plasma prin-
ciples are required.
Undoubtedly the phenomena of racial and species immunity are
affected by phagocytosis. But our present knowledge does not justify
us in disregarding other possible and contributing agencies. We are
still so little informed of even the grosser features of the body’s
metabolism that it would be premature to deny to it influence on
susceptibility to infection. Between the metabolism of birds and
mammals there is such wide disparity that an influence could easily
be conceived; but the metabolic disparity is less between the her-
bivora and carnivora, and still less between some closely related
species which yet show marked differences in susceptibility to bacte-
rial infection ; and as between individuals of the same species it could
only be the finer intramolecular variations that conceivably could
come into play.
Although the properties of the defensive mechanisms of the blood
have not been exhausted, yet they have been defined in such detail as
to suffice for the moment and to permit us to turn attention, for a brief
space, to some of the properties of the intending invading bacteria.
It is matter of common experience, which each of us has suffered, that
the elaborate mechanisms provided for our protection from bacterial
infection do not always suffice, and now it becomes necessary to ex-
plain why they do not. In the first place, there are very great differ-
ences between the bacteria which seek to enter the body. Some spe-
cies are never very harmful and are readily combated, excluded, or
destroyed ; other species often possess only a moderate degree of viru-
lence or potential power of doing injury and can also, as a rule, be
overcome; while these second species sometimes acquire such highly
virulent or invasive powers that the defenses prove quite inadequate
to exclude or combat them. During the prevalence of great bacte-
rial epidemics it is probable that this factor, virulence, plays a con-
siderable role. Of course, in epidemics the bacterial causes are, by the
exigencies of the situation, more widely diffused than at other times,
730 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
so that more individuals come under their influence; but with even
such a common bacterium as the diplococcus which causes pneumonia
and the bacillus which produces influenza, there arise conditions in
which severe and often very extensive outbreaks, or localized epi-
demics, occur which are probably to be attributed to an accession in
virulence of these germs, although the precise causes leading to the
increase may not be discovered.
Now this quality of virulence, which is often evolved so quickly
and apparently so mysteriously is expressed biologically in various
ways besides in that of greater infective power; virulent bacteria may
prove incapable of being charged with opsonin so that they can not
be ingested by phagocytes; they may show unusual power to resist
plasma or serum destruction; they may drive away or repel or act
negatively in respect to chemical attraction on the phagocytes; and
being thus unopposable they tend to multiply quickly and with little
restraint and thus still further to break down and render ineffective
> the normal defensive mechanisms, and ultimately to damage seri-
ously the sensitive cells of the organs. This constitutes disease.
Another power resides in the body that should be regarded, namely,
the power to neutralize or destroy poisons as distinct from parasites;
for the body is exposed to the deleterious action of poisons generated
by living parasites that do not themselves penetrate within the body.
Some of these poisons are generated away from the body, as is the
case with certain food poisons; some by bacteria in the intestinal canal
that do not seek to invade the blood; some by bacteria, like the diph-
theria bacillus, that first kill tissue, usually of the mucous membranes, —
and then develop in the dead tissue and send the poison into the body.
And besides this, every bacterial disease resolves itself ultimately into
a process of poisoning—of intoxication. In typhoid fever, in pneu-
monia, 1n meningitis, and in the multitude of other bacterial invasive
diseases of man and the lower animals, the severe symptoms are
caused by the poisons liberated through disintegration of the invading
bacteria, which, however, continue by multiplication to recruit their
numbers.
The condition of susceptibility to poisons varies with different races
and species, very much as bacterial susceptibility does. The cold-
blooded animals are indifferent to poisons that are very injurious to
warm-blooded animals, but not all cold-blooded animals behave alike.
Tetanus toxin is alike innocuous for the frog and the alligator, but by
raising the temperature artificially the frog develops tetanus, but the
alligator does not. Sometimes the effects depend merely upon the
mode of entrance of the poison into the body. Tetanus toxin, diph-
theria toxin, and snake venom have no effect on mammals when swal-
lowed unless the intestinal epithelium has been injured. These poisons
can not pass through the epithelium to reach the blood. where alone
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO DISEASE—FLEXNER. Tol
they can exert their action. The toxin of the dysentery bacillus passes
readily in the rabbit from the blood into the intestine, which it injures,
but can not pass from the intestine into the blood. Tetanus toxin can
be injected into the circulation of the hen, but doesnoharm. Injected
into the brain it produces tetanus. Introduced into the blood it re-
mains there for many weeks, hence the failure to act can not be due
to destruction, but probably is due to inability to pass through the
blood vessels in order to reach the cells of the central nervous system
in a sufficient state of concentration. The physiological state of the
animal also exerts an influence—certain hibernating species are sus-
ceptible to tetanus poison in the summer, but not during the winter
sleep. There exist, therefore, different mechanisms for excluding
poisons from the sensitive and reacting cells, and among them are
certain quantities of neutralizing, or antitoxic substances, normally
contained in the blood. We know at least one such definite antitoxin,
namely, the diphtheria antitoxin, which exists in minimal quantities
in the blood of man and the horse.
The absence of numerical relation between the mechanism which
destroys bacteria and neutralizes poisons sometimes works sad havoc
for the body. The two capacities may differ naturally or are en-
hanced in different degrees by artificial means. The matter is one
of great importance, because almost without exception all bacterial
diseases are examples of poisoning. The mechanical obstructions
produced by the bacterial bodies are relatively unimportant. The
body is more readily defended from the invasion of bacteria, with
very few exceptions, than from the effects of their poisons. The
capacity to dispose of typhoid and cholera bacilli is more easily pro-
duced than the power to neutralize or otherwise render innocuous
the poisons liberated by the dissolved bacilli. It is precisely because
we have not yet learned how to overcome this class of bacterial poi-
sons within the body that we have not mastered the bacterial diseases
as a whole. There are, however, certain bacterial poisons for which
adequate antidotes are readily produced, thus, for example, for the
diphtheria, tetanus, botulism, and possibly the dysentery poisons.
Here the poisons can be more easily neutralized than the bacilli can
be got rid of, but by neutralizing the poisons we succeed in arresting
the multiplication of the bacteria and often in curing the disease.
The normal body possesses a mean resistance to bacterial invasion
and to bacterial poisoning which, while somewhat fluctuant, is of
high value except under certain exceptional conditions in which
infection readily develops. We know that certain general states of
and influences exerted on the body are associated with a rise or a fall
of this mean value. But we are not equally informed of the physical
basis of this rise and fall. This particular topic is peculiarly difficult
because of the large numbers of factors which enter into it. We know
732 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
from observation that proper clothing, wholesome food, good hygi-
enic surroundings, avoidance of overfatigue and of depressing psy-
chic impressions, and that physical care of the body, all contribute
toward maintaining health as the reverse conditions predispose to
establishing disease. In seeking the physical basis of this difference
we must avoid confusing cause with effect. Good hygienic surround-
ings may act chiefly by excluding the sources of infection rather than
by enhancing resistance. Yet there is experimental as well as obser-
vational foundation for the belief in these general influences to affect
the disposition to acquire or escape infectious disease. Animals
which are made to fast, to overexercise, are made anemic, are given
excessive quantities of aleochol and other poisons, or are exposed to
abnormal cold by shaving of the skin, are more subject to certain
infections than animals not so treated. If, now, it were found that
the blood factors governing resistance fluctuated with these influences,
became smaller and less conspicuous when the influences were bad
and larger and more efficient when the influences were good, we should
‘then have established an important concrete fact.
But the alexinic activity of the blood varies normally within such
wide limits that only maximal changes could be regarded as signifi-
cant, and it appears that it is only as the fatal termination of certain
severe infections are reached—such as experimental anthrax and
pheumococcus infections, for example—that the alexinic power falls
greatly or disappears altogether. The determination of phagocytic
activity outside the body has not thus far been carried out in such
a manner as to indicate a functional depression which either precedes
immediately or develops in the course of severe infections; although
certain infections which take a severe course are characterized by a
persistent reduction in the number of leucocytes in the circulating
blood. This latter phenomenon must, however, probably be regarded
as an effect and not as the cause of the infection. There is, however,
known at least one example where paralysis of the phagocytes leads
to a fatal infection under conditions in which the normal phagocytes
are entirely competent to prevent infection. If to a guinea pig a
small dose of opium be administered and this is followed by the in-
jection of a nonlethal quantity of a culture of the cholera bacillus,
death will ensue because the sensitiveness of the phagocytes to the
chemical stimulus exerted by the cholera poison has been diminished
by the narcotic influence of the opium.
The mean phagocytic value of the blood can, however, be definitely
raised by certain agencies, that are at the same time and through the
rise in the number of phagocytes produced, useful in warding off and
sometimes even in overcoming infection. The means employed to
bring about an increase of leucocytes, or to establish a hyperleuco-
cytosis, suffice to maintain the high value for short period relatively
only, unless the stimulus is frequently repeated. A cold bath, a sun
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO DISEASE—FLEXNER. 130
bath, the injection into the circulation of a number of simple chemical
substances—peptone, albumose, nucleinic acid, spermin, pilocarpine—
are all followed under physiological conditions by hyperleucocytosis
and by a temporary state of increased resistance to bacterial invasion.
Moreover, in certain experimental infections, at least, there can thus
be aroused a heightened power to overcome established infections—
those caused, for example, by the cholera, meningitis, and pneu-
mococcus germs. Perhaps the most striking example of the protect-
ive influence of hyperleucocytosis is afforded by the experimental
infection described under the name of cholera peritonitis of the guinea
pig. Ifa fatal quantity of cholera germs be injected into the peri-
toneal cavity of a guinea pig, symptoms of poisoning quickly set in
and death results in a few hours. <A study of the conditions present
in the peritoneal cavity shows that the bacteria have developed freely,
that some have been broken up and disintegrated, and that very few
preserved phagocytes can be found. Examination of the blood re-
veals that the number of leucocytes in the general circulation has been
reduced; and all the evidences point to the conclusion that not only
has phagocytisis not taken place, but that there has been a general
destruction of leucocytes produced by the cholera poison. If, how-
ever, there be introduced into the peritoneal cavity of a guinea pig
twelve to twenty-four hours prior to the inoculation of the cholera
bacilli, a small amount of sterile salt solution, or bouillon, or one of
the other chemicals mentioned, which procedure will bring into the
peritoneum a considerable number of leucocytes at the same time that
it causes a rise of leucocytes in the circulating blood, then the cholera
germs are quickly taken up by the phagocytes, multiplication is pre-
vented, and the animal escapes severe illness.
The value of hyperleucocytosis as a defensive measure against in-
fection must, probably, always remain greater than its value as a
cure for established infection. ‘There are several reasons that make
this conclusion probable—the capacity of the blood is increased in
the direction of destroying bacteria without being augmented at
the same time in the direction of neutralizing bacterial poisons; the
organism that is already severely poisoned by infection reacts less
certainly to the chemical agents that provoke hyperleucocytosis than
the uninfected organism. And yet we may see the operation of the
benign influence of hyperleucocytosis, associated with an increased
passage of alexin-containing lymph through the vessels, upon certain
local infections at least, in the results of measures that determine an
augmented supply of blood to a diseased part; in the mechanical
hyperemias produced through posture or superheated air; the in-
fluence (in part) of tuberculin injections; and the effects of poultices
and embrocations, of counterirritants, and of certain of the phe-
nomena of local inflammation,
734 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
The facts at our command point to the great potential power of
the normal organism to resist infection and indicate that the normal
body possesses the capacity, on demand, to increase this power beyond
the mean value, chiefly by opposing intending infection by hyper-
leucocytosis and also, probably, by the strengthening of its plasmatie
defensive action through the additional soluble alexin substances
thrown off by the augmented leucocytes. This defensive mechanism
acts in the same manner on all bacterial invaders and is not specially
adapted for any one or group of bacteria. The form of activity is
strictly nonspecific.
Let us now ask ourselves if in overcoming infectious disease, which
luckily the organism is frequently able to accomplish, the mechanism
put into operation is similar and only more intense than the one we
have considered for warding off infection. The answer to this ques-
tion is that recovery from infection consists in the bringing into
being of a new set of phenomena that gradually reenforce the resist-
ance; that recovery from infection is accomplished through a process
of immunization. The evidences of this condition of immunization
are found in the appearance in the blood some time between the
fourth or fifth to the tenth day of the disease, and somewhat later
than they have appeared in the spleen and bone marrow, of chemical
substances which are directed in a specific manner to the neutraliza-
tion of the poisons having been and still being produced by the bac-
terial causes of the disease, to the destruction of the bacteria them-
selves either outright by the plasmatic fluid which has now been en-
riched by a new quantity of intermediary substance of high potency
that may bring the bacteria more readily under the dissolving in-
fluence of the complement, or by the phagocytes to which they are
exposed in greater measure through the production of opsonins of
higher strength and stability. As recovery progresses these im-
munity substances continue to increase until at the termination of
the disease they are present in quantities that suffice often, by a
passive transfer to another individual, to protect other animals more
certainly from an infection, or to terminate abruptly an infection
already established in them.
When the infectious disease is the expression not of the combined
effects of poison and bacteria, but of the poison chiefly which enters
the blood, the bacteria remaining without, as in diphtheria, then
the blood changes characterizing the immune state are simpler and
consist in the accumulation there of antitoxins that constitute the
most perfect antidote to poisons that are known. The condition of
immunity produces no demonstrable change in the properties of the
phagocytes through which they are better enabled to overcome the
poisonous bacteria. They do become, in course of the immunization,
more sensitive to positive chemotactic stimuli; but it is still an un-
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO DISEASE—FLEXNER. 7385
settled question whether they are altered qualitatively by the immuni-
zation, or whether the plasmatic changes do not really react upon
them and thus increase their efficiency.
It must now be patent that between what may be termed the proc-
ess of physiological resistance and what is termed the condition
of immunization, a wide distinction exists. The one is nonspecific
in its action, the other highly specific in its effects; the one is sub-
ject to a limited augmentation, the other may be carried to a high
degree of potency and perfection; the one often fails to protect
the organism in which it is developed, the other suffices to protect
both itself and another organism. If therefore we were to be asked
in what manner can the animal organism best be reenforced against
infection, we should be compelled to answer by passing safely through
the infection itself. This conclusion, which has been reached by
purely experimental biological methods, is supported on every side
by common observation and experience with the acute infectious
diseases of which one attack protects from a subsequent attack of
the same disease.
It may conduce to clearness if we should enumerate the factors that
have been described and assigned on the one hand to natural resist-
ance, and on the other hand to acquired resistance or immunity. We
ean tabulate the factors in the following manner:
NATURAL OR PHYSIOLOGICAL INCREASED NATURAL OR PHYSIOLOGICAL
RESISTANCE, RESISTANCE.
complement. complement, probably increased.
; intermediary body. ; intermediary body.
Alexin f y y Alexin i y y
opsonin. opsonin.
agglutinin. agglutinin.
Phagocyte. Phagocyte—increased (hyperleucocytosis).
ACQUIRED IMMUNITY.
Complement—probably increased.
Intermediary body—specifie one produced.
Opsonin—specific, stabile one produced.
Agglutinin—specifie one produced.
for exotoxin
for endotoxin
Phagocyte—often increased but qualitatively unchanged.
Antitoxin produced.
This tabulation exhibits the distinction between the physical basis
of physiological resistance and of the state of immunity. There is
another difference between them; any increase that can be called out
beyond the mean of physiological resistance is accomplished in a few
hours; and having been called out to meet a particular condition of
need of the body and the effect having been exerted, it passes off very
soon. It is rare that the effect of a hyperleucocytosis can be detected
736 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
for more than three or four days after it has appeared. The develop-
ment of the state of immunity, on the other hand, is a slow process
relatively and depends upon the setting into motion of certain cell
functions, through which new substances are produced, which, being
first retained within the cells producing them, eventually are passed
into the blood. Hence it is that these new substances can be detected
at an earlier period of the infection in the spleen than in the blood.
But once they have been produced, the substances endure either for an
indefinite period, or the capacity to produce new ones of the same sort
is retained by the organism often for years. The blood may grow weak
in the typhoid immunity principle in the course of years following an
attack of typhoid fever, or a rabbit immunized with typhoid bacilli
may show after a time a great diminution of the blood agglutinins for
typhoid bacilli; but the typhoid immunity persists in the one, as in
the other minimal quantities of typhoid bacilli will bring out, and
without the original delay, a new production of agglutinin that will
restore the lost amount.
The facts on immunity which I have presented to you constitute the
physical basis, also, of all artificial methods which are being pursued
so successfully in preventing certain infections through vaccination,
and in curing them through the use of immune serum products. The
facts also account in an eminently satisfactory manner for the sup-
pression of smallpox by cowpox vaccination. The “ vaccines” so-
called for bacterial diseases, which are, I might say, at present being
employed chiefly in protecting animals from epidemic infectious dis-
eases to which they are much exposed, consist for the most part of
bacteria either killed outright by heat or chemicals or of bacteria
whose virulence has been diminished by special methods of cultivation
or treatment. In human beings this method of vaccination has been
employed only when large numbers of persons have been exposed to
infections from the zone or focus of which they could not be removed,
or from which, owing to the peculiar circumstances surrounding the
infections, they could not readily or at all be protected by the suppres-
sion of the diseased germs at their sources. Thus, it has been found
advantageous in a few instances to employ vaccination against cholera
and bubonic plague, on those especially exposed to these epidemic dis-
eases, and against typhoid fever on troops going in time of war into
heavily infected endemic zones of that disease.
In a few instances this method of vaccination has been successfully
carried out in animals with infectious diseases in which the germs
causing them have not been discovered. Thus, it is possible to vac-
cinate cattle against the destructive rinderpest of Africa, the Philip-
pines, and other tropical countries, by employing the bile of animals
which have succumbed to the infection, which contains the parasite
of the disease somewhat modified by certain immunity principles
NATURAL RESISTANCE TO DISEASE—-FLEXNER. TS
contained within it along with parasites. In fact, this method of
conjoint vaccination with the parasite of the disease and the blood
containing immunity principles is one that offers a considerable field
of practical application. On the one hand, there is accomplished a
passive immunization of the body that becomes operative immedi-
ately, and, on the other hand, a vaccination that after the usual inter-
val leads to the production of a state of active immunity that rises
to a higher level and is far more enduring than the passive state.
Incidentally we have discovered from this process of mixed or con-
joint vaccination that immune sera prepared for bacteria or other
parasites which are not toxin producers in the manner of the diph-
theria bacillus, but which contain endotoxin, act not especially by
neutralizing toxins, or by destroying outright the bacteria, but by
exercising an efficient protective control over the injury which these
parasites or their poisons tend to inflict on certain sensitive body cells.
For example, if cattle are inoculated on one side of the body with
virulent blood from animals dying of rinderpest, and on the other
side with blood serum taken from animals that have recoverd from
the disease and subsequently have had their immunity intensified by
injections of highly virulent blood, the cattle so vaccinated will de-
velop rinderpest in a mild form and will subsequently on recovery
be also immune; and yet during the process of immunization their
blood contains highly virulent parasites, so that if a little of it be
introduced into nonprotected and healthy cattle, they will be given
rinderpest and will die of it.
The reaction of the body to the bacterial vaccines injected is out
of proportion to the quantity of culture introduced. Thus two milli-
grams of dead cholera bacilli injected under the skin of human beings
will yield enough of the specific immunity substance for these bacilli
to bring about the destruction of 60,000 or more milligrams of the
culture. There can be, therefore, no direct tranformation of the
cholera bacilli into immunity bodies, but they must exert a stimulus
on certain cell-functions through which the immunity principles are
produced; and the quantity of their formation depends not on the
weight of crude bacilli introduced, but on the strength of the stimu-
lus impressed upon the sensitive cells to which they react in a specific
and remarkable manner.
Is it possible in the course of an established infection to reinforce
the resistance of the body? I have already stated that it is not prac-
ticable to bring out at the height of an infection an efficient height-
ened reaction of physiological resistance; but from this it does not
follow that under these conditions a special form of immunity reac-
tion may not be elicited. The tuberculin reaction, or that part of
it which is specific, may be cited as an example of this kind of rein-
forcement; and whatever there is of value in the treatment of infec-
738 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909.
tious diseases by means of dead cultures of their specific bacteria—
vaccines, so called—must be of the nature of an intensified im-
munity reaction. What is sought to be accomplished in the latter
case is the formation in certain uninfected localities—in the subcu-
taneous tissues, for example—of immunity principles that afterwards
by escaping into the blood shall assist in the termination of an infec-
tious process situated elsewhere in the body. Such local foci of im-
munity as it is designed to create in the subcutaneous tissue are not
unknown. The pleura can be given a local immunity to the typhoid
bacilli; the subcutaneous tissue to tetanus toxin, and it is highly
probable that the normal resistances exhibited by our mucous mem-
brances to the pathogenic bacteria they harbor are examples of such
local immunities.
I fear that I have carried you far afield and into somewhat devious
paths of immunity to disease. You will, I know, not complain and
hold it to the detriment of medical science that these paths have not
been already converted into fine open roads. But you will prefer to
recall how brief is the time since where the paths now are there were
only wood and tangle.
A.
Page.
AV Cm LG VGN tere a a I a ee ee a 13, 1d, 74, T5
ND DOO Maile sa Gem BE ee x, 4, 12, 13, 17, 30, 65, 66, 76, 79, 80
ENT OG tamV Vee ee een re a ee ie a es oe ee 24, 35, 37
ESI) Clo ©) Peete eee WADE ETT Ft ho Be eee 75
END LOMAINCWASDCCLEST Ob = 2 = = 92.0 42 ee ee ee 73
INCCCSSI ON Seamer epee: eds ea ees 2 ee ee ee 28, 35, 59, 67
PXCCOMMUS HEU Oily Olas sees Sere) oe Rae ee es 2 el eo ee eee 99
JRCCUSIER ea JAY LI tt ee pe NPR RY RS OAR LN REA 8 Oe 105
ENCKar OWiLEd SANCTUS i ee ee ees ee ere ae eee 19, 28, 25, 36, 37, 68, 83, 85
NC USHA G ERE SO NUULOMM Ss) Ole COTS CSS ae ee ee a erp es}, aS, Als PAs
23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 33, 35, 40, 49, 50, 58, 70, 81, 100, 109, 110, 118
AVG] EIN SARG OO TE Clr er a Le a ed ee 76
BANC UEUSTUT SS meV ose h 2c er ea cate yd a oe et Ix, 17, 80
ANGIE Testes Vp sete a ee ey ee wee 3, 14, 16, 17, 57, 67, 71,73, SO, 107
PNCLNN DUTIES CaN EN Ua Oy Nags ea ea Sa SRE De sO ey 3
AeriolenavioatlOne = 22. ee a ee ee ee ee THUG 205225. (GO te lolol
ACRON ati GalM HX pOSTHONSESS = as eae eee 20
Weronautical: literature (Brockett) 222) eee Ties allay ash Cxeh, (7!
INELI CAMEL CCICOM = ane 2 ee ee eee Se Te SOE SR ty DR, TO!
Agriculture, Secretary of (Member of Establishment) _--________________ TDG, I
OTICIURe aw eCHaArLiMent Ol== seen an eee ee 1S
Are nhne Mpper(iGoldcand: Harwood) soe. sae ee ee ee 261
/NTTASL ONT OFS}, SDM overeat, Thay (Wave) os Kol) ee 141
NBS Ke, (OOmOnOL Gre yyaleliuawey thoy (Grey aye) 2 Hall
NSA NAHRO WER ebiO IDp:4 NOC Oe = ee Mle BIS) ISS. ISL, USS
JAY Wet) 1B Al ies) Se eee ceh pega a ee ee oe Ae LEA here mre Seren Vt ye Eee = EN reo. 64, 65
Alexander, Lieut. Boyd (From the Niger, by Lake Chad, to the Nile) _____ 385
Allegheny Observatory. 22" == S52 Se ee ee ee 12
AMeErICAn Me anbigmitless 2569s =. Lele ee eee 18, 26, 35, 46
A\vaereikeaay 18 MUSoNe ON! NSIS OO) Oe 16, 17, 68, 79
American, Mining \Congresss = 22> 0s a ee ee eee eee 20
ATMeEICAn LepUDICS) BUnealht Oba = oats = Sees ee ee ee eee 19, 92
ATIVE TE CAMS OCLE Ty bap VLE Cl eA TA CA TN TTS CT Se ee 35
Americanists, International CougzLess === aes Se ee 19
Andrews) Wallace C;(bequest)i_--- = ee Uae ee ee ee 1038
AMC) eames ss CCLEM lt) = ee ee eee ene ee ee a eee vies KOA Tells ala
NTIEUAO UO: IOp-G KNOTT Oa, (CMO I Keron a) De 355
ANMUUAETINO IEW, Gie Wakernoyenet (C/ArboovanteyPeneiane))) ee 301
NTO) ONECOY OEP AKON), HAVO L SISTED ou kan reps ye ee ass ee ee ee », 6, 7, 100, 113
ACH EOLO Gi Callie E.On aT: CSS er es al ew ne a ea eee ey ale
IAT. CHORES Dt trerewen ee ener seem oe ele eee ee 2 el TU eS eee 73
740 INDEX.
Page
Architecture skoman (Bagsallay) ee eee ee ees 651
Arizona new, GDUntIAtnOM 2. S28 en ek Se ee ee (2
Armacnaty, Elentie = 2s 2220. Da ae ee See ee 76
SA TTOLG sh Gen des aren ohn A SP aap AES 2 pee Oa meas eee ok, haere ie
Art “COllechi On ses 2s oe siete As Se ee ae 2, 3, 4, 6, 24, 25, 34, 41, 68, 110
ASE STO OIE See Se eS PS a a a ee ee eee 68
Ashmead: Wallan, eS eS oa ee eee 69
Assistant secretaries Smithsonian___--_ Ix, 3, 14, 16, 117, 39; 5%, 67, 71, 73,80) 10m
Astrophysical observatory___—----~-- x 4; 5, 6), 2; 17,1380; 64, 67, 69) (9 OOS
Atmosphere. Mechanics) ob Harth' sae "22 = Sees eee eee eee 13
Attorney-General (Member of Establishment) —=—=—=—=-=—— == 10-44 JL
Atwood) Alien Cat. 2a tae Be aos see ee Se oe eS eee 76
AN yeiEe, I Olxsee Sushi (veo wiesih)) = 2 ee ee 5, 96, 104
B.
Bestroct market. place@so= = ss) = 22 ee St a eee ee 109
Bacon Senator. AS OF (Rezent))\=2 == = = eee Er ee ee TX LOZ OM
SACI Z ye te oe dere ee ORS Se ee ea ee ae ee eee 75
Bagccallavarhowis (Romany architecture) === === —= =e 651
Baird, Spencer F. (Second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,
TSU SS ieee a eS ee Se ee ae ee 32
IB aKer MAL reese eas a eee oe ee ee ee Xi
Baker hronke= Sees) 222 Ae ee ee eee ee ee x, 4, 17, 63, 80
Baldwin di Masao. = 2k. Se See SS ee oe 2 ee 2
[Engle 1S) Loe oe ee Se ee Se Se T5
Ballinger heAs (Secretary, Ob they LNtCrLOI) = = ne iD, IL
Ballouweoward Male ss 2a. bol See es eee eee eae 27, 40, 44
Barbour: HOM As a= sate ce Eee Se eee. se ee ee eee 88, 90
Barrett, C. L. (Origin and development of parasitical habits in the
@UCUIIGE) as ee ee ee be See eee tee 487
TEX ELA RS oc CO) 0 aS eS ee ee ee ee ern 92
AEST la ne NUYS ee eee Oa ee ee ee 36
Bass lenyiee Sian eee ee 2s So ee ee See 3.0 (2
Baur areal see eP ee a P o ee S ee ee ee 21
Beckers Geongey Heo = sees LL ee SU ee eee 15, 77
Bell eAlexandeniGraham” Ghegent) === ix, 22) 101, LOD Ome alt
Reliebleanormvorke(Panamasand: 1tS geo le) ess a ee ee 607
ClO TCN ie We ee Bao Sa eR ee eB ae 85
Benewiaty WphWtalims..-- oo Oe 2 Sle ee ee Ea ee eee 36
penis sinn WemeNaTCUS ee! hee eek ot A enc ew eee ee x
ASCO CS US ete eae ee RES ee ee 2,4
Berrys WViese ono ea eae ee Se eee ee Xe, fH
eae see oa le Se wo ce So ss ee 87, 88. 91
Birdsrandsanimals) importation Oll22 222s See ee eee eee 114
Birds, English names of North American (Trotter) --—--- == eee 505
Birds, Parasitical habits of Cuculidz (Barrett) ---_____--__-___§___ AST
Birds, Protective resemblance of South African (Haagner)—-_-__________ 493
BlacktordscqCharleswiviinor22 oo" 2 las a ee ee Bs
BlaisdellyirankopHy Spe 2s ee ee ee 78
Bilauvelt awalliamy diutton 25922 S22 ee oe ee 91
Blind sintellectualavorkiot the (Villey) === ee 683
Board Ole l ents aaa ae ee ee eee alps Pal eee (as WO BDL
INDEX. 741
Page.
JBOD ay kg IEE, aa ee SVR a 1) pe eee Eee eR DE WER Cee ES x, 19, 40, 47
IE OLOMETHCRODSEEV AION Sie eee a: a ele he ee Os me ee 30, 64
IB OlLOMMMELerD Cry SHS a as ee Neate ob Se ee ee 27, 40, 44
lByooNCEN Miso, Ibeuacboreugtest wie ((Giaeevs)) a es 15, 04.
lsORaEeN Ilo Gre Aoloval IDyoyovaveill (Shoowelyoe oe 76
ISOuaaverll WES CRURO Nes sa) COpWbito a a aul
SES Tel ne V epee Eevee een = en 6 ER Ca EE SE aE el 0 ee oe 74
PES TiEAT CHD Rs sp VV Ieee ea eae ee re A Nae gat ee 47
ras enir seer O lie Arseste ES) hee 8 ee eee ee ee 22,111
BritishneAntarcie soxpedition (Shackleton) een ee 355
BS MLOMee UNE ee ae ek ee Se ee eee 7s
SO CAMEATIOIRG ee ee are ny ee a eae elie SE ALIS oon eae eS er 76
STOCISe tiem eau ne ee yes ea a a RS a ee 13, 69, 74
Brown lmer shee 2 Ses ee ee eS Le a, ee ee 92
ESO WWyilleis see ae eee ee he Se ae le te ar UE a Xe
ESTO WAIN VETO STs oe ee et 88
Bnyantes Oweneeas= = 22s 22 ws ee ee 2a
CESS UNITS OAM VST v0 ae Feder wee ee Ee ee ee ee 91
AST Hain eT] MVE) Seafoam a a ee Ee se 48
c:
Ca EIA Seen ed td Sa eee ee ee 74
Cambpriankgeeolosy, and paleontology== 22 = = eee UO), aay,
Campbell aweawe ceeturn, of Elaliley2s some ty) 253
(CE TINT INU fey VN ee cos ae a ee es eee ee 12, 65
(Wear eal Maes elhy, See eee a ee ae Te ee ee 73
Ware mwGEOES Ores ee ee ee ae ee Se a ee 45
(aubrey ELS as OS Ae eh be oo SE ee La ee 90
WASey Grey eee 2 ee ee rete lh Se ee se LIS INYO)
CasanOwileZs ley Mies a ee EO eee en ges Oe 85
Wergmil CAG eCOLALOM: «CHA CHE te) epee re ene 639
Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution (Chief Justice Fuller)_— 1x, 1,102,111
(W@hamule WO Clare fee he a EE a el
CCT IEEN aT EWTN fe A pe ae a ee ee Re 22
Chietsustice: Me We Hullers (Chancellor) 2222 ee 1G als WO, ala
Chinaeey cite br OMS Sat eS 2 a ee ee 36
TUT STO GOO I HG a NL EO ae US
Choate Charlesshs sr: (GRegeriti)) see ee ee Tx, 102
Christensen) Car] = S58 ee ee aS ee ee ee 73
ClankspAry ElOWarG Se So) oie = eS ee ee EXCHENGE OO)
ClarkarAustinwhlobariy | 22a) =e ee ae Le oS ee a ee 73
UST SD Te TE VV ec ee ee ee ee ae ee x
C COTES yA KOT NE) Se ge ae ee ie eee ee 48
@litharallace: 2222s = ee ee ee ee ee ee 26, 46
(GLOG Iic esc Viel Re aaa Sen OS 2A ac 0 Na ares SS De NE se ee oe Ns 37
Coleoptera, Revision of = 2222 se eeners IAL ee A ae ges a9 UE aL ee a 7S
Comets Ealley7s (Campbell) 2222 ee ee 253,
Commerce and Labor, Secretary of (Member of Establishment) ~~~ ____ ip, I
Commuissionersrof the Oistrictior Columba =e eee ee 109
GoM MpiiCes +. 14e sire ae NEE ee ee pe eee AMI Aa A 2280) 9 Oa) ael
Congress oF the United sStates=2 222 — ee Wii de ay (OH qe Alloy 1S}, PAL, AR
24, 25, 27, 28, 33, 34, 40, 49, 50, 58, 70, 81, 87, 100, 109, 110, 111, 118
Congresses, celebrations, and expositions_______ 12, 18, 23, 39, 41, 48, 81, 86, 112
742 INDEX.
Page.
Conservation of natural resources) (Douglas) 22 = O17
Continental Eialls DN AL Se ee 23
Contributions to IenOwled eer se saa ae ee ee ae eee ee ne re
Coolidge VAG iC: 2k Le iv a a en eee oe Rd Oe ad 87, 88, 90
COOMer at OMe eee ee ae eee a ie ee Seg 18, 19, 23, 26, 36, 37, 85
Gopelttnt (Giovani ess Soe OTE aE Fk ACS a ee 20
Copenthagents ZOOL cai Calle Mier errant 0 hee ee 37
CorcoraneGellery = Of {At Goer ee rt elke ee ene ee 25, 34, 35
WOPGES PONG CM tS see ee mf
(Bova ses Vy Se eh ee JE ee ee XE
(STAB Ss Pa a a LE ae ke 467
Crawlorgde ee 1s es ate ee oe Be 37
Crinordss Philippines 2 i Se ee Ee ee ee ee 75
Crin Old SerMenmeSseet ssa aaa ee ee ee ee ee 78
Crustacea, Instinct of self-concealment in (Minkiewicz) ~-_____________ 465.
Crystals, Formation, growth, and habit of (Gaubert)_-.________________ Pal
Cuckoo Sau aie eae Dee eee oe ae te eee 487
(CUNEDUNCRD, Lesa! Jerome ore (Usher) = et 487
CullomSenatom Shelby May (Regent) 22222 eee Ix, 102; 107
RGUUAT CLS ENE TO) See a ie Na i eh eee 88, 90
D.
JED SWISS VGA (iol Ae ie a eae Rena Oak tal alas RMN SEVEN RRA ies AIK x Oe
Dalzell; Representative John (Regent) = 22) ee xed OM
Damas, D. (Oceanography of the Sea of Greenland) _~_________________ 369
19) Tae re RO LINN Te oe eh acne ee ese a ae Se eS ep Ny | 75
HS) UTEWWAliT 9 OTN EM: ay ee Se oe ee ee ee PAR ala
Darwin; Charles (Weisman) = 22 2. 22 eee es eee 43
ORNS Oe ANmivereieriay ley oll. 16, 23, 79
Be Mron billets Ava re ere Es 8h a et a os ee 74
IBEnismOrexse NSS Hira Ces Se Sewer Tye ie et cee ee ge we oe 40, 47, 48
NBS CTO SHOE CS ae ee ae ee ee eee ee ee 58
ETD yep O Rye 22 eee ee ee eee Oe ee ee ee eed ce oe cee el 88, 91
WE SAUSS UG OvERVCn Ce ea te ne Saeed gee dh ee ee 14
TUES SAS Pp aM See a DS a Ne Bk ie 72
TOE PDI id BO eg 2 Se Re ee ee 76
DD TCKAIMNSOM i ACODs MLE GS CCE LAT yn Olen VV etsT) se iToxeamlt
Disease, Natural resistance to infectious (Flexner)____________________ 723
Dixon. ws Mas 62222 se ool Be ce peered Soy esos EL EYE Ay A 4 pi Le eee eee Oil
IV) GD TESS Eye BEM EMITS TSN a Voce het FOR See ei ne tee Ear Ix
Douglas, James (Conservation of natural resources) ___________________ 317
TOUT Fe te SUS NS 8 eee SI Le er Fle ry Vey oh Wess Selina eyes Et 85
TOA TE NAS ec JG AS tages ee en eR IE eee Aek yer) vielen) | geet FY es Senn Sirf sai). Aire as
Dy Aree ELamr iS Omi Ge 2 Ve Ly as) ee eee ee %3
EK.
AES AMOS PME Oy! ae eee, tare Nek eh aaa he ee 13, 15, 74
DASbWwOOds MMITSS VAN Ces Se a Se ee Be ee oe oe eee ill
Eberhardt Charles Wei ee se ee ee ee ee CZ
Taolyoe Guy SiemltelaiSoranehal Mal ehephevor ses Se Tx, 175 (2780
AEST) trys) 5 sa Gece A rk eke ae dk a eee Te a tle ee 105
Hmenson,Nathanlelphas-s. 2500 20 22 ee ee 27, 40, 84
INDEX. 7143
Page
immonssebicltn Gls Uni SiiNAV Yoo 2 = ee Sos eee eee 83
REITTTSLOWEC Sam OTIS = ae ee ee ee ee ee ee 68
Esianlishment.achersmithsomian! 829 2). s.r le ee eee 1p.<5 al
Maiimateswana appropriations —~—2—- = =--2 2 eee 5, 6, 7, 100, 113, 115
inimnologya suneau of American 22. 25202 22 ee ee eee Xi
4,5, 6, 7, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25, 35, 40, 69, 78, 100, 116
Huroper antiquity of man in (MacCurdy)) == 22855522 Sept
Huropean population of United! States (Ripley )=22-==—-s—_— =e 5S5
emer et Wa 2 een et al et eae 2, 25, 34
Evermann, eile. ee er a ee ee Lr ed i Ee ee Me
RixchemneesnitansSMmitibedsy = —2=2 2) 2018S ae ee 51
TEXeCuiIVe committee) 2 = i242 ee eee tx, 97, 108
Enlorarions and) researches. = = ee ee 7, 10; 12) 24.35) 40547
Expositions, congresses, and celebrations______ 12, 18, 23, 39, 41, 43, Si, 86, 112
F.
Fairbanks, Charles W., Vice-President of the United States__________ 1, 102, 106
Heyes, ANGY ACR a ee 73
NESSEIILGHMML mE Ateneo fale SS eee ee Oe ee 76
IME WROR SG WI oe eee X, 26, 35, 40, 46, 47, 85
Teer OTTO) = eee 4, 97
Minisy, ©. do-e22- 2 =e 90
intigasie, WNoweoerillG!) 5 ee ee Se (ts)
TBVSTDROWOS, TBIGRN Ol (= a ee Se 37
]Psineries) OWMGARESS —- = a Be ee ee Se 19, 109
iiiehe iLemhIStOEIGS, Of-——2- = 2 = TT
Wieming, J. A. (Researches in radiotelegraphy )——--—---_--__-__________ iar
Fleming, J. A-__-----------------------+~----=-~--~------------------ 74
Fletcher, Miss Alice C_-._-----------------------~-~------------------ 40, 48
Flexner, Simon (Natural resistance to infectious disease) ~-____________- ie
Flexner, Simon --~----------------~--------~-~--~--~-----~-~--~----~----~- 75, 91
Flint, James M -_-------------------------------------------------- x, 84, 85
Formosa, Peoples of___-_-------------------------------------------- 73
Fortier, Alcée __--------------------------------------~-------------- 91
Fowke, Gerard___------------+------------------------------~-------- 48
Fowle, F. E., jr_--------------------------------------------------- x, 64, 79
Fox, Gustavus Vasa -_----------------------------------------------- 36
Frachtenberg, Leo J. F_---------------------------------------------- 47
Franchet, Louis (Ceramic decoration) ~--~----~-~~--_-----_~---------- 639
Freer, Charles L_--------------------------------------------- 2, 25 34, 110
Fulcher, Gordon Scott-_------------------------------~------~--------- 73
Fuller, Chief Justice M. W. (Chancellor) —-~__---_-_-_--------- ue dip ade aa
G.
GES CHO ty Ae ee ee ee ee 45, 47
Gaubert, Paul (The formation, growth, and habit of crystals) -------___- ial
Gaudry, Albert (Glangeaud) —~--_------------------------------------- 417
(Gomme, Reietolllaly Wa ee eS SE x
CTT, VY cE ein 81
Geneva University Anniversary____..__._----------+_-~=----—_~___---= Pall
Geological investigations in China, Japan, and Java---------------~~---- ial
Geology and Paleontology, Cambrian__---------~----~-- ea 3 DURAN Lae 10, 15, 73
45745°—sm 1909——48
744 INDEX,
Page.
Geological, Survey, United States2222 2-2 5533 eee 37
Gerard Wis Wh a Be ee ee ee 40, 44
Gifts and loans_____-____________ 2, 24, 25, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, Gl, 68, 69, 837/85
Gill; De sbaneey WW 22 =~ aa Ss Se ee eee x, 48
Gail THEO ORE ees ae ee ee eed 19,72; 13,0, CGA
Glangeaud, Ph. (Albert Gaudry and the evolution of the animal kingdom)_ 417
Gold, EB. and W.-A.. Harwood (The upper air)so_- 2) se) See 261
Goldsmith; (J. S2_ 22. 22S b ee Se a 8 ee ee ee x:
Gorgas; Col: William) C3 Ua Ss Army = ee a ee ee eee 88, 90
Grant, Madison (Condition of wild life in Alaska) _________________=____ 521
CSTR EST a sae ane ce vs Te dl eats
Gray. ‘George (Regent) )s202- 024i 222322 oda oe ee nb-@ J lalit
Grays Mhomas: \4) 28 eo ee Dee, ee ee ee ee 15, 72, 73
Green; Bernard R22 2222225 oes oe ee ee eee eee 19, 108
Greene, Hdward Wee. 22s Se ak ee ee ee Se ee 15, 74, 75
Greenland Sea Oceanography, (@Daimials)) eee ee eee 369
Greenough’s statue of Washington__-_________ Be Ee ee ANE a fie 5, 23, 99, 109
Gregory; idan W2i223 5282 ele 2 ae ee eee 75, 76
Grinnell aS Cras ee 2 ee ee eS ees x
Gucleysy da G esr Soe 5 Ses Sere be ee Bs ee eee 47, 78
PGutimiann,. (OSCHT 652 oo ee ee ee 76
COU CRS CH es DS ee oe a ek A ee 13
H.
Haagner, Alwin (Protective resemblance of South African birds) _______ 493
Habel;s Simeon: (bequest) + .25 oso eee ee ee eee 4, 96
AACK eit wipe Be ee PREBLE 4S, athe. Sev "Shee Wiese Me ere el Nr 8h 103
ELE ern GCOLZC@H S28 Ak as ee ee ees ee eee ee J. Ae 73, 74
HEENED) TPC se Es ete St Te 2 RS ee Fe RS he ap Lo Wok EE 88, 90
Halleyss/ Comet (Campbell) = 3) = ese eset en eee 253
Hamil toner ames ss (bequest x2 = 2 ae eee ee ee 4, 14, 78, 97
EAN GDOOKROL: CNOA Sis 2 Se =e eee ee 9 ee 26, 44
Harwood, W. A., and EH. Gold (The upper air)______ 23s ies oe 261
Ea pie Palen see ee te hee ee a ee eee 18, 19, 21
DEVE Wallil areas aie ce ee ls Be ae ee ee ee eee 27, 40, 45, 84
ay Ome and «We bea ee Se ee eee 69
Enaizenegv AU en tetera Be le al es ee ee eee 91
Ereimen! seAm tone <22 2 oo 2 et ee ee eee 73
Eee amin dies Sane te CES eee eee as ook ie Fo ee 9, 105
Efprapel we Ndelph | £6 9 2s Le ek Ie SV a oe See Sr 88
Evengderson-..onnib. (event) ==" = ee eee rx, 101, 102, 103
FRETS Ta HL ry, age Te lV em se a er ee 85
Henry, Joseph (First Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1846-
TUES ASS)) ee ee Pe PR Rs es ey Ne ee ea ys oe ere SU ee 8 32, 83
ering hud Olphie 2 2 i ee ee eee 91
IFIESS: Hive aim gl UR pie te Sa ee ee ee 74
VGN VAC tee IN see ee en ae ae x, 40, 44, 46
ERIE CH EOC Kap AGS See ee ee eee 78
Hiteheock, Wrank H.. (Postmaster-General))-2-—- = 2-22) s eee AD. all
TETOG & CAH Wie es ee ee ee x, 17, 40, 44, 80
Hodgkins, Thomas George (bequest) -_________________ 4, 11, 12, 19, 66, 97, 1038
Efolmes: Willigmiies soy Get 8) ed x, 4, 20, 40, 47, 48, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 92
INDEX. 745
Page
Eolsey,7Commander Harry Ee, U.S: Navy22222) eee 36
PSTD ELS VV 92h ac al ene RO PE ae IR Ore EE ee WY x, 84
TE ROHN VEITECG by d Lyte) Le Seg BE A Nl le On eo eee Cre ORIEN PS ORE pts gl) Mie x
Howard, Representative W. M: (Regent). 20 - = ee Ix, 102
ETCRUE Mee TDTs Vga) Vi eee cen ere ak te ee i et ee ile
PRL AeA AU Sree epee ee UE A aN) Se 16, 20, 35, 36, 40, 47, 48, 109
Human life, Relation of science to (Sedgwick)... 2 669
Enuxdeyanrirem OL all MeCbUEe= 2 ste SS eis 2 ee ee 585
I.
Rel Sr OSe Dies 22a ee ee Se es Pe oe ee ee if
Igneous rocks, Distribution of elements in (Washington) _____________ 279
BEREAN CT es Se Te cL tal CT fs ome ace we ohm ee EE Dee ee Le ee vil, 48
ineomeran a mexpen dure =. ths ee ee ee ene Fe eo ee 5, 1038
SUEY EFA) em Nt eee ee Se ee oe eS oe 90
TADS SRST, “1 bys) ese IR es ies ne ee ee RS BU Per err esr 64, 66
Interior, Secretary of (Member of Hstablishment)_____________________ up-c ial
MC HOMe DD Cpa rbnentwOl 22 f= aie tse eee ee ee eee 18, 26, 36, 46
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature__ x, 3, 5, 6, 7, 17, 31, 70, 100, 116
International Exchanges____________ X, 3, 0. O10, 10, 2 49) 67, 68, 695 LOO} das
J.
RIC KSO Lin At WAV fern VV ee ere ee Eee ee Pe te a ee i 19
FANSSen wus Cesar iCPluvinel)\2=22. 2) 2225 Se oe ee eee 243
PRUU ROM MOETDIS. 0 422 eo 8 Las aE et el eed ee ae 19; 21
Oey MNCS uN keer or EU a a ee eee 91
Johnston-Lavis, H. J. (The mechanism of voleanic action) —~-__-__-__-_-____ 305
OLN Stonmmearwiet. Juanes os lee GL oe ee ee a ee 2
IGS, IGA DY ES See a ees ee ee TO Soe De unin ene eye meee CNS ae 76
SOUL DINEICEPC ROC: ose hee ee eee eel ee ee eee 76
Ke
ISSENTOUESATL,. 6 Jo. ORR ee get ee a ee en ee eee eee, FLEE 76
CECT mmIO) Need eerie 2s 209 TS oe ee ee ee 91
ESSE TONITE Tay es AV Vs ee ee FUE ey a 91
ESOC TTT re DST Sy pe Da A ee ed a Se ee 90
FENG TIGR Vp ANI eee A LS call ee Rs a ls oot 90
INGESIE WAR OM Maser Often 2 oe eee ee ee 74
Sut Tysabri G CTs USO = 22 Ss Se a ere 36
NU eRe OMCs os Se = a ae ee ee ee Se eee oe 16:
Rnoxesehilnder @. (Secretaryaot State)2== 2222 eee ee 1b-@ a
POOL Chany @ ACs ree Sa ee See a Se ee ie 13
ESOT: EU YID soe AG hE a ee a ad ee eal a 66
L.
Mami Nesches oH anise: 4 ity ey wh 2 da ee ee ee ee RCE ED 40
Langley, Samuel P. (Third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,
1887-1906) ______..- TQS TA SG 205 22150) 64.65: Te (2. 16; Cin LOne dildo
ManecleyeMedall and) Pabletsss <2 eri! swam ie ee a 22, 107, 111
SIUSUNVINV TY Bs ty ie eS ee ae See Pe 2 ol ed inh a 19
SNS SUT TA FD pa LGEL VATS T CO eel an ce Pee Th el a ee 88, 91
We wiye ruth eet ete eee ke Sle 8 eee i ee eo 48
746 INDEX.
Page.
Lectures. 32032 St See ob eS eee Pe ae ee, Oe are 14, 78, 585
efiing well, Hide! Kes 245 oh 5 he ee ee ee 35
heipzig; University .0fl22 22: So- ea ee e e Di
Beupps Hrancis: Ws 2 ese ee ee eee ne ee 91
library: Of (Congress! 2s = eee ee ee eee 17, 18, 50, 53, 67, 68, 69, 114
ilove Ore Solas: MOS NMI oo 17, 18, 38, 48, 67, 68, 69
Hick Observatory = =- 3-222) he fea Wy
hodge; Senator: Henry Cabot. GRevent)a 2242 Tx, 102; 1g
Mosel), “Gustaves.— 2222 hot a ED See 8 A ee W459
horing yd. AldeMs as Pee ee ee ee 9, 105
bucke; “Charles: (His sees be 2 ee eee 91
MoT RACH ATG See ae ea NE Re a a CE ep 76
PEs COTA eae N tea WV oe wee ee ee OL ee ee 78
yOns,, J.) Glee fe = A ee ee eo ee ee eee 76
lytheoe A. Meso as end eee ee Te oils Set ss eee 21, 36
M.,
MacCurdy, George Grant (Recent discoveries bearing on the antiquity of
MAD AN SoUnOpe) = 2 2 ees ee ee ee ee eee 531
mMacCurdy, George Grant oe oe ee Se ee eee 19
MacbDougaly Daniel “remblys2 22-222. 00 eee ee eee 76
MeGuire: Josephs. 2. 22" pos te ae ee ee 47
INN Ye OT aes | le eee a A owed ee Serie Se Pen hy 5 Tk Ces bee ie SE a a 76
MieMiillam GW. "Wit.2 22.2 = 2 on ee 2 ee ee eee
Macveagh, Franklin (Secretary of the Treasury) ~________-____-_-____= 1b: AL
VM oni, Cy Om see en lh 91
Mammals @atalosue offli25. Ute te sites ee a bee 78
Mann, Representative James R. (Regent) —-__________=_____ Ex, 2d) LO2 OO taint
Marchis, L. (Production of low temperatures, and refrigeration) ________ 207
Marotel, G. (The relation of mosquitoes, flies, ticks, fleas, and other
Archropodssto, PAUNOlOLY) === -- = === = ee eee 705
WiaitiCorithe = Se roars be i ee A ee ee rr algal
WVIASOn MRO GS) U0) Sees es Oe ee a oe ee ee 17, 32, 69, 80, 108
Mathematical tables==-2---=--230.— 342 ee ee eee Akay (r(
Mathematics: Dhestitwre of (2Omeare)i So ee ee 123
Mationon, Camilles 2222225. es Sn ee 75
Mason: (Wiehe. =-2 = 22 22 eee 78
Maynard; Georve. C2222 22 2225-6 222) Se tS eee 85
MCAS, \OAMEGS) S252 a eas a ee ee 22, tall
Mearns, Lieut. Col; FE. A., U.S: ATIMNY 2-22 = eee 9, 105
Medal; aangley Memoriali-= ==. 2—2 = Sei ae eee eee 22, 107, 111
iMectinessok Recents =... S22 eens ee ee eee 2, LOZ Adelie
Melville; Admiral GeorgeyW. U:..\S5 Naya eee eee 3D
Merrill, \Georgven 222 so ee ee eee x, 17, 20, 80
Mesam. VerdewNationall sPark 22 25 oan 2 oie ee ee eee 24, 26, 35, 46
Mesopotamia: (Willcocks) -2)-=2e 2 22 ee ee eee 401
Metropolitan’; Museum o£ “Antes: 2-253 5 ee eee : 36
Meyer; George von L. (Secretary of the Navy) ——-=-=+-==-__ == ee 10.11
Michelson: VAlbert (A222. ob ee Se ee 88
TUM LE) 2 gl th ee | Re wd EST Sh NG A 24, 37
VGH TTS VB Ee eS nS ae ee 85
Minkiewicz, Romuald (The instinct of self-concealment and the choice of
COlOTS: any-the (Crustacea) 222.4 -2. 002 eee eee 465
INDEX. 147
Page.
IMO OTIC VAM ANOS ie eee aera he a Re ee ee x, 40, 44, 45
BITC CTC ram set ee ee ee eee 47
IGS CSaeES CDMA Qa =o ee. > eee A ee ee ee eee 2 2 S85 Ol
ROSH UMLOeS PAIN er CaN C= = sa eS ee ee ee ides
MiGUMtE Miter ODSCRVaAlLIONS= 2220 =) 2. ete te eee eee 12, 30, 65
MIG UM MN SOMMODSELVAtlONSs 2 o2. 5. =. ae NE Eee eee 30, 64, 65
Munroe, Charles E. (The nitrogen question from the military standpoint) 225
RUN INEOCrm Oar OS Bs es a a ee ot LT 2 ee ee 90
Myers, William S_____-_-_- I cep ode tlt pes ae thee sl 91
N.
Nagel, Charles (Secretary of Commerce and Labor) -—~-_______________-_ ie 1
ALESeZOOlOciGal Station. =. 8 8 8 8 ee eee ils;
SRE TNOTE Spe ANCE eee sa Ss ne Cah Bote Sl ee LS Pele) ek eee 76
NGuOndleAcademiv Of Sciences 2.220 5 ass 4 ee ee eee 20
INDO Hm leryOt CAT Ge 2 1 ww awe eee 2, 3, 4, 6, 24, 25, 34, 41, 110
Pete NET ET ATU ees 2 ne a ee ee Waly e375 1S}
National vMinsenum: (including new. binulding)) ==) = = 22 eee XS,
3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 16, 18, 19, 23, 24, 33, 68, 69; 78, 100, 108, 116
Nanonale-AOOlOfical Park = 2222 2s ee x, 4, 5, 6, 7, 17, 28, 58; 67, 69! 100) 1117
env Lome O Ui ee net 88 ero Se ee ee (053
Navwye secretary of (Member of Hstablishment))222__ = 2s ee eee Ix, 1
Nehwvan eae nnmen tts. lees bw ee ee en eee 19
PETES EV eee te sent ee PR BE ak a Ee ee 76
INGER GEORMEBLOS SI S) sce oe Rie eos ee ee Zz:
INGWGOIMD AMM SIMOM (SONG) 4a. ae Se. See ye ee ee eee 2337
IIe ep pear RU aired i OM TO Ne ale el Ne a 75, 91
INTCHOISSeNVIPS i MTHNGCES YS 2 oe ee 2 Be Oe Se ee eee 44
INe@NIcericosthe: CAlexand er) 22225 23 2 Ae ee eee 385
Nitrogen from the military standpoint (Munroe) _______________________ 225
TIGL SG. ANT Gc | oS Re a pI a eR A pe 225
DINE) ISIRT DIMAS eNO DU ei ak eae Ue eed Fe 91
INU wh omas== =~ 22> Sa he Aa ee ee Ee a eee alal
O.
@Oceanoeraphy of Sea of Greenland (Damas) =__--.--.---___ ==) 42 369
Oficersyotatne institution: and) branches =2s2 = ee IDS,
COD eS Am CUNT era es te ee ee ee eee 102
Oo] Ua nL epee ere ee ee ee ee (2
Orientalucismintern atonal, COMSTESS) Cte a ee ee 1s
OscoodsmWillired: Hi. 2-2 ee ee eee eee 69, 7S
122.
Paleontological work of Albert Gaudry (Glangeaud)-—---__-____________ AIT
leeneie \WOUUG NC ee a 25
EAN -AMerican@ SGlentuine CONGTESS= 2s — = == po eee Nee eee eee 20, 41, 86
APTN een Cl aL GSP EO PD Lew (NS Cll) jek aS ee ee el ee 607
BESO San CHAT OS SAS oe eo ee oe ee as ee Cee me ee 74
Semi OTiCee UIMITCd States = sa ee nee a ee ee ee ee 24, 36
Pacholosy., Relation Of insecis ito (Miarotel)/ == == ee eee 703
Reahotdiva- @harlessa ssa e eae ao ee Se a Se a eee 19
748 INDEX.
Page
Peclebaumy Mires JS Ce se ae Se 1038
Permanent: committees 2. See ee ee ee ee ee 1038
N ELE1o th [ea Hehe lo IRE be eM NeaRS eR hn iy Skt ge ty ES 90
POT Uy Lars Mean pra Sea ae 8 a a ee 2,
Philippine Crimoidss 2222 ee ed eee dd ey 73
Photography, International Congresses eee ee nee rene 21, 39
ay SiC te CS te oe a eat ed ee ae eee 15, 73.
Physics, vecent progressuns (homson)) 22522 ee 185
Pinchot, sMrs: sames> Wael eat Le ee ee ee 24, 35
Jedi pales peel i Ce) 0 th eee et eee ae ee AEA ENE Cent Ie NM eM ayy Re ee 78
Biantvecology*, (Spalding); 22.6 Si ee ee ee 453
Pluvinel, A. de la Baume (Solar researches by Jules César Janssen) —____ 243
Boineare, Henri (The tutureiof matheniatics) me. ee 1238
URE ere GI Se Ea 69
Population of the United States, European (Ripley)_~__________________ 585
Postmaster-General (Member of the Establishment) ~~ -______________ TXae
Bounds ROscoess = sie Ae ee ee ee eee OOS Se ee 91
Poy elle sohne Week as Fe See ee a eee 48, 115
IPraeLoniuiss (Hiram. 6 262 2 ak 2 De Sia tak 15
- President of the United States (presiding officer of the Institution) ____ rx, 1, 23
IBresstabStracts2= 20. Sib set sa ee ee ee 17, 80
rin bime Set eee tS oes eS ES ee aE ate es ee (hake alits
Printing and publication (advisory committee) __.___--____ 2 4,17, 80
Prizes for essays:
On) (he isheties <2. ee a 19, 109
On CU PerCulOsiS: 2 ee Pe ee ee a ee ee 12, 20, 1038, 109
Bu plticationss= == ees 11, 18, 14, 15, 16, 18, 38, 40, 44, 47, 65, 68, 72, 73, 74, 76
Even steiny-and Wine kde ree 2 ae ee 76
yeneliometers: 2200.02.08 1) Se eo ee eee
Q.
GE TRLOT YASS UG ao a se i oe ee ee eo A ee 14, 72
R.
1RYs(O UST Sol 22 1b eee gee ae RR ae 7 Coe INS Eee AD Veep er a CE BR Bee 48
Radiotelesraphy <(Hleming) = 2 5 es ee eee 157
EVAL ELE Le AT Ga yes Fe Be re Rc cere eee Ix, x, 3, 39
Raveneleaw de? Gs 2.2 bs ee ae pA S ERIS Ty GR eons BeBe bes ee x, 19, 21, 81, 85
UAV INIONG ke Wks =e ol ae es a ee 90
RCA AT Rey Wie st Sse ee Te ee a ee ee 40
EEC Ue AMIGO NO TT IN 3 eel a 2 Dee aa ae SUD eR Ta Os 76
Retrigeration «(Marehisi). 98 Be ee a 207
Resentsrotecne: TnStitwtloms =e ee ee TX, 1, 9) 21, 225 74, TOD saoleht
ReidyAddison’ LT. Chequest) = 2.2 25.2 eee ee ee ee ae 104
VOTINS CHE NUS eek ea RIN So Re ee ee ee 87, 88, 91
Religions winternational Congress of 2) see ee eee Pai
Renard, Paul (What constitutes superiority in an airship) ____-_________ ~ 141
BER ST.) Ty Lis een es Le ek VE ev Ee ey ese a 111, 1, 16, 17, 23, 25, 27,
28, 30, 31, 38, 34, 40, 49, 58, 64, 67, 68, 70, 72, 74, 78, 79, 81, 86, 96, 103
IRESCARCHES eel Gln OX OAL 1 OT See ee 7, 12, 24, 35, 40, 47
Resolutions of Board of Regents_______________ 9, 22, 108, 106, 107, 109, 111, 112
BERTON cp erat a ee 88, 91
INDEX. — 749
Page
UMC eN St UO DOr teehee ial ea aoe a alt le Be cp a 91
FSH ATO SO Tye Le gre ee en le a ee a ee 83
15 shh aray Oa aN Us Oy A ee NE a Se! 18) GEL ow, 69
TRRIAGUERG VERN, ISO) 0X5 6) Fee ae ene, yee 2 Se NOMRNa S UA Me OU RPM SN QL GE IN] 6a TE Se x, 37
Ripley, William Z. (The European population of the United States) ______ 585
OmMeunearchigecuure:(bacgallay yea ls eed a ae eye a eee 651
PROMI ela G COTS Cw VMie iets es ee ae ee ee 88, 91, 92
UOC S Ce llemINGETN Gee es See ee ee a a ee ee 9
ROO SCENE COM ORCS. ae eee ae et he A 7, 25, 29, 87, 105, 106
TRSOMGi Le, LEDLLTTUIN] ices PUSS Pt age UO EN NID pew Me We ue eS Se 87, 88, 92
ERG) Come) WarIN Pein eee hla cy SS as a Rg an gee Sd Dy (2) (ike)
BRST ea pM Vienwee eee aes aaa SD ee es oe ee 91
TOSS, | ULARCOW aT (5 ere ee ee UN alge Wee ANE eo oy le 76
TRONS! TL AS) Se St SS gee Dg PE one ee PT ESE, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92
SHC Ce Man eae — ie Base Pe es ee ee ee ee ee 14, 73
S.
SiG AUG en SrA SU StUS ai sw ee ee eee 22
NSEC SUE EOUTER g ate ete ce ee ete ae 75
SEITE TS CU VN oa es an I el ce eh a eek oie Ae ea a NN a ee 76
(SEETTRESE, 1d Se ee ee AS yee Ee Ly BaP eR el 2b 2 SA 88
Seine sire Stree oe a these Bae te ke 19
SS COUT EMT TSS am VV SHU LeT ea Ty Nae See cet a Be ee ee ee ee 37
RSC Uae te At errs enn alae En eee 69
SS (CU tela) ED eee Te Bs ee oe rl Ee) ee 75
SCAG GSaS bam egies een Sa i eee a ee See 47
SGAESDIG Crs sie. ae aes fa Us ta ee ee eee 466
SCChetanessol the sInStivublones 2 = 2. 2 ee ee eee x,
Te ae aly ae Oy al OP, Oey Tala Ther (in isay IOs abla
Sedgwick, Adam (Relation of science to human life) --_________-______- 669
Shackleton, Lieut. Ernest H. (British Antarctic Expedition) -_-_-___-_- 355
Sheliste South: American: =e. 2 eS hee ee es oe eee ne 73
SHEDMERUR RW nite Ae eee Se es Se ee eee 88, 91
Sherman, James S., Vice-President of the United States________________ 1bG Al
STC ERT Mm V Wt hs te EE ap NS Re le Oe ies sO ore Oi
STi TEA Maan Dota VV ge Se tra ee ee eee eee x, 74, 84, 85
NUMue Olam I OmMme ls 2s Sn 2 ee ae ee ee eee 76
SST Airs cate te ee At De a ee ee ee 88, 90, 91
SHMPUSOnN a Ames (MOuUNnGde Of whee in Stil Om) se = ee ee ee ee 4, 96
SMLbSOnianerALricany CH xpeditionese 2). = eee 7, 25, 104
Smithsonian Assistant Secretaries______ x, 3, 14, 16, 17, 39, 57, 67, 71, 78, 80, 107
Smithsonian Delegates \to ‘Congresses. 222 eee 18
Sin Sonianiebstablishment 222.05. a ee ee ee ee 1D:
Nimiitnsonian™ Grounds 25 28s 20 ee ee eee ee eee 118
SON SOnany ARCS eCI tS) a= es 2 ee ae ee ee Txy Let OZ et
Smithsonian Secretaries__—_- eee Eh Le ok Se eee oe ee ee ix,
‘ abe ae aly a AO ale Pe RO Be (Oh ral. Toh (ln ween 007 INL
Smithsonian Table at Naples Zoological Station222= 2222222 S252 222 = 13
Soren, Gorge VANE 2 a ee ee 75
Stole Sezriohite aso nae as ea ee a 30, 64
Solar radiation researches of Janssen’ (Pluvinel) 2=22==2"---—- === 243
Spalding, Volney M. (Present problems in plant ecology) -------------- 453
South eAtricane binds nGEAaen en) pee Se 2 eee ee See eee 493
750 INDEX.
Page.
Sprague, rank J 22022 28 es ee 74, 90
Sprague; Joseph, White (bequest) 22222 3 ee eee 104
NPruceilree HOUSC 22s on =a se eek Se ee ee 26, 35, 46
Squier Maja Georze,OF U. St Army 2 2s 2 ee eee 22 1 Onl:
Standley.y Pa wll Cts ba ee ee ee ee ee eee 78
State; Secretary of (Member of Establishment) ==35 == 2 ee Texel
States Department of. 20222 2-02 ee ee ee 19, 21, 41, 87, 88, 92
Stejnerer “Leonhard =-2 2 5 2 2a ee es ee eee x, 17, 19, 80
Stevenson, Charles Hes = 2 a a ee ee ee 19, 109
Stevenson yavirs: avi G26 se ee ee ee x, 40, 44
Stone Ormond: (Simon) Newcomb) eee
Sun sknowledgexoP so. e ss ahs ee a ee ite
Sunday opening of National Museum === 22 = 2 eee 38
SWANILOM) vIONN i he a ee ee ee x, 40, 44, 45, 47, 48
Ms
Mablet. inancley.-Meniorial: <2 Se. ee eee eee 22, 107
Taft, William H., President of the United States____________________ IX, le
ALEKS IRB, She Koper aKo boy NY Ola uO 36
BAUS TTNED WWM sso eee ee ire ee ee 69
Temperatures, low, and refrigeration (Marchis) 222 207
POMS s Oy Ses: 2 2 ee Bee ee Ee ee eee x, 27, 40, 44, 48
phomas: ZOldiel dst se oes a ee ee eee ee ee ee 24, 37
ERHOMPSON SS YLVANUS Hes 222 ee Se ee ee 76
MHOMSONsd+ Jee CRECENL PLOZTESS iN ply SIGS) ee 185
TRAN OMSOMS Wee ae ee ee ee 76
ine pipliorrap lity Obss= = eee ee ee eae ee ee eee 74
Mond; Davids 22.2 28s 2 es Soe Se ee eee 91
MorricellivpEvaneelistan 2-2) 2 aS ae ee 28 ae a 20
Treasury, Secretary of (Member of Establishment) ——-__________________ 1b. @a!
Treasury Department... =.=. === 2. a ee 19
Trotter, Spencer (English names of North American birds) ---___-_____~ 505
ANCES 6) ER i sca eg pe a aed ee ec ne x, 17, 19, 73, 80
ihuberculosis; Congress and, Prizes] === sss. =e 5, 12, 19, 23, 33, 99, 103, 108
STUD el Meer Ae eee ee Ce Se Se ee ee ee ee 74
Who
ManrOrstrand) “Crh ae ee eee ee ee ee ee 15, 77
Vice-President of the United States (Member of the Establishment and
PREC Clty) Meee one a Ut ANS Mean ee oni a Soe seen See eee 1x, 1, 102, 106
PEO CI. eT emits 2 =o Lhe Lact SAS NES ee a ee Ae te 37
Wailley. (Pierre: (imtellectuall work (ob hes Dlin@)/ === === 683
WASITOLS LOMNatLOnS NU Se Ue = eS se eee 38
WA SIOnS: COMIN ALTONA ZO OLOL TCA ae Bis eee ee 28, 60
Wolcanicnaction, (JohnSton=lawis)) en ee eee 305
TIME RE TETT LD 1a UT OU OSS eee 24
W.
Walcott, Charles D. (Fourth Secretary of Smithsonian Institution, 1907—
ee ee ee 10 bya BG 5-<
1, 8, 15, 21, 32, 37, 39, 48, 57, 63, 66, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 80, 85, 102, 111
Wiallsino tien eig0rd pete = ee ee ee 37
INDEX. 751
Page
\INPEELTICCD GASH (GY OF Ea es EEE Sl RE ATS pe ee an IE Sp Aa a Nee ed 48
War, Secretary of (Member of Establishment)________________________ raced
VRVEUE LDLGy CEN TYE a erat ROSE SO ee ao oe RO ce ee Meee ET URE UO BS ER toy Pe 18, 19
Washington, astrophysical observations at.- = ee 64
Washington, Henry S. (The distribution of the elements in igneous rocks)_ 279
Weather buneat United «States. (292.5 las. 2 eee Silt
Weismann August. (Charles) Darwil)25222 252 2 eee eee 431
NAY GIG DL, — WY GL Dee es sees See a On nes ee Bee 21
VEO COE CTU Ge me ea Ee Se ee a eee 103
AVALOS eerie es oe oe a ee ee 73
NWihiteweAnanew= 1). (Regent) at a ee eee tx, 102, 106
AVI nen (O MAUMEE oo Oe ee ee 68
AVA Tnitiiesm lO) ctivsl memes ara ere aS ote ae ae 2) oe es xe
Wickersham, George W. (Attorney-General) __________________________- Ibe Jt
BIAS CIN C2 Te nm pine a ea a ee a 8 eee 76
UTS VVAT Tere ate ee ee ek ee eee 91
Willcocks, Sir William (Mesopotamia: past, present, and future) —-_____ 401
Walsonmmdames(( Secretary of Agriculture) 2-9 922-2 2 eee Td, IL
SVOGTISONIMECSSC Shy ots sree tes 2 a ES ee eee 81
AV VaiIES OTn el eter Sd ok AN ee ed oe ee eee AT
Nineklerasands Ch StGlns 2 =c2 4. nase ee os ee eee 76
NIIGLIESSEtGlCora Dityemeue Soe en ee ee ee eee 157
VW alts times OP NS errs ce es a ee Se ee oe ee 76
VO OU mel ival Re ast Sais aS eR Se oe ee eae eee 78
NVC OGWOGUM Ati Secs 2 eee ee ee ee 88, 90
WanleOMee I EOUNers = 2-2 oe 2 he Sek ee ee 22 OP eae
Ve:
MNCS Or WW Aan Ti Se os oe Se 99
Z.
Zimmermann, Maurice (The Antarctic Land of Victoria) --_-__-___________ 381
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